10 Brands Marketing their Way into Web3
It all started with Mike Winkleman (A.K.A. Beeple) in March 2021. After he auctioned a digital collage through Christie’s Auction House for a whopping $69 million, the word Non-Fungible Token entered the mainstream. This sale kickstarted a flurry of interest in the NFT space that has attracted audiences worldwide trying to be part of the movement. What started as a really niche tech space became a platform for millions of people around the globe to create, sell and collect tokens. Millions of people paying attention to the space mean brands are paying attention as well, and they are starting to learn how to capitalize in this new untapped market. Here are 10 brands that are making noise within the web3 space.
1. VISA
One great example of this is when Visa bought CryptoPunk #7610. The fintech company purchased a 24x24 pixel digital avatar for about $150,000 and added it to their art collection. This example doesn't necessarily move the needle for Visa’s bottom line, but it does something a lot more meaningful. This move signaled to the crypto-community that Visa sees them, values them, and plans to play a major role in facilitating crypto payments in the near future.
2. Budweiser
One of the biggest beers in the world, Budweiser, bought their very own ENS domain name. For those unfamiliar with an ENS domain, think about them like DNS domains but for your web3 identity. Instead of using a 40 character wallet address, Budweiser can use beer.eth. Very shortly after, they changed their Twitter handle to Beer.eth. At the same time, they launched a vintage beer can NFT collection signaling to crypto-Twitter that Budweiser is building a presence for its iconic brand inside the metaverse.
3. ATARI
Back in March, Atari, the company behind the OG iconic video game PONG, announced a partnership with Decentral Games, the company behind one of the most popular virtual worlds called Decentraland. Atari purchased a 20-parcel virtual piece of land and built a casino in which people can gamble their cryptocurrencies just like they would in real life. They even had a launch party with DJ Dillon Francis setting the mood while people in the form of avatars were playing blackjack and roulette.
4. STELLA ARTOIS
Another beer brand that knows how to leverage the space in a way that makes sense with its brand identity is Stella Artois. The brand is one of the biggest sponsors of premium sports events like tennis and polo. That is not an exemption for web3 where they partnered with Zed Run, the company behind virtual horse racing and breeding. They auctioned rare horse NFTs and built a branded race track, a move that keeps the brand positioned as the official sponsor of premium sports and e-sports.
5. NIKE
The apparel company is quietly getting ready for the metaverse. First, they filed several trademarks that make apparent their plans of launching digital sneaker and apparel collections in the near future. Then they partnered with the online game platform Roblox to build Nikeland, a virtual world modeled after the company’s HQ. In it, players can be outfitted with Nike products and play different game modes. Now, Nike acquired the digital sneaker design studio RTFKT, which allows users to wear collectibles through different online environments. These moves are major indicators of Nike’s transition and adoption of web3.
6. THE NBA
Through a partnership with DapperLabs, the company behind Cryptokitties, they launched NBA Top Shot, a platform for buying and trading NBA game collectibles in the form of trading cards. Very similar to physical trading cards, in the platform you can buy a pack, open it and discover which NFTs you collected. Then you can sell them and based on how rare the collectible is you can even make a profit. A Lebron James card sold for almost a whopping $400,000 this year.
7. ADIDAS
Earlier this year, Adidas bought an exclusive Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT and made it its Twitter profile picture for the Adidas Original account and shortly after that announced that they had bought a piece of virtual real estate in Decentraland’s competing platform, The Sandbox. These moves by the brand garnered a lot of attention for it from the crypto space. This attention made their first NFT launch a complete success. They partnered with BAYC, Gmoney (a popular NFT investor and influencer), and PUNKs Comics (a comic series featuring CryptoPunks and Apes) to launch a collaborative NFT collection named “Into the Metaverse”. Those who were able to mint one of the 30,000 tokens will also receive exclusive Adidas apparel from the collaboration. Adidas made $25 Million from the collection not counting royalties from resales in secondary markets.
8. Time Magazine and The Rolling Stone Magazine
Time magazine and Rolling Stone magazine are dipping their toes in the NFT world by auctioning limited edition magazine covers as non-fungible tokens. Time’s NFTs are named TimePieces and they roll out different collections periodically by partnering with different artists. The Rolling Stone magazine, on the other hand, also partnered with BAYC to feature an Ape in their cover, which later sold for more than $400,000.
9. Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, recently listed the first Wikipedia entry ever as an NFT. This entry was edited by Wales 20 years ago and it literally just reads “Hello World”, a phrase once common for programmers to make sure a language’s compiler, development environment, and run-time are all correctly installed. This 20-year-old digital artifact was auctioned through Christie’s for $750,000 and some of the proceeds will go to Wikimedia Foundation initiatives.
10. Louis Vuitton
This year, Louis Vuitton celebrates 200 years and is paying a tribute to its founder by launching a limited apparel collection as well as an adventure mobile game called “Louis The Game”. The phone app follows a character around while it needs to find 200 candles to commemorate Vuitton’s birthday. It is an adventure open-world game that feels reminiscent of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Through the game, the character can find 30 embedded NFTs that were designed by the one and only Beeple. These Beeple Louis Vuitton NFTs can only be collected by playing and exploring the game. The Beeple partnership doesn’t end there, the brand also tapped the artist for the Paris Fashion Week this year. The fashion house incorporated some of his artworks called “Everydays” for its spring/summer collection. This is a great way for the brand to be relevant and be able to reach a younger generation as well as expand beyond fashion.
Some other brands that deserve some honorable mentions for trying to ride the wave are Campbell Soup, Disney, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Charmin Toilet Paper, Pringles, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Playboy Magazine, Formula 1, Pepsi, and even Coca-Cola.