Leveraging the Utilities of NFTs

January 25, 2023

We are currently just in the beginning of knowing what the metaverse can and will do. NFTs are another tool for brands to engage their consumers. Consumers have the same drivers and motivators as before (personal identity, utility, and social connection). They are just expressing those drivers differently today. Leveraging the utilities of NFTs drives not only customer engagement, but loyalty.

Leveraging the Utilities of NFTs

What do brands need to know and do to leverage NFTs now? Experts’ advice varies.

Kenny Lauer, chief strategy officer and head of experience for Relic Tickets led a panel discussion at D2 on leveraging the utilities of NFTs. The panel included Hunter Abramson, CEO of Relic Tickets, Michael Schaiman, CEO of GenCity Labs, and Chris Silver, co-founder of Bambumeta.

Lauer kicked off the session noting that when it comes to the metaverse, we are not just at the beginning of Web3, we are at the beginning of the beginning. More chapters, he notes, are to come before the industry gets to mass adoption.

A couple of the questions Lauer posed to the panel included:

Do businesses have to rethink everything that they are doing or is the metaverse just another marketing/sales tool? 
  • “We are storytellers at the end of the day. I love telling a story, I love building that relationship between a customer, the brand, and the amazing product….I think this new world of Web3 enhances a brand’s ability to create relationships, to create collaborations, to create communities around their core values, without having to leave their brand experience” they’ve cultivated over the years, notes Silver.
  • “[The metaverse] is all the same [marketing] concepts, this is just a new tool,” to enhance your customer’s experience, says Hunter.
  • “The one thing that I think that I want everyone in the audience to take away is to recognize the power of digital identity,” says Schaiman. People, he says, still have the same drivers and motivators for behavior. What’s different is the way in which they express those drivers and motivators.
What should brands be doing right now?
  • “Given where we are at in the market, thinking of NFTs as a revenue generator is not the right approach,” says Schaiman. He says to think of it as a low-cost customer acquisition effort.
  • Silver’s recommendation to brands is to slow down. “If you just throw something out there, the customer doesn’t appreciate it,” he says. He says it has to have a cohesive feel, so take time to understand what you are trying to achieve and come up with a complementary storyline.
  • Abramson notes that his advice falls in the middle of the two extremes. His company’s approach is to get their NFT tickets in the hands of the consumers, and then educate the consumers on the utility and added value of the NFT tickets.

To learn more about how the utility and value of NFTs were demonstrated at D2, watch the presentation here.

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