Research on the Development of Metaverse Marketing in the Context of Digitization: Illustrate by the Case of BlueFocus

: Most enterprises are eagerly looking forward to marketing in brand new digital formats, while the creation and propagation of the Metaverse is also promoting the transformation of enterprise’s digital marketing. This paper studies the marketing services of BlueFocus within the background of Metaverse. We took BlueFocus's service customers as samples and used SWOT analysis model to analyze the influence of the new digital marketing mode with respect to itself and their marketing customers. We found it was advantageous to them to develop new business in the Metaverse field, which could set an example for the entire marketing industry. For the service customers of marketing, they can use the new marketing model to enhance the brand influence and satisfy customer demand, as well as improve the ability to acquire customers and resulting economic benefits.


Research background
At the end of 2019, the COVID-19 epidemic broke out around the world, and people were suddenly forced to transition from offline life to online. Therefore, it provided an opening for the development of the "Metaverse". At the end of 2021, Roblox created the Metaverse concept. Stocks soared, and it has attracted widespread attention in the capital market. The continual expansion of the scale of the global internet has also spurred the continuous improvement of related technology. As tech companies search for the digital future of life, the Metaverse is being tapped as an appealing vision, leaving companies scrambling to establish out their strategies. With the future of human production and living forms and the revolutionary, systematic transformation of the fundamental blockchain technology, the Metaverse and digital economy are becoming increasingly close. The internet economy has transitioned through the beginning stage and the second stage reflecting a mobile internet, which comes after the user bonus dividend and length has peaked. With Metaverse as the carrier of a virtual world and the real world, it represents an enormous business opportunity and as an important facet of human civilization, suggesting the companies in the digital economy unceasingly promote transformation. This paper focuses on exploring the background of Metaverse, a series of companies that know how to make the digital, including Metaverse's current position toward the transition and the evaluation and reflection of the transformation of momentum associated with the Metaverse from BlueFocus. Finally, the authors made a series of prospects, in the hopes that the Metaverse and digital economy can be organically integrated in time.

Literature review
A vast, yet ever-increasing body of literature has analyzed the Metaverse and the underlying logic of digital economy to determine why the two can command such a huge market. In light of the current international background, David Porter (2022) comprehensively established that the continued expansion in mobile media consumption habits due to the COVID-19 pandemic has also accelerated digitization across industries [1]. Dionisio (2013), for instance, when evaluating the progress in four distinct areas about Metaverse and the virtual world, reported that there are four factors for Metaverse, which is: immersive realism, ubiquity of access and identity, interoperability, and scalability [2]. In addition, RakGun Hwang (2022) developed a framework for content creators and marketers to question the efficacy of Metaverse marketing [3]. By using data from literature, Yuntao Wang and others (2022) analyzed the security and privacy threats and put forward the key challenges and countermeasures of the virtual world system [4]. From the referenced literature, it can be concluded that the analysis of Metaverse and the digital economy at this stage is mainly one-sided. This paper will depart from the single perspective and combine the two sides and provide more reliable ideas on strategic adjustments for the future development of Metaverse and the digital economy.

Research significance
This paper hinges on the fact that the Metaverse is essentially a map of the real world in the virtual world. If the company moves in an alternate direction, away from digital marketing, consumers interest in the brand of a company may wane. Because the Metaverse is a new topic, the Metaverse and digital marketing were rarely analyzed together in previous literature resources. Hence, this paper has maintained the relevant summary. Users, who are represented as avatars in the digital world, may create and share digital creations across numerous sub-Metaverse platforms to encourage Metaverse innovation. Furthermore, the author of this paper hopes that companies will use the power of the Metaverse to make the digital marketing model break through, realizing substantial progress and the next, long-overdue iteration of consumer terminal stage appearance.

Digital Marketing
Under the wave of modern Internet development, users are recognized as having certain universal Internet behaviors. Specifically, various software for the Internet mobile provides various services, including social media, entertainment, shopping, and payment, which have radically changed the lifestyles of consumers. According to the 49th Statistical Report on the Development Status of the Internet in China released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) in Beijing, as of December 2021, the number of China's Internet users reached 1.032 billion, an increase of 42.96 million from December 2020, while the Internet penetration rate reached 73.0% [5]. The above figures show that we have easily adjusted and enjoy the conveniences brought about by digital applications. In fact, using the Internet has become a normal part of most people's lives. In modern life, we peacefully coexist with the Internet, and likewise digitalization is the lasting change that companies face as the primary consumers enter the Internet. The sweeping wave of digitalization triggered by technologies such as social media, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, mobile devices and big data, has results in social change that has optimized the way people learn, live and work. Businesses, as an important parts of our society, are unavoidably moving toward digitalization in this context.
With the advent of Internet marketing, the widespread transformation of the industry value chain of marketing emerged, along with the rapid development of the digital economy, with modern information networks as the main carrier. In 2020, the scale of China's digital economy reached 39.2 trillion, reflecting an increase of nearly 16 times the proportion of GDP from the original 14.2% in 2005 to 38.6% in 2020. Data resources have grown into an essential element in the digital economy. This not only enhances the analysis and decision-making capacity of enterprises, but also further focuses the market demand for enterprises [6]. For large enterprises, digitalization is the transformation of company processes surrounding data, covering all aspects of the enterprise, including the internal and external back-end supply chain. Digital transformation informs the business model of enterprises and increases their overall competitiveness. Digitization is beneficial for all enterprises, and marketing digitization is the most transformative for enterprises.
According to data from the 2022 China Digital Marketing Trends Report, more than 95% of advertisers now realize the importance of digital transformation in marketing and the centrality of data in it [7]. The user as the crux of the business establishes the market, and the market is expressed by the data. The digital transformation of enterprises revolves around marketing. Accordingly, marketing data has become the central focus of enterprise big data. The future of business actually has only two basic models: increasingly simple and increasingly complex. While digital technology can make consumption more simple and convenient, it can also work conversely to make it more and more complex, which is a trend of differentiation and segmentation to adapt to various consumption scenarios and disparate consumer groups [8]. Within the Internet marketing era, the difference in access to data allows companies to have a stronger direction for business objectives. This means the digital transformation of corporate marketing is essential for improving the overall competitiveness of enterprises.

Metaverse Marketing
Metaverse is a virtual world, which uses technology to link, create, map and interact with the physical world, while it features a digital living space with a new social system. It boasts an immersive experience based on extended reality technology, generates a mirror image of the natural world based on digital twin technology, establishes an economic system based on blockchain technology, closely integrates the virtual world with the real world in terms of the economic system, social system, and the identity system, while allowing each user to produce content and edit their world [9]. In layman's terms, the Metaverse is a virtual world driven by the Internet, which can map and interact with the real world. This virtual environment will inherit all the modern Internet behaviors and likely play an unprecedented role in marketing in years to come. Although the concept of the Metaverse has not matured yet, it has ushered in the Metaverse era wave due to the fact that Metaverse enables companies to scale and strengthen their business models in unique, unprecedented ways by transitioning from digital to Metaverse business. Despite the fact that these worlds are virtual, the opportunities for brands to thrive and flourish in them are very real. Learning about the culture, business formations and the creativity embedded in the Metaverse, while at the same time succeeding in it, are critical opportunities for brands to solidly establish their authentic and credible virtual identities and transform the consumer experience in virtual worlds. This is particularly true when interacting with Generation Z, who often intentionally do not differentiate between online virtual experiences and offline real experiences. A recent Facebook survey showed that 77% of consumers worldwide said the groups they interact with most are online [10]. Any brand can harness the virtual reality of the virtual world to merge with the real world and enhance the interactive experience between users and products. This allows brands to carry out marketing strategies in the virtual world that cannot be achieved in the temporal world.

Realization of metaverse marketing
The concept of a meta-universe is a big shock to some, while others embrace the idea. Although more companies are marching towards a metaphysical world experience, so far, the meta-universe remains just a concept. In fact, there is no recognized universal concept yet. But companies are more focused on building new economic and business models. The emphasis continues to be on the forefront of Internet development. Now neither software nor hardware can engineer the actual realization of the metaverse, which is built on the underlying, foundational supporting technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), interactive technology, network communication, Internet of Things (IoT) technology, and new computing, etc. The future represents the possibilities, driven by the fusion of various known as well as unknown complex technologies iteratively, and even requires a breakthrough in the field of quantum physics, far beyond the scope of our current Internet technology [1].
The metaverse is solidly in the limelight because of the enormous economic value it brings. Bloomberg Industry Research projects the metaverse will reach a market size of $800 billion by 2024, while PwC expects the metaverse market size to reach $1.5 trillion by 2030 [11]. It is evident that enterprises from within the realm of digital transformation to the development of investments in the categories of the meta-universe are conforming to the renewal iteration of the Internet + business model. The current projections also reflect that meta-universe marketing will become one of the fundamental means to enhance competitiveness pursued by the subsequent enterprise. The defined realization of the metaverse concept has great technical obstacles, but businesses can still achieve basic metaverse marketing by way of the Internet and virtual reality or VR virtual technology, etc. It is recognized that at present, the paths for brands to realize meta-universe marketing are mainly focused on three aspects: issuing non-homogenized tokens NFT digital collections, virtual digital people, and the incorporation of games and social to enhance online interactive experiences. In order for companies to gain early superiority in the meta-universe field in the future, the realization of the above-referenced preliminary meta-universe marketing is also pivotal.
Meta-universe marketing diverges from traditional marketing in the sense that the target audience of its advertising and marketing efforts is not only real consumers, but also virtual digital human doubles of individuals in virtual reality. In the metaverse era, every real person can enter the virtual world with a real identity or a virtual identity, in which your image represents a digital double. This virtual twin can be tailored, with companies that will specialize in making digital doubles. There will undoubtedly be all kinds of companies and people who are employed by digital doubles in the virtual world (including digital people) [12]. Digital human stand-ins will have both the social attributes of real consumers and the social characteristics of virtual reality. For this reason, it is critical to pay heed to both the actual, physical needs of consumers in reality as well as the social needs of consumers in the virtual world when conducting metaverse marketing.
NFT (or nonfungible token) is a new technology concept meaning a non-homogenized token with real digital equity, which can be integrated with a brand's own NFT platform to inform various marketing activities of the brand. Brands need to focus on one of the main features of metaverse marketingvirtual and real interaction that can enhance the consumer experience. In the metaverse realm, for brand advertising and marketing to flourish, particular attention should be given to the consumer's shopping experience when conducting marketing communications. For example, virtual beauty, "online touch and trials," are used to give consumers a new, fun and quirky experience in which they can execute their purchase behavior [13]. Brands should be skilled at the intersection of the metaverse in the real and virtual worlds when conducting metaverse marketing activities, and capture consumers' desire to experience a legitimate, immersive consumer experience in the metaverse under the guise of a virtual identity. Using virtual reality technology gives consumers a distinctive flavor of your products and services by way of virtual new product launch events, live broadcasts, concerts and other marketing activities.

Marketing development history
BlueFocus was established in September 1996. In April 2005, 9 regional offices were established, and the company covered 24 cities across the country, becoming the only public relations company that expanded to a national layout in the same industry. In 2013, BlueFocus acquired: Bojie advertising; Huntsworth, a global public relations giant; We Are Very Social Limited, the world's largest social media communication company; and Fuse in the United States. Then, BlueFocus starts marketing intelligence and business globalization. In 2018, BlueFocus invested in finance and technology companies that partnered with Lakala to establish the Kunlun Hall Big Data Research Institute. Then, BlueFocus announced its transition from a marketing enterprise to a data technology enterprise. In 2020, BlueFocus Online, an intelligent marketing platform developed by BlueFocus, was officially released, further transitioning intelligent marketing to the platform model.

Strengths
Experience advantage: BlueFocus had its inception as a public relations business. Since 1996, the business has grown to become the world's premier marketing service company through action. BlueFocus ranks eighth among global marketing holding groups and, in fact, is the only Chinese company in the global top 10. With rich experience in marketing and more mature marketing business technology, BlueFocus brings experience to support a radical transformation.
Technical and creative advantages: In an age of fast-paced marketing, BlueFocus marketing services can realize one-stop service at present, based on powerful technology, big data and service capabilities. Blue Focus is adept at providing customers with full, comprehensive digital advertising services that enhance their customers' abilities and supports enterprise sales promotion solutions, such as the whole value chain service system, and can realize accurate positioning to meet or exceed the customer's requirement. This positioning results in technical advantages and forms the basis of marketing programs for transformation. Relevant surveys show that most users perceive Metaverse retailing as an extension of the original online channel, but with more excitement, fun and better product-inspection capabilities [14]. The new marketing model can provide users with creative formats to produce high-quality-content products and services.
Market advantage: Early layout of Metaverse-related businesses will result in a huge advantage moving forward. In the future, a massive number of advertising or marketing services will be necessary for the industry in relation to the universe. The early layout will occupy the market in the future, while the profit space is unpredictable. Even so, Metaverse is expected to exponentially grow in the next phase of the universe's onset.

Weaknesses
Compared with other technology companies, BlueFocus has put forth relatively little investment in science and technology as disclosed by the company's announcement data. In truth, its Metaverse marketing technology after transformation is slightly inferior. Therefore, BlueFocus intends to attach itself to technology companies throughout its business exploration of the Metaverse to synthesize complementary advantages and disadvantages, finalize the initial layout in the Metaverse in concert, and begin to realize profits from it. Setting up the Metaverse requires a lot of capital and a low return on profits in the short term. BlueFocus presently has a low debt ratio. Because it has sufficient capital in the short term, the capital chain is not a problem for long-term sustainability.

Opportunities
The soaring popularity of the concept of a Metaverse reflects the transformation of the marketing industry. Google Trends reported a ten-fold increase in searches for the term "Metaverse" between early October 2021 and the end of January 2022. The Metaverse will emerge to become a new social ecology in the era of the digital economy, and the technological progress promoted by the Metaverse will have a strong spillover effect. Altogether, the Metavere will greatly promote the improvement of China's innovative technological level and ability. The Metaverse market is expected to grow from $46 billion U.S. dollars in 2021 to $280 billion by 2025, with an estimated annual growth rate of 43.3% from 2020 to 2027. Specifically, due to the recent proliferation of the contactless or "touchless" market due to COVID-19, the Metaverse has become more important than ever. To maximise marketing impact, establish a strategy that aligns with the context and format of your Metaverse platforms and content that can focus on promotion through normal exposure [15]. Depending on the adoption and popularity of the Metaverseand its development is still in its infancyas well as the BlueFocus layout, the Metaverse-related industries will assuredly occupy a certain advantage, hold the curiosity of users, carry out its new Metaverse marketing, implement a marketing upgrade and gain profits.
The principals at BlueFocus have launched many intelligent marketing platforms, such as BlueFocus Online, Blueview, Vbot and BlueMedia. Such a one-stop intelligent marketing platform has been developed to a saturation state, while marketing service enterprises need creativity and innovation to provide better service for customers. Although the more traditional marketing platform of BlueFocus can meet the rapid and extensive demand of users, the marketing effect is significantly reduced due to its single marketing content. The demand by the old marketing mechanisms for innovative new content promotes enhancing the marketing method of the Metaverse, reflecting the deep contact between users and marketing content. This also will enable users themselves to become more content creators and explore the unknown fields of the Metaverse together. Therefore, the saturation of traditional platform development is spurring the transformation of enterprises.

Threats
After the eruption of the concept of Metaverse, a myriad of industries have flooded in. Many technologies, including marketing, Internet, and entertainment enterprises, have united, eager to gain profits, so BlueFocus has vast and powerful competitors. Internet titans such as Tencent, NetEase and Bytedance were among the earliest Chinese companies to gravitate to the arena. These enterprises often have professional research and development and operations teams for overall strategic planning and layout, while BlueFocus is part of a new investment field with a relatively weak foundation. So, BlueFocus still has vast room for improvement in the Metaverse business.

Traditional marketing services
BlueFocus provides all-channel applications such as consumer insight, content creativity, event management, CRM services, intelligent delivery of media, and scene marketing, along with the entire value chain service system, including enterprise sales promotion solutions. An amalgam of technology-driven marketing products, including Blueview, Vbot, BlueMedia, etc., they are mostly one-stop chain services, aiming at the service object through the AI algorithm for precise positioning, the analysis of the target audience of the service object, and integrated intelligent planning of the whole document and poster. Although this marketing method meets the demand for speed and accuracy in this new era of data, it is short-sighted to guarantee the adherence between customers and brands.
Emerging in an age of science and technology, BlueFocus has achieved phased progress, including enabling its "intelligent platform + service" mode. BlueFocus attaches considerable importance to the long-term design of science and technology, conscientiously invests in science and technology strength, and sets the foundation for ongoing transformation. On September 23, 2020, BlueFocus Online, billed as an intelligent marketing platform, which was independently created by BlueFocus, was officially released. Through BlueFocus Online, users can track the marketing dynamics of all staff in real time, enhance efficiency and limit costs, which greatly meets the one-stop marketing needs of various enterprises, becomes a new marketing model under the Internet wave, and upgrades marketing to the platform model. The success of BlueFocus Online is premised on BlueFocus's years of experience serving domestic and international clientele and the precipitation of technology.

The Upgrade of the BlueFocus Marketing Services
Presently, Metaverse is simply a concept, a further extension of the Internet. If you consider the Internet as Web 1.0, then smart mobile is Web 2.0, then came social media, after that, virtual/augmented/mixed/extended reality, and now a convergence of all these legacy technological advancements seems to meld into the Metaverse as Web 3.0 [16]. The creation of Metaverse facilitates the development of marketing services for new models, which contains a variety of forms: virtual live broadcast, virtual digital human IP, virtual scene, etc. In the Metaverse as a new track, BlueFocus seized the opportunity and announced in November 2021 that it will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Universe Digital Technology Co., LTD. The company will concentrate on the BlueFocus space-related investments and operations, will integrate BlueFocus with a virtual studio, virtual IP operations-related resources and team, comprehensively promoting universe-related business exploration. Judging from its funding changes, BlueFocus has enough money to invest in the Metaverse and, through BlueFocus exploration in the digital field, the traditional digital marketing platform has ushered in a new model.

Virtual studio
After the company transformation in November 2021, it collaborated with the Ali Dharma Institute to stand up a virtual studio business, which has achieved excellent results: 34 virtual studios were sold at the price of 99,000 yuan / room, customers cover top businesses in the business space, beauty makeup, healthcare and the home cleaning industry, and is expected to sign 100 contracts soon. Virtual live broadcasts undoubtedly have greater advantages in marketing services. The new model: draws in customers; achieves consumers' average stay of more than 40 seconds; nets tens of thousands in sales performance; replaces the celebrity anchor, saving labor costs; and works 24 hours a day online, making full use of time to create more trading opportunities. The new marketing model significantly improves marketing efficiency and customer service experience.

Virtual digital man
BlueFocus' virtual IP digital people are also its core business. Prior to actually stepping into the Metaverse, BlueFocus helped Yili design a virtual image, Canon son, king of glory virtual idol infinite king group, and QQ dazzles, a dance virtual image spokesperson star pupil. These are the very first preliminary attempts at digital people in marketing services. In January 2022, Yili released the first digital virtual person, "Su Xiaomei", who performed in the Beijing TV Spring Festival Gala as a virtual idol. As in folklore, as Su Shi's sister, she loves poetry and music, and has labeled this virtual IP as national style and China fashion, enhancing the sense of identity of the Chinese people. After being launched on TikTok, Su has amassed 44.2w fans so far. Even though there are no goods and services for advertising and marketing services, other anchors with comparable reference data hold huge potential and enormous commercial value. With Su's good feedback, BlueFocus launched a digital man, "K", with a new background. According to the BlueFocus official description, K is a virtual musician from Metaverse. Meanwhile, K maintains that "Every girl can be her own King," essentially saying that 'Every woman can control herself and lead her life.' Through the manifestation of a virtual digital human IP, BlueFocus enhances its interaction with users. Through their professional operations team, Blue Label obtains users' attention and staying power to capture customer value. In the future, K will express her attitude through music and become a sister of human women within the Metaverse. Using virtual digital people also aligns with advertising, brand commercial posters, short video creation, real business services and other novel marketing scenarios. Also, there will be additional service features and content creation in the future. As the way forward materializes, BlueFocus is expected to earn considerable profit in the virtual digital people's business.

Brand new digital marketing platform
The intrinsic value of virtual digital people is priceless, though the personalized customization of digital image can replace a variety of practical identities: virtual host, virtual mentor, intelligent customer service, digital body, etc. With this in mind, Blue Universe just recently released a new digital human-driven platform: skill. Skill is the first commercial application of Blue Universe in the Metaverse. The landing of this platform upgrades BlueFocus's digital marketing services and applies it to diverse business scenarios through personalized customization. According to research, its image customization fee standard is 30W / year for the basic version. The platform provides some specific choice of general voice, customized voice at a cost of 1 million yuan, though use time is not limited. The digital image bag of the basic class supports 1 set of clothes, 1 hairstyle and 2 poses, and it requires 5-10W per set to change the same image of clothes. These transitions can help enterprises achieve split freedom in digital scenes with low cost, high efficiency and super photo, contains huge commercial value, and provides a new way ahead for digital marketing in the Metaverse.

Metaverse marketing effect
After the inception of the Metaverse business, BlueFocus established a subsidiary of BlueFocus and continually produced new research and development achievements, such as multi-platform, MEME and so on. The whole concept is arranged in related fields around the Metaverse. According to a quarterly report in 2021, BlueFocus earned 31.483 billion yuan in operating revenue in the first three quarters, with a year-over-year growth of 9.1%. The net profit was 546 million yuan, down 11.7% year over year. BlueFocus's prior business was not involved in the field of Metaverse, but it has planned the layout of the Metaverse strategically, explored the virtual world by using VR, XR and other technologies, increased the interaction between virtual and reality by using digital people and digital collections, melded virtual reality, improved users' sense of experience, and created a digital economy in the Web 3.0 era. The decentralized, distributed network that is Blockchain is precisely the robust system needed to make the Metaverse a user-centric, user-operated and user-owned virtual community [17]. At the same time, Metaverse marketing offers up the potential for huge change in brand marketing forms. Brands will undoubtedly use Metaverse marketing to maximise their inventiveness and connect with their target audience in the most advantageous way possible. That is why, one at a time, companies are pivoting to the Metaverse for digital marketing [18]. After the promotion of marketing effect, the participation between users and virtual marketing in the Metaverse will be closer. In early 2022, BlueFocus launched two digital human IPs, namely Su Xiaomei and V, who are in the process of trademark registration and patent application. In addition, two platforms in the field of a Metaverse have been introducednamely, Fenshenyoushu and MEME, to evaluate the application scenarios and environments of the Metaverse in multiple fields, and guide user groups to embed within the digital world. Despite having preliminary achievements in the research and development of BlueFocus, the realization effect has yet to be disclosed, and there may be no obvious benefit in the short term. Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg said, "I'm excited about our future roadmap, but even that's still early on a journey that's going to go on for decades." Predictions are that the profits achieved by the Metaverse will show explosive growth in 20-30 years. We can witness how the blue label will be laid out and wait to see the return.

Key Findings
Finally, this paper acknowledges the inevitably of the digital transformation of the Metaverse, as well as the reasons and motivations for the radical transformation of the Metaverse marketing were realized. People find that merging the virtual and real aids companies in doing business better. It is important to noticealthough the four motives are analysed independently, most consumers are not enticed by one single reason, but by multiple ones. For example, some of them can be motivated by both the need for digital consumers and the consumer interaction experience. This paper establishes Metaverse and digital marketing as the topic. First, it describes the inevitable trend of Metaverse transformation as it relates to various companies. The second is to express the process of dynamic development. This paper believes that the transformation of digital marketing in the Metaverse is beneficial to the future development of the business. Taking BlueFocus as an example is helpful to make a series of analyses. To put forward ideas, the company needs to constantly put forward innovative suggestions to protect and grow the company's brand assets. With the background of the Metaverse era, digital economy transformation is on an inevitable trajectory. This author believes that the brand creates a new story through the digital world. This carries out a new form of interaction model with consumers to establish the brand deeply rooted in people and connect consumers with the brand and art creators and better experience the brand culture in order to arouse resonance. The marketing effect of the Metaverse is associated with traditional effectsusers can connect with production content directly. The new marketing of Metaverse is to attract users to feel the brand culture and engage with the production content. Marketing content can better meet the pursuit of trendy demands, improve the brand image, increase interaction, and increase the stickiness between brand customers.