Across the digital divide

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When the British Museum opened its doors in 1759, the founders’ goals were for it to be a national museum featuring all fields of human knowledge, open to visitors from across the world. Its model has remained consistent over the following centuries, but in 2020, an age of closed borders and lockdowns, achieving those founding principles became immeasurably more difficult.

The solution was to move the museum’s collection online. The British Museum has digitised many of its artefacts to make them more accessible to a wider audience, including a digital tour of its back catalogue offering a 360-degree view of items.

More recently, the museum has also sought to enter the world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – digital assets stored on a blockchain. The museum’s NFTs, launched with NFT platform LaCollection, will feature the work of Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.

Museums are not the only ones embracing technology to reach new audiences. Since the lifting of Covid-19 lockdowns, theatres, including London’s Old Vic, have continued livestreaming plays; restaurants such as Hawksmoor and Cote have produced ‘at home’ food packages to recreate restaurant meals; and gyms, such as Virgin Active, have digital-only subscriptions, where users can work out and attend classes from the comfort of their own homes.

This phenomenon, while catalysed by the pandemic, has been developing for a number of years.

Tom Johnson, managing director of Trajectory, says the pandemic has drawn many more businesses into what he calls the ‘fourth place’ – the digital world of leisure. “They weren’t just emergency stop-gaps,” he adds. “There were companies innovating and coming into this space as they realised it could be an aspect of the post-pandemic world.”

There are five main types of ‘fourth space’, according to Johnson: culture, such as virtual tours and livestreams; streaming events overlaid with conversation, such as films through Netflix’s Watch Party or sport through BT Sport’s Watch Together; exercising together; gaming; and online conversations over video chat, such as drinks, quizzes and parties.

Johnson argues that some aspects will retain an elevated role in our lives. Exercise is one area in which companies with digital ‘extras’, such as online subscriptions and classes, will do very well compared to their analogue rivals, for example. “Although the experience online is often not as good, it is so much cheaper and so much more convenient; it is easier to fit into people’s routines,” Johnson says.

Culture too will retain an online presence. “There is enormous capacity for cultural institutions and attractions to increase their audience, not just beyond the 10-to-20-mile radius where their venues might be, but around the world,” Johnson says. “You could access world-class exhibitions, cultural events and festivals from wherever you are, and become a digital member as well as a real member of a particular institution, such as a gallery or a theatre.

“There will be more in-home occasions going forward as people are going to be better equipped to have their night at the opera without leaving the sofa, watching the game with friends when they are in different houses in different parts of the country, and to have a drinks or quiz night over Zoom.”

A new reality

The Wunderman Thompson Intelligence report Into the Metaverse highlights the growing convergence of people’s online and physical worlds in the metaverse, a 3D shared, virtual space that some have suggested will eventually replace the internet. The report surveyed 3,011 people across the US, UK and China in July 2021.

“Real-life experiences that have been missing from virtual environments such as real-time collaborations and serendipitous interactions will become smoother and more accessible,” says Emma Chiu, global director at Wunderman Thompson Intelligence. “The metaverse will help people defy geographic restrictions and create new communities and social groups with interactions that are lifelike and authentic.”

The impact of this on traditional events could be significant. Take the example of musician Travis Scott’s augmented reality (AR) concert on the online game Fortnite in April 2020. The virtual event had 12.3 million live viewers, with 27.7 million others watching in the days afterwards. Other examples have included social clubs and business conferences held virtually or using AR. Wunderman Thompson found that 62% of those surveyed felt they had a closer relationship with brands that had a strong digital presence.

Heather Dansie, research director at Publicis Media, sees the future as being one where companies will have to turn their offline social business model into one that works in both worlds. Twitch is a prime example. Dansie says Twitch is as much a meeting place for young people as a gaming platform. “Virtual alternative spaces are so exciting,” Dansie explains. “Going into a game, you meet people, interact with them and challenge them. It is so much more like real life than Instagram, where it is just you and a screen. The social space, in its old-fashioned term, is in the gaming world.”

More traditional social spaces can also adapt to a more digital – and even AR – world. For example, a recent Van Gogh exhibition at Kensington Gardens, London, and Manchester’s Media City, allows visitors to get an ‘immersive’ experience of the artist’s paintings, so visitors feel they are inside the artworks.

Randy White, chief executive and co-founder of the White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, says it is boutique experiences that will prosper offline. “There is a continuum between the fidelity of the experience and the convenience,” he explains. “Digital is very convenient, and the better it gets, the higher the fidelity the out-of-home option needs to be to attract people.”

There is also the opportunity to ameliorate some of the drawbacks of traditional social areas. “As a woman – particularly as a teenager – going to pubs was an intimidating experience,” Dansie says. “In the online world, those traditional issues disappear and your community becomes incredibly diverse. Your accent doesn’t matter, and how you look doesn’t matter.

“There’s too many of us for real-world spaces and going forwards you will need to offer both. Offline does things really well, and online does things really well. It is how you connect the two.” As concepts such as AR and the metaverse progress, organisations used to real-world social interactions and business models will have to choose how best to adapt.