[Dive #127] 3 Interesting Activations
Good things come in 3️⃣ part 2!
Yesterday I shared 3 Web3 resources. Today I’ll share 3 interesting activations that I learned about in the past 24 hours with thoughts and takeaways.
Azuki’s Proof of Skate
In my piece about Azuki’s Physical Backed Token (PBT) concept earlier this week, one thing I omitted was that the team was kicking off the PBT effort with a physical activation in Hong Kong and a public auction for 8 of the 9 golden skateboards.
These skateboards:
Are fully plated in 24K gold
Weigh 45 pounds
Are embedded with the BEAN Chip to enable PBT functionality
Are engraved with a unique emblem which is part of the Azuki-verse
The auction mechanics are here, and will kick off in a few hours. Due to the limited nature and provenance of the skateboards, I imagine they will be highly sought after and cost a pretty penny.
What does the installation look like?
🥵
This activation rivals the top activations from NFT NYC earlier this year. And the best part is…there’s no competition.
There’s no Bored Ape event happening across the street. No industry conference earlier in the day.
It’s Azuki and Azuki only. The team has drawn the lines, created their own court, and are playing ball in it. This is how you win the infinite war on attention, folks.
Instead of this:
(one of my favorite memes I’ve created, had to bring it back!)
Azuki is doing this:
The concentration of attention won’t last forever, but they have done a solid job of maximizing it for this week and going into the weekend.
The community support was phygital as well. On the physical side of things:
Brands know they’re onto something when people get tattoos. That’s a whole different level of dedication.
Meanwhile on the digital side, we see the Azuki community ‘suiting up’ in gold in support:
So what we have here is not just two dimensions (physical and digital) colliding, but multiple levels (Product, Activation, Participation) of phygital manifestation.
Putting it all together:
With the onset of phygital products, experiences, and communities, the bar of activations is rising. IMO, Azuki is one of the Web3-native leaders in this realm and they’ve done this before with their NFT LA ‘check your wallets’ experience.
Last but not least, why was the installation held in Hong Kong? Azuki as a brand and community has a large presence in Asia, so diversifying their physical presence is important.
But also K11 Musea (the venue) is owned by none other than:
I’ve done a brief overview on Adrian Cheng before, but TLDR this guy (or his company) holds 101 Azukis and his family is worth ~$26 billion. Not bad person to have in your corner.
BAYC + GCG 🤝 Airport Lounges
Speaking of phygital, BoredJobs (NFT licensing platform I covered) announced a partnership with Global Lounge Network.
Great, we’re going to see NFT fanatics sporting their animal PFP at airport lounges now?!
Yup, and they’re coming to an airport near YOU 😂
The Medium article provides more details regarding the partnership announcement. More details will be released in the next couple of months, but for now I’m in 🤔 mode.
The pilot program will distribute 200 day lounge passes to BAYC, MAYC, and Gutter Cat Gang holders. That’s a manageable sample size for a pilot program to better understand usage metrics and other factors.
More notably, this effort is a strategic partnership between MouseBelt, BoredJobs.com, and Global Lounge Network. How might they be working together?
The reason why this makes sense to me is because:
The partnership involves 200 day lounge passes. These aren’t annual passes they’re giving away. The total value is all passes are redeemed will be between $7,600 and $20,000 depending on the type of Day Pass. This is a pilot test.
I’m speculating with this one, but aside from pre-existing relationships that BoredJob has with the respective communities, Bored Apes, Mutant Apes, and Gutter Cats are at different price tiers, suggesting a different type of holder base. From a marketing POV that means different customer personas, which present a market research opportunity. As of this writing:
BAYC Floor: 76 ETH ($98,000)
MAYC Floor: 14 ETH ($18,000)
Gutter Cat Floor: 5.2 ETH ($6,800)
Also speculating here, but I found the way the strategic partnership was worded was interesting.
Mousebelt announced the strategic partnership between BoredJobs and GLN. I’m no expert in strategic partnerships, but the roles that these parties are playing follow the chart above. Mousebelt doesn’t need anything from the other parties. Rather it seems they’re going to provide some capabilities for the Pilot partnership. If successful, this will turn into a much larger effort.
And that’s where things get fun. An important detail in the highlighted snippet above.
Now let’s walk through what the pilot turned rollout could look like:
Phase 1:
Pilot program, measure engagement from participants on multiple dimensions (who redeemed, where redeemed, what dates redeemed, etc.), receive feedback
If numbers look good, what does Phase 2 look like?
Phase 2:
Create customized Web3/NFT enabled lounges.
WTF that’s dumb. Sounds dumb, but hear me out.
GLN is a Global network with locations in:
One city sticks out to me: Miami. Why?
Not sure if the pilot program will be ready by then, but if so it’ll be a great case study:
If a pass holder checks in (departing TO Miami around those conference dates), GLN would obtain travel data and probabilistically determine where they’re going and why.
If a pass holder checks in (departing FROM Miami around those conference dates), GLN would obtain travel data and probabilistically determine where they’re going and why.
The probabilistic can become deterministic if more free lounge passes are provided to holders that are specifically traveling for Web3/NFT events. And if that’s the case, we may start seeing NFT versions of this at airport lounges.
But what if a GLN member wants to go to a lounge and hates NFTs? Valid question, and that’s why GLN having 28 lounges in 11 cities helps alleviate that issue, to a degree.
And that’s where Phase 3 kicks in 😉
Phase 3:
GLN isn’t just an airport lounge network. They provide End-to-End lounge capabilities:
Major Web3 and NFT hubs could have permanent lounges that cater to this audience. It almost makes me cringe thinking about what might happening bringing NFTs to airport lounges, but this could be a notable business opportunity.
Wow. I was not expecting to create a test strategy and rollout plan for MouseBelt, BoredJobs and GLN. Just give me a shoutout if this is what you guys actually decide to do I guess 😂
Interpol enters the Metaverse
Yesterday evening I came across this Tweet from Interpol (yes, the International Police), and the countless jokes roasting the announcement.
I chuckle every time I watch this, I mean c’mon 🤣
However, as my snorts subsided, I realized that this makes a lot of sense. There is already a lot of online crime in the form of stolen passwords, phishing scams, and identity theft. That will happen in the Metaverse as well, if not already.
I can’t help but imagine that the scenes from GTA (Grand Theft Auto) are going to get real sooner than we think in the Metaverse.
See you next week!