Marketing 6.0

CHAPTER 3The Inevitability of Immersive Marketing: Five Micro‐Trends Leading to Metamarketing

As digital lifestyles have become an integral part of the lives of Generation Z and Generation Alpha, businesses need to adapt to stay relevant. Fundamental shifts have developed in several components of marketing in a digital world.

There are five essential components to marketing in a digital world, the first being content. Content refers to information created, consumed, and shared across digital media. It can take the form of written materials such as short messages, press releases, articles, newsletters, whitepapers, case studies, and even books. It can also be more visual, such as images, infographics, comics, interactive graphics, presentation slides, games, videos, short films, and even feature films.

The second component is social media, which has become the primary channel for distributing and amplifying content. According to a Morning Consult survey in 2022, 98 percent of Generation Z in the United States used social media, and 71 percent used it for three hours or more daily. Generation Z's five most popular social media are YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Facebook.

While social media is mainly a communication channel, the third component, e‐commerce, is a sales channel. The US e‐commerce market is the second largest in the world after China. According to the US Census Bureau, the estimated e‐commerce sales in 2022 exceeded $1 trillion, accounting for 14.6 percent ...