 are about to watch Neeraj's MetaHuman Live, giving us a perspective on all aspects of metaverse marketing for the first time ever at E4M's Martec Conference. A creative aficionado at heart, Neeraj upskilled himself by adapting to the easy-to-use creative tool Unreal Engine. With a structured, basic Unreal Engine training offered by WPP's partner Epic Games, Neeraj was able to create all this by himself. So let's hear it from Neeraj MetaHuman. Just to set a quick context on today's topic, or shall I say the most buzzing topic on this planet, the metaverse. The metaverse, simply put, the metaverse is a growing number of virtual worlds where people are playing games, they hang out together, they meet friends, they socialize, they go to concerts and their list is endless. For a lot of those people, they can represent themselves with more authenticity there than they can in real-worlds, hence the importance of Aptars. In fact, in one of the reports I was reading up, one out of every five kid on Roblox changes his Aptar every day, shows the power of the platform. With NFTs, their novelty value is fading, which means their real value or the true value is emerging, as a means towards ownership and collaboration. Together, it's all a massive set of spaces for businesses to understand, get involved, engage with their audiences there and find their place. As I keep saying, this is not a fad by any means, these are tech tools and platforms which will form the basis of our industry for years to come. Every industry disrupted by a digital era is expected to feel the impact of the metaverse and this may explain why companies from banks to mad agencies like us are eager to form the right partnerships and even create in-house metaverse teams to get started. And it's not only companies wanting it on the metaverse, but governments and influential figures too. According to WPP's Wonderman Thompson's latest report on the end of the metaverse, there's a lot of excitement out there. One of the stats says, 74% of people who know what the metaverse is believe it's the future. Another stat says, 66% believe it's going to be life changing. So brands have not only joined the conversations but are also actively participating in being part of the metaverse. And I would now request Neeraj to take the lead on it because we do have a surprise for all of you. So Chandni, I think you forgot to invite our fourth panelist. Really? Is that so? And who? Absolutely. That might be. She is an AI baby. Wow. She's a digital person. Can we get her on screen? Everybody, please put your eyes onto the LED screen in front of you. So she's Kalpana. She's the creation of WPP's Pennywise Solutions along with our global partnership. She's an AI baby. And in the world of metaverse, you would see more and more such emotive AI babies who would have a strong role to play. And all our eminent panelists, they are going to demystify how conversations in the metaverse are going to become more sci-fi with meta-humans and AI babies and they would have a lot of play out there. So more and more brands would have AI mascots like Kalpana who would move into the space, virtual spaces, and have a live conversations with real humans, right? So Kalpana, could you please introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Kalpana, a digital person created by Soul Machines in partnership with WPP. It's so great to be here speaking with you all. Thanks for having me today. I might be the first digital person you've met. I am hyper realistic and powered by a digital brain to be emotionally responsive in real time. We call this autonomous animation and it's what makes interacting with us so lifelike and engaging. If you're positive and happy, I'll smile back at you and if you're upset, I'll be empathetic. Digital people are here to help connect brands and customers in a more personalized across all industries and all stages of the customer journey today and for the metaverse future. We're even creating digital twins of celebrities. Like she said, this is going to be completely transformational because she can look into your eyes from the front camera. If you are smiling, she's going to give a response back which is like with full of smiles and emotes, right? If you're angry, you're going to get a similar response back. Like she said, we've got a rocking lineup. We've got a Somya who's like super trendy in that Pepsi author. We were Shankar from Perfetti. We've got Gazel from Nestle and all three of them have done some fascinating work in the space of metaverse, right? Metaverse kind of encapsulates everything right from augmented reality to virtual reality to virtual worlds to blockchain to NFTs and beyond. It's a large subject. So what we'll do in today's panel conversation, we will get each one of them to share a unique use case what they have delivered on various facets of metaverse marketing, right? So let's just start with Shankar first on the campaign which he's done on augmented reality and augmented reality again is a very, very promising and right practice for us now. Social AR or it's Web AR or in-app AR. There's some fascinating piece of work which Perfetti has done in the space of Social AR as well as on connected packaging and Web AR. So let's hear it from Shankar. Thank you, Neeraj. First of all, thanks to you and exchange for me for having me here. It's the first time I must confess I'm seeing you in person instead of being seeing you on metaverse or virtually. But yeah, so coming back to your question, typically at Perfetti we have of course gum and mint brands and we are in a very low impulse category. So for us and one of our lead brands is Happy Den, which stands for sparkling wide smiles. So World Smile Day in October was an ideal moment for us to capitalize on this sparkling smile. And what we did was brought alive the power of AR. And how did we do that? By simply creating AR filters and we went on social. We also made filters in association with the Hindu, the Indian Express, where what we did was we got people to activate these filters using their sparkling smile, which made sure they get a free subscription of these newspapers. Overall, the campaign was about activate the filters by your sparkling smile and donate money towards a child's education in need. This really clicked with the audience and on 7th of October we hit 32,000 smiles. For us, it was a great way of donating money to a cause, staying true to the happy den purpose of this, of smile and do good. And work wonderfully well in terms of creating UGC as well. So one of the cases that I'm really happy to share with all of you. All right, just to counter question in terms of how the entire space of connected packaging and where AR is picking up and how can you link back connected packaging back onto Metaverse and create fancy experiences out there. I think you already have a live use case on Treasure Island, which you created. How do you intend to extend it to Metaverse? Yeah, it's a great question. So sometime back in early this year, we had an association with WPP, where what we created is have QR codes on your brand packs. So Chupa Chups, one of our brand which stands for fun, literally takes fun very seriously, targeted to age group of 11 to 17 avid gamers. We got people to scan this QR code, go onto a website, then get into immersive gaming. Future, as you ask, I think the future is that this would all happen in the Metaverse, where people are actually gaming in the Metaverse and experiencing the brand payoff, which is literally having fun. At the same time, engaging with the brand codes as well, the products as well. And Treasure Island was a great example where what we did was, get the product at the center of these gaming as well. So eventually, people had a lot of fun, they engaged with us and the average time spent in a category which is impulse, which is low involvement, was really high as well. So to us, it was a win-win case study. So if you look at Metaverse and some of the really promising categories out there, we say entertainment, spots, and we say music and gaming, obviously. These are really budding categories where a lot of experimentation is happening, right? WPP globally also did this concert of Bastille where the fans could actually get into the space and they could high-five the lead artist out there. And that's the kind of work which you will see in times to come in India now. So clearly, the hype cycle is at its end, which means the real value is going to get realized. And you're going to see some really high quality output in the new 5G era. So with Pepsi, with all the brand power and the sell-up power which you have, is there any use case which globally you guys might have done or something which is coming up in India next from your end, would love to hear your views? So first of all, I'd like to thank E4M and you for having me on this panel. It's really exciting to be here and talking about a subject which is quite new and something that all youngsters are really obsessing about. I feel Pepsi is the culture curator. And for us, it's really important to be in sync with what Gen Zs are constantly engaging with. And to be very honest with you, Neeraj, I think everything else we understand really well, like we understand the world of TV, we understand the world of digital with influencers, creator economy. I think that's something that Pepsi has always had solid playbooks on. But when it comes to this whole world of metaverse and NFTs, I think we are following a very iterative process, which we like to call it the do-thing-do model. So I'm going to probably use this platform to talk about something that is upcoming for us, which is going to happen towards the first week of November. But we are really excited about launching the first ever NFTs in India. I think globally we have done the Pepsi Mic Drop NFTs, which was done in the US, and that was very popular. But in India, I feel whatever little I've seen of NFTs, I feel that for Pepsi, the benchmark is really what Louis Vuitton and Gucci, what are the brands really creating a very different kind of an experience for consumers. So I think that was our benchmark. And we have picked up some learnings from what brands globally have done. And we are collaborating with an artist in UK, and we'll be launching our NFTs along with WPP and Guardian Link. So I'm really excited about that, but a couple of learnings that I've really had on the way is that you have to find the right partners. Because I feel in this whole world of metaverse and NFTs, everyone will come to you saying that they know it, but it's very important for us to find the right partners who can deliver the vision that you have on the brand. I think that's like the biggest learning that I've had. And the second learning for me really from an NFT perspective is that NFTs art. So how do you bring your brand alive in a very artful manner, which consumers will connect with and which consumers would sort of want to collect? Because I think the whole aspect of NFTs is create an art which is very collectible, right? So how do you really join this? And just to add to it, if you were to add, generate a AI and create NFTs, and we are working on a use case now where physically challenged people, now people who cannot see, but they have a vision of the art which they intend to create. If they fire up a speech, it's going to create a piece of art which can go as NFT, and the money realized from that can be used for the fraternity, the physically challenged people, right? So there can be so many use cases of, utility use cases of NFT, like NFT for social good. The classic one is the Mondele's Gems campaign, if you guys are following that. So all our kids, they scribble a lot of stuff on the paper. Parents just need to click a picture of the art which they've created. It goes up on gems.com, where the piece of NFT is getting created. And the money realized from that goes for the education of the underprivileged students, right? So those are the kind of utility values which are evolving in the NFT space. So obviously the novelty value has gone down, but the true value is now getting realized, and NFT coupled with Generative AI, Social Tokens, there's something evolving called Soulbound now in China. So there's a lot of scope out there, and the brands and marketers are going to make the best of it in times to come. Another promising category when it comes to metaverse is obviously spot, and no better spot and scalable spot in India than cricket. And Gazel here has done a fabulous campaign for Nestle Munch, which was like a meet and greet with the top IPL players and 60 lucky fans. So I would love to hear more about the campaign you did, and how do you intend to extend it? Thank you for having us. I think it's an equally interesting conversation for all of us here. Going back to the question, and like Neeraj mentioned, first of all, it all began with what is metaverse, and why should we be doing metaverse because we're a large brand, and typically you assume metaverse to be an experience for a smaller set of people. This was happening for Munch, which is a brand that talks about confidence crunch and hence bringing everybody to that stage where they can not just engage with the brand, but also enjoy the experience. So we tried kind of getting scale from including our packaging into it. So once you scan the pack, you actually get to play some AR VR games. You're collecting some social tokens, but eventually you're also getting to meet the lead IPL players over metaverse. And by the way, it was 16 to four because we did four of those. But the catch here is we had a lot of struggles around what's the right scale, what's the right way to approach this because a lot of people don't even understand what's the right metaverse experience. And which is where I think some of the points that you guys mentioned come in handy because we struggled with who should be the partner. We struggled with what should be the right message. But I think what we were eventually able to bring together is this very interesting intersection of sports, which is the biggest passion and what better than cricket, and what better than hence IPL. So the biggest passion in the country, with one of the biggest brands, bringing alive a very special moment when you get to meet your ideal celebrities in that verse, it was very special to us also because, like I mentioned earlier, when you think about massive scale and technologies like these are typically considered to be limiting, but that's where with WPV's help, we were able to find the right movement through the consumer journey from scanning the pack to AR games and eventually into this meet and greet. Not to mention, while it was just 60 into 4, but the whole experience that even the eventual winners has was very special to them as well and that's what made us very happy about it. So there's this lot of myth which surrounds the metaverse ecosystem that you need to have a fancy headgear, a Quest 2 to enter the space, you would need to download an application, pull in the asset files. But here, in case of Nestle Munch, all the fans had to do is just click on a link and enter the space within no time, within a minute they could create their avatars and they can enter the space. Next, what Ghazal intends to do is she can get one of us, the lucky ones, to participate on a connected packaging promo which Nestle intends to run and the guy, the lucky winner, can actually go on a live set and can high-five Hardik Pandya. And we can actually do this in the remotest village of India. If it's like a small village somewhere in Bihar, we can just send in our portable studio out there, the guy needs to wear the, what do you call, the motion capture suit and he appears next to Hardik Pandya in the studio. High-fives, clicks pictures, watches content, shares a view, wherever he is. And that's what Bastille taught us, the global concert which was being done by us. Now we are working towards a 5G India where it's going to be link-lined and heavy lifting on computing. So one of the stuff which we are trying now on Pixel Streaming platform, the users who are on the remotest of Indian pockets, right? And we are saying like 65% of smartphone is still in 15,000 and 10,000 racket and the bandwidth remains a struggle out there. So with Pixel Streaming, with as low as bandwidth as 10 Mbps, someone who is in the remotest corner struggling with bandwidth can still enter the metaverse and experience all that we are talking about. So a quick view on how 5G would change life for marketers who wants to take that. Maybe I'll just take a stab at it and I have my personal analogy on that one. About two decades ago, all marketers were saying, I have a video, can you just make it viral? And I think that's exactly where we're sitting on the cusp for metaverse where we're saying, can we have that one more blip on metaverse? But with all of this 5G and the Pixel Streaming coming in, I think it will go from one of those good-to-do things on your marketing calendar to absolute utility experiences that you can create for the consumer. Of course, it's going to take decades the way it did for digital, but I think we're absolutely prepared for it with the kind of startup infrastructure we have, with the kind of zest that we have, and obviously with the kind of infrastructure that's coming in from 5G, we're definitely onwards to democratizing this whole piece a lot more. Imagine this is a cricket board meeting going on. Yeah, and Virat was unable to make it. He can pop in right here. All right, super. So let's just round up this conversation, maybe taking your point of views. So how the life would change for marketers? So one of the things on 5G, and I think coming from a category like ours, which is very impulse, I think one of the KPIs that's going to change is the average time spent there. And 5G is going to enable and make that 5X of what it is today. I think that is what someone like me would be interested in, because that means more engagement with our brands, more engagement with the payoff, and then I have the consumer there right in front of the mobile or the experience 100% into what he's doing. So this immersive experience is something I am really looking forward to with 5G. Just a quick one. This is a question to Soumya that how does marketer sees advertising in the metaverse space? Is it going to be those gimmicky, irritating banner ads? No, I don't think so. I certainly hope we don't do that. But I genuinely feel that with 5G, what we're struggling from a metaverse perspective is that scale. And with 5G, you suddenly get scale. And that'll give us a lot more confidence about really investing in this new technology with experiences that consumers will really enjoy. It's not going to be those banner ads. I'm not going to play another ad in the metaverse. But it's going to be about really how do you do more of those concerts that you're talking about? How do you get a Batcha concert, which is attended by hopefully 40, 50 million people, right? So I think that's the kind of scale and the ambition that I really hope 5G can unlock for us. How many millions or billions you did on the TikTok challenge? On TikTok, we did 107 billion. So hopefully we should do 107 billion. That'll be our benchmark then. With that, I think we would call it a day. I hope you guys were really entertained by all the use cases we shared with you. And I hope all you guys are inspired and looking forward to creating metaverse for good framework. That is what we all need to work towards, right? There was an internet era, there was an AI era, and there's a Web3 era. And it needs metaverse for good framework and guardrails, which all of us as leaders need to work towards. So it's here, it's here to stay and it's here to grow northwards. Thank you so much.