The Immersive Wire - 20 March 2022 (Sunday edition)

By Tom Ffiske

VR/AR and metaverse analysis every Wednesday and Sunday // 20 March 2022

Black Public Media funds and supports Black creative technologists

TOP STORYHeineken's cold pint raised to the metaverse

The metaverse has been explored in the mainstream media for some time, with a tide of companies having a go capitalising on the hot trend. The most egregious I have seen is a cannabis company that explored the Ukraine crisis and the business potential of the metaverse across two paragraphs. The misled approach to marketing makes companies look like ambulance chasers, puffing fumes as they try to get a good hit. The wider context is why I am a big fan of Heineken's approach when they profiled their Silver range, treating it all as a complete joke. The self-awareness that threaded through their virtual brewery, with an array of useless mini-games around tasting a nonexistent beer. The experience itself was strange; as I said to BBC News, it was intentionally bizarre. Heineken corroborated on it as well:

• "We know that the metaverse brings people together in a light-hearted and immersive way that is really exciting – but it's just not the best place to taste a new beer, said Bram Westenbrink, Global Head Heineken Brand. Our new virtual beer... is an ironic joke. It is a self-aware idea that pokes fun at us and many other brands that are jumping into the metaverse with products that are best enjoyed in the real world."

I hope this is a sign that marketing campaigns will start to focus. Fewer cannabis companies jumping on a trend, or fashion labels shilling their virtual items for severe mark-ups. Just an authentic vision of spatial computing, and a view of the future that is compatible with their goods and services. If I were to digest it into quick bites of advice:

• Be authentic.

• Align it with your core values.

• Don't try to mislead your audience.

One with the group. Photo credit: Heineken.

The BPMplus Initiative aims to increase the participation of Black filmmakers and artists working in XR, AI, 3D, and other forms of emerging-tech storytelling. BPMplus programs include: Immersive Day at PitchBlack 2022, the MIT & Black Public Media Visiting Artists Program, the Nonso Christian Ugbode Fellowship, XR mixers and classes, BPMplus Fellowships, and Pop-up XR Theaters.Learn more about BPMplus here.

Q&AFollow your intuition

Guido Groet, Chief Strategy Officer at Luxexcel

What is your background?Back in the day, I worked for Citroen, and although I loved overseeing strategic partnership development and looking to develop the distribution network, I decided to move to ASML, currently the largest European tech company and the world’s largest supplier to the semiconductor industry. Despite its global reach now, when I joined, it was a relatively small company one of the several players in the litho space and in need of structuring to manage its growth in the US.

I worked at ASML for many years, including as VP of business development helping it grow and acquire businesses in the lithography industry. I was also in charge of the partnership between ASML and its most important technology partner Zeiss that provides the complex optics for the technology. However, as time went on and ASML became the world leader in lithography, the companies’ tactics changed from high growth and market disruption to process management and optimization.

I was ready to move to the next chapter in my career and was quickly approached by a private equity company that was putting together a management team to develop disruptive high tech manufacturing technologies. I spent the next few years holding C-level positions in Finance, Business Development, M&A, and Strategy Development, eventually becoming the CEO of this venture-backed company. After the sale of the technology, I decided to step away, and look for new opportunities.

I always thought of myself as an entrepreneur and with my previous expertise and knowledge, I knew that I would be able to make any business successful. That’s when I learnt about Luxexcel, and as I was curious about the technology, impressed by its potential to change the world, and gained experience in optometric industry while working at ASML, making it the perfect next step in my career. Now at Luxexcel, I’m in charge of all commercial and strategic aspects of 3D printing of smart eyewear lenses, driving the business towards global recognition.

What are you working on, and what’s a key learning that you’ve had from it? Luxexcel has a unique position in that it is the only company in the world able to 3D print lenses. The technology can print many different types of lenses and Luxexcel has focussed over the past years to print prescription lenses to correct people's vision. The reason this is a very good fit for the technology is that 3 out of 4 people need prescription and each of these lenses needs to be custom made for a user, this is of course a perfect fit for 3D printing where our technology can create large volumes of lenses where each one is individually customized for the user.

We are now extending the reach of our technology from “normal” prescription lenses towards “smart” prescription lenses where we not only create the prescription, but we also integrate display technology into the lens. We currently have projects with many of the major companies working towards bringing the Metaverse to the consumer. The benefit we offer to this new and emerging space is that with our technology you can have smart prescription glasses that look fashionable and are lightweight instead of the typical smart device which we have become accustomed to seeing. With our technology smart glasses have a path to become mainstream.

If you had to give one piece of advice, what would you give? I recently re-read a book that I read a long time ago. It's by Douglas Adams called “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” and in particular, one book in the series that is called “Mostly Harmless”. The main character in the book is a spatial traveller, who's in travelling around to write a book, The Lonely white the space traveller the Galaxy equivalent of the Lonely Planet. So the main character ends up on Earth, he spent around 15 years writing about all the restaurants and bars, what you must visit on Earth, the way he used to go out and do things. All to inform the space travellers. After 15 years of exploring and writing his piece, he decided it is time to submit his copy. It goes to his editor, his proofreader, and mostly the lawyers, and they check everything he wrote, and all of them cross out something. And out of these 15 years, two words remain about Earth, mostly harmless.

The core of the story is that when you need to develop an idea, an innovation or like in the book some content or anything else you should not ask too many people. I think what you need to do instead is you need to follow your intuition. Have a belief, check your belief, of course, but don't take every comment into account. Don't try to make a product, or develop a technology that satisfies everybody, because it will be a useless product. Make sure that you keep your core idea. And of course, verify your innovative idea along the way to make sure it still fits some market. But in the end, don't compromise too much.

If you want to know more about Luxexcel then click here to find out more.

Jobs boardDISTRIBUTION AND TOURING PRODUCER. Marshmallow Laser Feast is looking for someone to join our team as a Distribution & Touring Producer. You will have a desire to work at the bleeding edge of immersive storytelling and help shape how that work is distributed globally. We see the development and distribution of MLF’s own work as key to the future success of the business, a key revenue stream and integral in building global brand awareness. This new role will be a vital part of the core team that formulates and realises this ambitious vision. Learn more. Find more roles here.

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That's all for this week! Want to have a chat, let me know about a news story, or talk business? Either reply to this email, or contact tom (at) immersivewire (dot) com. Have an excellent day!