NFTs are no longer a hipster faction at the periphery of the digital world. They are becoming ever more mainstream and some of the most recognisable brands are looking to get ahead of the game. They can’t simply mint something, put it up for sale and expect to rake in the money. That’s why we’re beginning to see creative ways of organisations incorporating NFTs in marketing.
Taco Bell
In March 2021, Taco Bell began serving up a different offering, with a series of minted images and GIFs showing yep, you guessed it, tacos. Calling them ‘NFTacoBells’, five different designs were produced, with five copies of each. They were initially listed at a price of $1 on the NFT marketplace platform Rarible, and sold out within 30 minutes. Straight away, the tokens were being resold for thousands of dollars and one of the digital art pieces, the ‘Transformative Taco’, sold for 10 Ethereum – equivalent to roughly $187,000 at the time.
There were some great incentives attached to this first batch of NFTs. Each token came with a $500 electronic Taco Bell gift card, reserved only for the original owner of the NFT. Not bad for a buck!
There was also a Corporate Social Responsibility approach to the project from Taco Bell. Using smart contracts, they would receive 0.01% of any future resales of the NFTs. However, they have committed to donating all proceeds generated from this to the Live Mas scholarship through the Taco Bell Foundation.
Rangers FC
NFTs have been relatively untapped in the sports space to date, but Scottish champions Rangers have recently entered the market with a collection to commemorate their 2020/2021 undefeated league-winning campaign. Back in October, the blue half of Glasgow partnered with Sportemon Go, with the NFT platform’s branding appearing on the back of shirts. The club went on to release NFTs of varying rarity, including 1,000 depicting the winners’ medal; 100 of an ‘invincibles’ signed shirt; 10 showing the Manager and Captain lifting the trophy; and an ultra-rare solitary token showing the moment when the entire squad lifted the trophy.
The 1/1000 and 1/100 editions went on sale at a fixed price, while the two rare tokens were listed on a week-long auction at the end of November. The ‘Champions Trophy Lift’ was sold for 2.15 Ethereum, equating to nearly $10,000, with the owner given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have an exclusive lunch with the Rangers team at their training facilities, in addition to two seats in the directors’ box at the next Old Firm match at Ibrox. Quite the incentive!
AMC / Sony
A very recent example of NFTs in marketing, American cinema chain AMC partnered with Sony to produce 86,000 Spiderman NFTs. What makes this different to the other examples is that, rather than offering a benefit to drive interest in the NFTs, the tokens themselves were the incentive for people to pre-order tickets to the upcoming Spiderman film ‘No Way Home’.
AMC have approached this project from an environmental angle. The NFTs have been issued on top of the NFT-dedicated Wax blockchain, which claims to be carbon neutral. It is hoped by entering the NFT sphere in this way, movie lovers will be enticed back into cinemas following a dry patch as a result of the pandemic.
Evidently, more and more brands from various industries are jumping on the NFT craze and are looking at new and engaging ways to do so.
Want to start an NFT project of your own? Come and have a chat with Nifty.
