BofA picks potential winners, losers in 'immersive reality' trend (NYSE:RBLX) - Seeking Alpha

"Immersive reality" - and its accompanying advertizing accidental - draws immoderate absorption from BofA successful its bid connected themes for the adjacent 5 years, and it's apt to pb to benefits and costs for manufacture players arsenic the situation shifts.

The researchers considered making augmented reality/virtual world platforms a cardinal theme, expert Justin Post notes, but they've covered that successful the past, and present crook their attraction to the request for advertisers to get "immersive" successful bid to clasp connected to reach.

"Social media was a large innovation for Gen X and Boomers, but Gen Z & Alpha (born betwixt 1997 and 2022) are shifting media depletion patterns towards experiences that premix elements of social, immersive, and user-generated content," Post said.

"Younger consumers walk important clip successful virtual spaces conscionable hanging out, and they are much apt to beryllium influenced by peers and experiences." That means the lines betwixt contented and advertizing are blurring.

Those consumers are much averse to accepted advertising, and with attraction fragmentation, they're harder for brands to reach, Post said. That means contented that mightiness not beryllium precise accepted "advertising": "(1) marque driven experiences successful the metaverse, (2) ocular search, (3) augmented world gamification, (4) augmented world lenses, (5) nonfungible tokens/items, and (6) influencers/creator marketing."

Those benefiting astir from specified a displacement are those with vulnerability to immersive contented instauration and/or ample contented creator communities, including Roblox (NYSE:RBLX), Unity (U), Snap (NYSE:SNAP), Adobe (ADBE), and a fig of backstage names.

Snap (SNAP) published a survey showing instrumentality connected concern for its AR "lenses" was six times higher than TV erstwhile it came to idiosyncratic care/beauty ads. And BofA estimates users are engaging with Roblox's (RBLX) "Vans World" acquisition for adjacent to an hr per sitting, helium noted.

Such caller advertisement format categories adhd up to a $40B accidental by 2028, Post estimates.

As for companies seeing immoderate hazard from the shift, they see Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), though Meta is "investing heavy successful content, tools, creator acquisition and Metaverse, which could make large caller opportunities."

Most astatine risk, Post said, are ad-tech's "pure intermediaries" that often service arsenic alternatives to Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (GOOGL) and Meta (META) - those see AppLovin (APP), Digital Turbine (APPS), AdTheorent (ADTH), Viant Technology (DSP), and The Trade Desk (TTD) - owed to their absorption connected accepted integer advertizing and the request to transition.