[Thoughts #57] Celebrity NFTs and POAPs
Rewriting the playbook for celebrities and participation
A couple of topics, a lot of thoughts. I’ll do my best to keep it tight 😉
Celebrity NFTs
This week a couple of celebrities, Kevin Hart and Chris Brown, launched their own NFT collections. Unfortunately, the sales of their collections are not doing well...
A lot of folks have chimed in on this already. However, after listening to this morning’s Rug Radio GM Show, I figured it was worth emphasizing. It’s important to make clear for marketers that what has worked in the past won’t work here. Especially when we’re still in the early stages of technology adoption curve.
Maybe a lot of people minted in the past 48 hours and Brett’s data is outdated? Nope, not really.
Oof. So what went wrong and what can we learn from this?
Marketing in Web2 ≠ Marketing in Web3 - Having a celebrity or influencer endorse a product means it would sell right? In most cases that’s correct, but not in this corner of the universe. The space as it stands today cares about the culture, cares about people who respect the culture, and embraces those that participate in it. If Chris Brown or Kevin Hart spoke to the Web3 communities, worked with experts in the space to launch their NFT, and took the time to learn, they would’ve likely seen more success.
Product/Market fit - This is a classic framework for businesses. Having a lack of product/market fit leads to a failure out the gate or over time. In this case, it was out the gate and it was a failure without a doubt. I imagine the teams that Kevin Hart and Chris Brown worked with assumed that their respective audiences of 185 and 146 MILLION followers (Instagram + Twitter) would have guaranteed a sellout. But this is NFTs 😏 The average person is still uncomfortable or against the concept of NFTs, and celebrity followings mostly consist of average people. Hence a lack of product/market fit.
Misaligned incentives - Celebrities, their agents, and their teams are focused on making money. I get it. There’s aspects of that in Web3 as well. However, it’s much more transactional in the old world. The talent/celebrity comes in, says a few lines endorsing a product as an influencer, shakes hands and goes to collect their payout. In Web3, this is a long-term relationship. People can look on-chain to see that Kevin Hart’s project never took off (at least initially). If he releases another project, will it be more of the same? Does he even care?
If a celebrity wants to get serious about the space, they should consider finding an agent or a team that truly understands the space.
Educate > Shill - I’m not saying that celebrities need to teach their fans how to the blockchain works. However, it’s important for them to take some time to share why NFTs bring fandom to a whole new level. A website can provide the same information, but no one actually reads that stuff (anyone that works on CRO or LPO know what I’m talking about lol). It’s important to show AND tell.
Kevin and Chris’ NFTs actually aren’t that bad. The art is decent, the utility and perks could be big, especially if you’re a fan. However, the above factors contributed to an unsuccessful launch and I hope everyone takes notes.
On the other hand, those that DO actually take the time to engage with the community and understand what is going on in the crazy world of NFTs are rewarded.
Some successful examples: Sia, Steve Aoki, and Bobby Hundreds.
It’s easy (and even fun at times) to laugh at these failures from celebrities and brands. However, each flop hurts the narrative for Web3 and NFTs. I’m confident that it will all be shrugged off over time…but I’d prefer to have my friends and family think I’m not crazy sooner than later 🙃
RTFKT’s POAP Game
I just wrote about RTFKT yesterday, but they just keep winning with the quality of work they put out.
Let’s start with POAPs first, what are those? POAP = Proof of Attendance Protocol. It’s the digital version of this:
Here are some of the POAPs that I have:
It’s a nice way to reward participation and presence at various events, with the potential to have future utility. Wait aren’t POAPs sorta like…
Yup, but better! For example, I could ask everyone who reads my newsletter to provide me with their wallet address, and as a token of my appreciation I can airdrop them a POAP for subscribing and reading my newsletter. At a later date I can provide other types of utility to these POAP holders, whether it’s a meal on me if we meet in person, gifting NFTs that hold monetary value, or access to content I don’t provide to anyone else.
But enough about the future, let’s talk about the present!
RTFKT has close ties with the renowned artist Takashi Murakami. His art shows up in Clone X traits and he has recently launched his own NFT project as well.
Cheapest Clone X with a Murakami trait is 99 ETH (~$120k), SHEESH.
Anyway, Murakami had an exhibition of his NFT work with Gagosian, a famous art gallery in their NYC location. It was pretty cool seeing his work in person.
RTFKT celebrated the exhibit the opening night, inviting holders to New York to meet the team and Takashi Murakami. For those that couldn’t attend, they hosted an online event to celebrate.
Based on what I saw on Twitter, it was a blast for those that attended. And what happened yesterday?
Wait…THAT’s a POAP?! I guess anything that RTFKT does raises the bar. But wait..there’s more!
A POAP that not only looks good but can be placed in your digital gallery? Geez.
POAPs are normally worthless, a nice little badge to be attached to your profile. But these POAPs are so good they there is demand for them.
Can you imagine going to an online event and then get airdropped a ‘thanks for attending’ NFT that’s worth $1,500+? I am not missing another RTFKT event ever again lol.
I’m excited for POAPs not only for how creative and dynamic you can get with them, but also because we we’ll see less of this:
When I got this e-mail from Bank of America, it actually made me feel worse. We can do better, and we will.
Have a great weekend and see you Monday!