Web3 Brands and Marketing: Week in Review
Web3 Brand and Marketing news from the week of March 21.
Every week, I get together with some of the great minds in web3 marketing: CMO Shauna Burbary, retail, and CPG analyst Michelle Grant and RLY Network Association CMO Jeremiah Owyang. We talk about how brands are entering web3 (via web 2.5; more on that later) and how we’re seeing both established and new brands go to market in creative ways. Credit to Shauna, Michele, and Jeremiah as we collectively pull together this list every week.
**Record scratch**
Why am I writing about web3 brands and marketing? Well, let me explain.
About six months ago I took a deep dive into web3. That has spurred a lot of things, but one of them, in particular, has been a passion for web3. What is web3?
Chris Dixon, partner at a16z summed it up quite well.
Web1 (roughly 1990–2005) was about open protocols that were decentralized and community-governed — most of the value accrued to the edges of the network — users and builders.
Web2 (roughly 2005–2020) was about siloed, centralized services run by corporations. Most of the value accrued to a handful of companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook.
We are now at the beginning of the web3 era, which combines the decentralized, community-governed ethos of web1 with the advanced, modern functionality of web2.
Web3 is the internet owned by the builders and users, orchestrated with tokens.
One term not defined by Chris: web 2.5. This tends to be the “space in-between” for people or brands who are slowly dipping their toes in the water of web3. If you’re reading this, let me know in the comments if you define as more web2, web 2.5 or web3.
Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let’s dive into the news from the week.
General brand news:
· Biggest brand news of the week: Yuga Labs raised $450M with a16z leading the round. Why is this relevant for brand news? Also investing in this round were Animoca brands, FTX, and Moonpay. Animoca has had its own digital collectible marketplace called Quidd. MoonPay will look familiar as they have been an exchange to buy crypto and more famously, they have been helping celebrities purchase big-ticket NFTs.
Speaking of Animoca Brands, the CEO did an interview this week where he spoke about how important NFTs are for the metaverse, especially an open one. This makes sense, given the news that they’re investing in a metaverse card game with Ubisoft.
More big news from Yuga Labs last week: the announcement of APE Coin, a utility-based token airdropped to holders of Bored Apes, their flagship NFT collection. This token was sent for free to holders and allows them to purchase merchandise in Yuga’s online store, vote on governance proposals for the group, and more. (As of writing, APE is trading at approximately $13 USD)
Big news for brands to be aware of: the Department of Justice has announced charges against the creators of an NFT project called “Frosties” that was a “rug pull”, a term used to describe when a creator launches a project, promotes it heavily until the project sells out, then disappears with the money raised. Brands should be aware of this news; we’ve seen examples of celebrities unintentionally being a part of these rug pulls. (See: David Dobrik being associated with a $6M scam)
Michelle Grant caught a good bit of news: Nike is launching a Virtual Studios team and is investing in the metaverse in a big way. Given Nike’s acquisition of RTFKT in December 2021, their approach to web3 will only continue to grow.
Credit: LinkedIn post from Ron Faris at Nike Virtual Labs. CPG brand Liquid Death announced its latest NFT project. They initially received some blowback from their followers for associating themselves with an NFT back in February, but the initial sale of their NFT seems to have gone off without a hitch, in large part to influencer engagement and people seeing wallet activity (on-chain transaction history) from Gary Vaynerchuck that he bought one of these NFTs.
Tiffany & Co. entered the web3 space in a subtle way by changing their profile picture to a rocket from the Tom Sachs Rocket Factory collection. This is not the first luxury or jewelry brand we’ve seen enter this space, nor will it be the last.
Bonus: Recently, Platform Professional did a great “Brand NFT Design and Platform Strategy” article. Jeremiah Owyang tracked down this article and shared it in our group chat.
Questions? Comments? Have an interesting example of a brand that is entering web3? Feel free to DM me on Twitter or send me a message on Telegram @blakemenezes.