[00:00:00] Donny Dvorin: Brands are navigating the new Web Three world, and with it comes an opportunity for experimentation, innovation, and engaging consumers in entirely new ways. But where do you start and when? In this new season of the Brave Marketer Podcast, we’re talking Web three marketing and how to market in the Metaverse.

[00:00:19] You hear from marketers, from top brands and agencies who will help us leverage this exciting moment in time and take our brave marketing moments to the next. Hosted by Brave Software and me, Donny Devor. You’re listening to a new episode of The Brave Marketer Podcast, and this one features Dr. Mark Van Ridge Menon, and he is the digital speaker.

[00:00:41] He’s the leading future tech strategist who thinks about how emerging technologies change organizations society in the Metaverse. He is the founder of the Digital Futures. I. With a mission to ensure a fair digital future for everyone. Mark is an international keynote speaker and a four-time author. I think you’re really gonna like this episode because we talk [00:01:00] about how he wrote his latest book in five days using ai, and we talk about the difference between a closed metaverse and an open metaverse and which one we want, and then why he thinks blockchain is right on schedule after 13 years.

[00:01:13] And then what the next interaction of Web three will look like. And so, with no further ado, here’s this week’s episode of The Brave Marketer.

[00:01:24] Mark. Welcome to the Brave Marketer Podcast. How you doing today?

[00:01:28] Mark Van: Thank you for having me, Danny. It’s, great to be here and I’m, doing all right. Great. And where are you calling in from? I’m calling in from Sydney, Australia. Where the weather is good. And it’s a warm Christmas. Nice.

[00:01:38] What time is it there? It’s 9:00 AM in the morning, so a fresh start of the day. Nice.

[00:01:43] Donny Dvorin: Got it. And we’re at 5:00 PM so we’re just finishing up our day here. Very good. All right, so for those that don’t know the digital speaker, can you please give us a general

[00:01:52] Mark Van: overview? Sure. So I am a strategic futurist, which basically means that I think about emerging technologies and how they change organizations [00:02:00] as well as society.

[00:02:01] And I look into these technologies to understand, you know, how they’re gonna impact us from a broader perspective. So I’m focusing . On cutting edge technologies, um, artificial intelligence, the Metaverse, blockchain, you know, all those kind of things that are really having a big impact on society. And I’ve been doing this for over a decade.

[00:02:14] Public global keynote speaker for Fortune 500 companies. But I also don’t only want to, you know, research this, this stuff, but also wanna do this stuff. The digital speaker is available as an avatar, as a hologram. I’m creating a digital twin of myself, which eventually should look like me, talk like me, sound like me, move like me, really to understand, you know, how these technologies are actually.

[00:02:34] Affecting our lives, our work. And I share this knowledge, online, give out a lot of, free content, for everyone to research, about these different technologies. And that’s basically what I do here.

[00:02:43] Donny Dvorin: I think about blockchain and like, if I think about like five years ago, it was like, oh, blockchain’s gonna be everywhere.

[00:02:48] Everything’s gonna be run on blockchain. Do you think that we are slower than we initially thought or we right on schedule? You know, where do you think blockchain is?

[00:02:58] Mark Van: I think we are right on schedule. You [00:03:00] know, we should not forget that blockchain is only, what is it, 13, 14 years old, which is nothing, you know, we’re just getting started.

[00:03:06] the infrastructure of the internet, took, how long to get to where we are now. I think. So we should not be too harsh in ourselves when it comes to blockchain that we want to, we want to decentralize internet. Today because it’s a lot of hard work and there’s a lot of progress being made from various aspects, from, you know, scalability, from sustainability.

[00:03:21] and I think that is really, great to see. And we are now slowly moving to more, decentralized applications where blockchain obviously plays a major role in. And I think that’s, really good to see. But yeah, as I said, we shouldn’t be too harsh on ourselves that it takes so long because we’ve only been here, for 13, 14 years when it comes to blockchain, te.

[00:03:39] Donny Dvorin: Yeah, that makes sense. So, you know, I saw blockchain, you know, obviously first come into, you know, crypto, the defi space. Anything with finance, then a little bit more in gaming and metaverse, you know, what do you see as like industry 3, 4,

[00:03:53] Mark Van: 5, From a, a web three perspective, I think what’s happening there is, first of all, I think it’s infrastructure layer web, web three doesn’t [00:04:00] equal, the metaverse, which is, um, think a common misconception.

[00:04:03] It is just, you know, infrastructure layer that we need to build. Once we have this decentralized layer, then we can build all kinds of cool applications. On top of that, one of the, applications that we can build on top of that is obviously the metaverse, the next iteration of the internet, the immersive internet where we move from 2D to 3d, and that’s as big a shift as we move from desktop, internet, as One to the mobile internet where we used, you know, where there was an app for everything. We started using the internet on our phones. That’s really what the next iteration will be. And that will really define how, industries will develop in the years ahead. But I think this shift that we are currently undergoing from a 2D internet to a 3D internet will be massive and we’ll completely redefine our global industries, how we collaborate, how we work, how we interact, how we socialize, how we entertain.

[00:04:47] And I think that’s super exciting to. Yeah. So what

[00:04:49] Donny Dvorin: industries do you think it’s gonna affect?

[00:04:51] Mark Van: Well, obviously all industries, but I think if we look at, you know, the industries that will be affected at first, I think it’s from a consumer perspective, entertainment, obviously [00:05:00] the immersive internet will have a big impact on entertainment.

[00:05:03] Think obviously gaming, think, sports, where you can have an augmented reality layer while watching sports, or you can be on the pitch during a life, a life match. You know, we’re having a different vantage point. so I think that is really, really interesting from a business perspective, it’s very much training and education because, within virtual reality, you can train difficult scenarios that are otherwise impossible to train.

[00:05:24] But also from a augmented reality perspective, if you’re in a factory, you can just overlay. How you need to solve or fix a particular asset, and without having to fly in the mechanics, for example, to do so. So, you know, there are a lot of benefits from that perspective. If we look at from a more, you know, marketing perspective, I think the, we can see that brands have a lot more opportunities to create a truly unique.

[00:05:44] Experience for their customers. We’ve already seen some examples in the market, but I think this is still really, really early days. But the, the immersive internet really allows us to, you know, to have this connection with brands that was never really possible. we moved from, you know, being, almost rest by display ads [00:06:00] on the internet if you’ve looked at, at shoes.

[00:06:02] And then they follow you all around the web to having this, this truly unique interaction with, the brand. And I think that’s really exciting to. Literally every industry will benefit from this. And of course some industries will benefit more from it than others. Yeah.

[00:06:14] Donny Dvorin: From an advertising perspective, what do you see as the future of how you interact with the brand and the future versus today?

[00:06:20] Mark Van: Well, I think any brands that wants to step into the metaverse or to say, should. Take into account that they need to offer an experience, and you can no longer just push your message. Look, we have,awesome product X, Y, Z by our products now. and that will make you feel happy. You know, I think that is over that approach.

[00:06:38] Advertising should make customers happy and should, you know, interact with customers. You see some, cool examples and one of my favorite examples, The example of Forever 21, where they created this so-called Shop City on Roblox, where you, you know, the kids on Roblox could create their own, forever 21 store.

[00:06:53] They could design their own Forever 21 clothing, which they could sell in their own store. And, you know, that is a really a, [00:07:00] fantastic way to create a connection, with. Customers with future customers in a way that is, you know, very intuitive, very seamless, very fun. As a marketeer, you have an opportunity to, yeah, offer a novel experience.

[00:07:11] And I think that’s so much more fun than just having those display ads or pushing messages. But instead you have this interaction, you have this, this two-way communications dialogue with your customers in ways that has never been possible before.

[00:07:23] Donny Dvorin: So what’s the most exciting thing you’re

[00:07:24] Mark Van: working on?

[00:07:25] Right. The most exciting thing I’m working on at the moment is I have just started, a research institute called The Digital Futures Institute, which is focused on ensuring a thriving digital future for both business and society. On the one hand, because the way I look at technology and digital technology, I’m kind of worried about the future and where the future is moving and.

[00:07:41] are we going to create, a digital future that’s fair for everyone with this institute? I try to focus on educating enterprises, educating government, but also educating the general public because what I’ve sort of, seen from research, from a research is that, you know, generally we can say that we are digital natives.

[00:07:57] we know how to work computers, we know your [00:08:00] smartphones, but we are nec not necessarily digitally literate. We don’t necessarily know how to behave in a digital world. And I think there’s a lot of opportunities to change that. My objective with this institute is to, have a positive influence of how we use technology in our daily lives, in our work, and to create this digital future where the way we interact with the internet is something that is beneficial to everyone.

[00:08:21] Because with the internet, . That’s great. When does that launch? So the institute has launched already. So the first concept of the institute is a global tour that we are organizing, which should probably, in q2, next year, which is, focused on the future of business, helping organizations understand how can they use these, all these cutting edge technologies to improve their business, but with a very much a long-term focus, long-term stakeholder approach versus a short-term shareholder approach.

[00:08:43] Donny Dvorin: Got it. So this, podcast is all about brave marketing moments. A time when in your career you exhibited bravery. What’s your brave marketing moment?

[00:08:53] Mark Van: What’s my brave marketing moment? ? That’s a good question. Well, I think maybe, what I did just a couple of weeks ago, I think was quite interesting is [00:09:00] I wrote my fifth book, using AI, using chat, g p t.

[00:09:03] you might have heard of it, you know, it’s taken the internet by storm at the moment and, it’s sort of an experiment, but I think it’s, again, I like to practice what I preach. So this book was completely written by AI as a. Edited by AI was designed by ai. I was sort of only supervised it. And I think that’s a really cool way to, use the latest technology to see how it works and to, go about that.

[00:09:22] writing a book in five days is a different story, but it was a cool experience.

[00:09:25] Donny Dvorin: How did you do it? Like what were the steps to write a book and how, how many pages was the book?

[00:09:29] Mark Van: so I think it’s on Kindle. It’s about 150 pages. Okay.

[00:09:32] Donny Dvorin: so how did you input the information for AI to write the book?

[00:09:35] How

[00:09:35] Mark Van: did it work? Sure. So it was a dialogue, and chat. G PT is very much focused on dialogue and so I think my first question was, cause it’s a book about the future. It’s a book about, you know, Technologies will define our future. it’s called future visions. So my first question I asked to, to chat d p t, was which technologies are going to define the future?

[00:09:51] and it gave me a list of technologies. I think about 10. And I selected several of them, and I, added a few of my own, and then I asked for each technology. Okay. If you want [00:10:00] to figure out how this technology will evolve, which questions do I need to ask you to get an. So it gave me a whole bunch of questions and I just worked through those questions and every time I put in a question and got an answer, I used the answer to ask follow up questions.

[00:10:14] And what I did is I literally copy pasted the answer of chap G b T into the book. I didn’t change any wording. I didn’t, you know, the only thing I did, is, you know, maybe. Cut a sentence and move it above or move it a bit lower, you know that that’s all I did, but I didn’t change the sentences. I didn’t change the wording.

[00:10:28] I didn’t change any of that, and that’s how I wrote a book. I, I think that’s quite an interesting experience because it’s fascinating that you can write a book with AI that’s reasonably okay. I wouldn’t say it’s as good as my previous books. Definitely not. It’s readable, you know, it’s perfectly read.

[00:10:43] It has to a certain extent, quite interesting content in it. And that’s possible with off the shelf technology, you know? And so when I finished writing the book, I said, well, okay, now give me a title for the book and gave me several titles and I chose Future visions. And then I asked, you know, give me a subtitle and gave me subtitle.

[00:10:59] And then I said, okay, [00:11:00] now, describe the cover of the book. Gave me different descriptions, and I chose one description. Plug that description into stable diffusion and I have my cover , and that’s basically how I did it. It was edited with Grammarly, so I, I did edit it, but not, you know, just with, also with ai, the whole process from coming up with the idea to publishing and having a live on Amazon was seven days.

[00:11:21] Donny Dvorin: Oh my gosh. I mean, How long did it take you to read the book?

[00:11:25] Mark Van: Well, well that’s probably around the same time. Cause obviously I read everything, but I think that’s sort of around the same time. But I think if you wanna download the book and read a book and you can read it really quickly because, and I think that’s also one of the, limitations that I’ve seen by doing this experiment.

[00:11:39] It is quite superficial for an article. Cause you, might have seen a lot of, you know, people publishing, articles or sentences or, you know, funny paragraphs on LinkedIn or on Twitter. for a short paragraph or short article, that’s perfectly fine. But if you’re going to read a full book on this, then you’ll start to notice that one, you know, I need to use certain patterns all the time, and it doesn’t really go into depth, which [00:12:00] fortunately for us and authors , it can’t do that because at the moment it can start to come up with, truly come up with novel ideas.

[00:12:08] I think we’re we, we in for a wild ride when it comes to. But I also noticed we also have to be careful with this kind of technology because it also came up with complete nonsense. Cause you know, when I asked it, for example, you know, describe me how, from a historical perspective, how robotics and AI converged, it just bluntly stated that in the 1980s, AI was getting so advanced and it merged with robotics to create self-driving cars that completely change transportation.

[00:12:31] you know, I wish that happened, , but it didn’t. Right. So, you know, it, comes with total nonsense.

[00:12:36] Donny Dvorin: That’s so crazy that it’s so smart. But then it’ll give you just such

[00:12:40] Mark Van: gibberish. yeah. If you just read it, it sounds very reasonable. You know? And I think that’s also the scary thing about this. You know, it can, within seconds, it can create content that is.

[00:12:51] On a very superficial level, sounds really good. And a lot of people, you know, quickly scam articles because there’s so much information overload that, you know, how often do we really find the time to really [00:13:00] go into a depth of an article and to, to truly understand it from a fake news perspective.

[00:13:04] You know, this is really challenging. Yeah. Got it.

[00:13:07] Donny Dvorin: All right, so switching gears, let’s just say role play for a second. You are the CMO of a Fortune 500 company. You wanna get into web three. You wanna do some marketing there, some advertising there. You got a, you know, a 30 person digital marketing team and you say to them, let’s get into the metaverse, let’s get into web three, let’s tackle this thing.

[00:13:31] How does the team go about it? What are the questions they ask? What does this strategy look like? I mean, this answer could go a thousand different directions, , but I’m curious how you would navigate this.

[00:13:44] Mark Van: Sure. Well, I think first we need to make, sure that, there’s a clear understanding of what Web three is and what Metaverse is because as I mentioned earlier, the web Web three does not equal the metaverse.

[00:13:54] web three is infrastructure, and we need web three to build an open metaverse. But for the metaverse in general, [00:14:00] which does not necessarily have to be open, there’s no need for web three technology. No, there’s no need for blockchain. there’s no need for crypto. There’s no need for NFTs If we create a metaverse that’s owned by the likes of the big tech.

[00:14:11] Now, if we, obviously I’m not a fan of that, I think we should focus for on an open metaverse. So if we wanna open Metaverse, then we have three is really, really useful and really important because we need to control our own data and control our own digital assets and control our own identity. Having said that, so if you want to move into the metaverse as a brand, I think it’s very important to figure out where are your customers, where are your future customers?

[00:14:31] On which do they reside? Do they reside on on Roblox? Which again, is not. Web three is very centralized. do they reside on Fortnite again, not web three? Do they reside on decent land, which is web three? You know, you need to figure out where. Once you have figured out where they are, you need to create, an experience because these platforms, where, you know, especially Generation Z, but also Generation Alpha that was born after 2010 and the latest generation, they expect an experience.

[00:14:56] So they, do not expect to be harassed by a brand. So if you as a [00:15:00] brand want to, interact with your customers, you need to. Develop that experience that if we are a fashion retailer, you can use your digital fashion, digital wearables to create that experience. As, you know, the likes of Balenciaga and Gucci, you know, or Nike who have done, you know, really cool examples of creating this experience.

[00:15:16] in the Metaverse, if you are a different brand, you have to think more carefully, you know, how to do that. there are examples of, you know, fast food change, McDonald’s and other companies. Starbucks, who is, is working with NFTs, which you have to think. you know, creating an experience, connecting with consumers in the metaverse is a lot harder than just, you know, sending a campaign through social media or doing some display ads, whether in, on the internet or, in real life.

[00:15:39] And I think that’s the main message for marketeers is, you know, one, you should do this because this is the direction where the future’s going. And two, but you should think a lot harder because it’s a lot more difficult and you can, it’s also a lot easy to make mistakes. My final point would be is, you know, start experimenting on, on different platforms because different platforms have different rules of, engagement.

[00:15:57] and you need to understand how, I don’t [00:16:00] know, roadblocks differs from decentral lab and how, the one of the other, work recommendation would be starting you doing small tests, small experiments, small pilots on different platforms to get a grasp of how this. Involve your community.

[00:16:13] Ask questions because they are near Generation Z, generation alpha. They are the ones who are familiar with this. And so you need to ask and involve them into creating that. So it really becomes a sort of a co-creation process. these are some of my tips I would give.

[00:16:26] Donny Dvorin: Yeah.

[00:16:26] And you’re thinking that you would do spurts of campaigns. You wouldn’t have something

[00:16:31] Mark Van: that’s always. I think definitely have something, you know, if you want to create a long-term engagement, then you should do that again. You know, the example of Forever 21 is really cool because they have been going on roadblocks for over a year, and they’re continuously very refreshing, coming up with new ideas.

[00:16:45] And they have this, this very, this so-called FID experience where you can now buy clothes on the Forever 21 store, physical clothes, and you can also at the same time buy the digital fashion. For your Roblox avatar so that your ROBLOX avatar and you can wear the same [00:17:00] clothes. And that’s an ongoing process.

[00:17:01] So I think especially with these experiences, you almost get like sort of chapters within the experience where you can continuously update the story that you’re having with your, customers.

[00:17:11] Donny Dvorin: Yeah. And you’ve talked about the open Metaverse. Why is the open metaverse I.

[00:17:15] Mark Van: The open metaverse is important because in the metaverse, the amount of data that we’ll create will be a hundred or thousand tons more than we create today.

[00:17:22] And if we look at today’s internet, today’s internet is a very centralized internet, very much controlled by big tech who decide who has access, who doesn’t like access. if they don’t like you, they can ban you. all those kind of things. I think in an immersive incident where we create a thousand times more data, which is also probably a a lot more in intimate data.

[00:17:40] We should be the ones who control that. That’s the one part. the second part is if we have this immersive internet where we have avatars that go through different virtual or augmented experiences, we should be able to take those assets from one virtual world to another. just like if you go to, in a real life world, you buy a jacket for one pub, you don’t wanna have to buy the same jacket again for another pup.

[00:17:58] You know, , you want to [00:18:00] be able to take it from the one to the other. And that’s the same thing with in the Metaverse where you should be able to do that. The best way To do that through, non fungible tokens, which requires, you know, decentralized technology. So you have full control over your digital wardrobe, so to say, and you can take it from one platform to another.

[00:18:17] I think if we would rely on a centralized metaverse, a closed metaverse, it will be a very dystopian metaverse. It’ll be very much like snow crash or like ready play on, and I think we should avoid that. so, you know, an open metaverse, it’s very, very difficult. There’s no guarantee it’ll end up there because.

[00:18:33] Generally doesn’t like that because they need to give up control, they need to give up data, they need to give up money, advertising, revenue, and we all know that they’re not very . They’re not, they’re not a big fan of doing that. So I think we should have a different approach there. It will be difficult to achieve that, but I think it’s really, really important.

[00:18:48] Got it. So

[00:18:49] Donny Dvorin: one of your books is, step into the Metaverse, how the immersive internet will unblock a trillion dollar social economy. Tell us about

[00:18:57] Mark Van: that. So the book is really [00:19:00] meant as a blueprint for creating this open metaverse. You know, first of all, what is the metaverse? you know, I interviewed about 250 people for the book, a hundred in-depth interviews, 150 surveys of all the stakeholders who are building the, the open metaverse, you know, the, the investors, the, the builders, developers, the artists, the creators, you know, et cetera, to get a good understanding.

[00:19:19] What is this Metaverse? I got 250 different definitions. So I think that’s the first one. And so the book is about what is the metaverse, how is the metaverse going to impact our lives from our social life, how we entertain ourselves, but also our business lives, how it will change the enterprise.

[00:19:34] How the economy of the Metaverse will work, how decentralized finance will play a really, really big, big role here. How NFTs allow us to, for the first time, prove the ownership of digital assets and how important it is to our global economy. But above all, the book is about now. we have this opportunity to, now that we move from a 2D internet to a 3D immersive internet, which will probably be around for.

[00:19:56] Three, four decades, if not forever. how are we gonna create an [00:20:00] internet that’s there for us and that’s not owned and controlled by big tech. And because, you know, if we create a hundred or a thousand times more data, that means that those who control that data will also be a lot more powerful. And I think we should avoid that at all times.

[00:20:12] So the book is very much about how can we create open metaverse, what do we need to do? what is required and how will it pan out in the. .

[00:20:19] Donny Dvorin: Yeah. And it looks like it’s, I’m looking at an Amazon. It’s got four and a half stars, which is great. Outta five people are saying really, really good things about it in the comments section.

[00:20:27] I don’t know how many of those comments you paid for people to

[00:20:29] Mark Van: write . I didn’t pay for any , although I, if I would, I would’ve had a lot more reviews. . Yeah,

[00:20:37] Donny Dvorin: exactly. Well, you could have just asked everybody you interviewed to write a

[00:20:41] Mark Van: review. Yes, I do. but you know, it doesn’t always happen. So

[00:20:45] Yeah.

[00:20:46] Donny Dvorin: You know, we talk a lot about privacy at Brave. What does privacy look like in the Metaverse? Is it more secure? Is it more private than, I don’t know, obviously Facebook, other social media, other games?

[00:20:58] Mark Van: Well, that very much [00:21:00] depends on whether we end up in an open or closed metaverse.

[00:21:02] Donny Dvorin: Can you just define the difference between open and closed Metaverse?

[00:21:05] Mark Van: So a closed metaverse is a metaverse, which is owned by a big tech and is basically what we have today. We might have interoperability, but we don’t have full control over our own data. So anything that you do in the Metaverse, for example, all your data will be sent to Facebook and will be used, for advertising purposes already.

[00:21:22] We see there’s examples. the other day I was reading article about. . Now, if you do your taxes online in the us, your text data is being sent to Facebook for advertising purposes. I think that’s pretty, pretty ridiculous and pretty scary. Now imagine in the metaverse where we have a lot more data. For example, you have virtual reality headset with cameras on the front.

[00:21:41] Cameras on the inside. That data recognizes, you know, where you look. How long you look at something, it looks at how dry or how wet your eyes are. It looks at how diluted your pupils are. it looks at all those kind of things. the cameras on your headset looks at your room. What’s in your room?

[00:21:55] Who’s in your room? What are they doing in your room, whether your hands, you know, whether you have a [00:22:00] tremor in your hands and which might indicate a disease. These are all very, very. Intimate data points that we do not want to end up in the hands of Mrs. Zuckerberg or the likes. I think that’s the difference between a closed and an open metaverse in a closed metaverse, these data points will end up in the hands of big tech that will be used to create awesome experiences, but also to make a lot of money because does, you know, 10, 15 billion that Mrs.

[00:22:22] Zuckerberg spends every year on creating the. They need to be recouped at some point. So it, it should be an illusion to think that he’s not gonna use that data to recoup that money . Now, if we have an open metaverse, then we control that data. We decide who gets access to the data, we decide how the data can be used.

[00:22:39] And I think that is, very, very important, especially if the metaverse, the internet, the immersive internet and our digital identities will become as important as our physical identities. And mind you, for generation. And even more for Generation Alpha, their digital identity is. As if more important than their physical identity.

[00:22:59] It sounds [00:23:00] crazy. It is crazy to think about that, but that’s the reality. If we don’t control our own identity and it’s our own, our digital identity, which is as or more important than our physical identity is being controlled by big tech, I think we have a problem in society. You know, there are counter examples also, for example, on roadblocks where kids, you know, spend hundreds of dollars on assets that they buy and.

[00:23:20] All of a sudden their profile gets blocked or deleted or banned, right? For whatever reason. They might have done something wrong that they’re not aware of. They have kids after all, and there’s no way you can interact with it. There are plenty of stories online about this. so that’s really problematic.

[00:23:33] I think obviously if you have an open metaverse, we should not forget that. There are also challenges, but you know, I think in the end, having control over your own data is more important than having, big tech have full control over, over our data.

[00:23:47] Donny Dvorin: What do you think are the most pressing issues for marketers right now?

[00:23:50] what should marketers be worried about and how should they be responding

[00:23:55] Mark Van: to it? What I noticed is that, you know, the, the developments in technology are going so fast at the [00:24:00] moment. I mean, we can only look at generative ai. For the past four months or so, generative AI completely exploded on the internet, and it’s now possible to create images with taxi, can create videos, with taxi, can create books with inputs, you can create entire virtual worlds just by adding a, string of words in there.

[00:24:16] Now that is going to continue to. And so from that perspective, what I foreseen in the coming years is that your voice will become more, a lot more important because adding a string of text, into your computer to get a virtual world, to get a video or get a paragraph or press release or what whatsoever is still, you know, a very slow process.

[00:24:34] and while your voice is A lot easier. now if voice becomes more important for marketer, it will become also a lot more difficult to be at the top and to be the first one to be shown. Now, if I enter an example, if I enter a question into Jett b t, I get a really good answer. But I do not know how that answer is, has, has come about.

[00:24:52] I do not know if there are, different options that I should look at. I’m presented with an answer and that’s, it. and answer the same question into, you know, Google [00:25:00] or, or Bing or whatsoever, I get different, you know, options and I can select myself. So from a market tier perspective, you know, the role for example, SEO or online market.

[00:25:08] Will change because all of a sudden your objective as a marketer, as an online marketer is not to be on the top 10 or on the first page of Google, but it’s to be the number one, which is a lot more difficult. There are a lot of shifts going to happen here. And the challenge here is that the developments are moving so fast.

[00:25:24] You know, it’s my job to stay up to date and to understand what’s happening. And for even for me it’s difficult. So let. For marketeer who’s, you know, busy running, his or her job, and then also have to stay up to date of all the technology that’s, that’s changing his or her job. So yeah, I think that’s, the biggest challenge here.

[00:25:39] Donny Dvorin: Got it, got it. Well, good. This has been a fascinating conversation. This is perfect for season, which is all about the metaverse. Are there other marketers that you’d like to nominate

[00:25:50] Mark Van: for the. Well, I think someone would, be definitely interesting to talk to is, Justin hk. He, founded the virtual brand group.

[00:25:56] He’s responsible, among others for the Forever 21 campaign that I [00:26:00] mentioned. And he’s doing some really cool stuff, in the metaverse. so I would definitely reach out to him and I can make the connection if need be.

[00:26:06] Donny Dvorin: That’d be great. I would love the connection. So where can the audience.

[00:26:09] Mark Van: I’m pretty easily to find online.

[00:26:11] but the best approach to start is, on my website, the digital speaker.com. But I’m also on LinkedIn or Twitter or just, Google my name and you will find me. There’s only one mark for Gaman in this world, so that’s quite easy. Nice.

[00:26:22] Donny Dvorin: Any last words, for the listeners or any other advice?

[00:26:25] Mark Van: Have fun with this. You know, as I said, the world is changing from a technology perspective like super fast. that’s affecting your job as marketeer be open to this, experiment. and above all have fun because there are some really awesome, opportunities out there to create magical experiences for your customers.

[00:26:39] Got it.

[00:26:40] Donny Dvorin: Well, mark, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s such a pleasure to speak with you today. Likewise.

[00:26:44] Mark Van: Thank you for having me, Donny. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

[00:26:47] Donny Dvorin: Thanks so much for listening to another episode of The Brave Marketer Podcast. Four quick things before you go. Number one, if you like what you’ve heard, it’d be really awesome if you’d rate us.

[00:26:58] Or write us a review on your [00:27:00] podcast player, and if you didn’t like what you’ve heard, then don’t worry about it . Number two. If you would like to advertise to Brave’s 60 million users and have a budget of $10,000 or more, simply email us at. Add sales@brave.com. That’s ad, S A L E s brave.com. And let us know you’re our podcast listener for a 25% discount.

[00:27:23] Number three musical credits. Go to my brother Ari Devork. And finally number four, go use brave@brave.com and we will see you next time on The Brave Marketer.