A year in branding web3 distilled into a few hot takes
I’ve spent the last year dedicated to crafting campaigns, loyalty programs and creative executions for some of the world’s biggest brands. I’ve learnt a hell of a lot, and have had my views changed on an almost daily basis in the process.
Welcome to emerging technology. Pushing the limits of what’s possible in the ever-evolving digital landscape. Whether that’s VR, AR, XR, AI, Metaverse, or Blockchain — no buzzword was safe.
The primary focus of my time was on the hot (or cold, depending on the time of reading) topic of web3. Deep in the bear market with businesses closing up shop on budgets and openness to new initiatives — it was a challenge to discover a genuine use case for the technology beyond cheap cash grabs.
There was a lot to learn, and I started from the foundational philosophy of what it meant to build an on-chain future. No silly monkey pictures, actually changing the world.
In an almost infinite list of potential outputs and types of projects in the web3 space, I’ve applied pure reductionist theory to clump most brand projects into three buckets:
Speculation
Entertainment
Access
Speculation
I’ll leave Speculation to the experts here —as it’s not something that I feel either qualified or engaged enough in to offer an opinion. It’s not about the art, it’s about the meta. The ability to sell your asset for a higher price than you bought it depends on sheer luck, determination, and being completely and utterly immersed in the world of degeneracy.
It’s gambling. And that’s ok. But until the project manages to tap into the next two layers, then it’s purely that. Buy for the art, stay for memes.
Entertainment
Entertainment is a broad topic, deliberately so. Why would you pay for a digital asset? The same reason you buy a coffee, a piece of art, or a videogame. It’s not to extract value out of the asset, but rather to inherit value granted through the joy of experience.
This comes in so many forms. Maybe it’s the beauty in the craft (art). Something that is built with such love and consideration that you need it on your digital mantlepiece. Bonus points for the translation between physical and digital like the wonderful Harvest collection.
Side note: Generative art is what pulled me into the web3 space. The idea that NFTs offer a new canvas and way to create and own art is something that fascinates me.
Alternatively, you have gamification. It’s about building a sticky experience that keeps you coming back. A zero-sum game of enjoyment generated by product features. Whatever platform you launch, the products have to keep people coming back by making the experience fun. Time-sensitive interactions and unexpected events create a living, breathing ecosystem.
A tangent of this is the holy grail of digital asset entertainment — UGC. Creating a genuinely organic sense of inclusion is incredibly difficult. It almost always starts with a free (or very low) price point of entry. Invite many to toy with and explore your collection and help it create its meta-narrative. No artist has achieved this better than Jack Butcher/Visualise Value with their Checks and Opepen collection.
Actively inviting participation leads to ripple effects across the overall community and helps shape the overall direction of the project and space moves in. No mean feat, but hugely valuable when successful.
Access
The final piece to the puzzle is often confused with value in the ‘art’. If the primary ‘utility’ is to gain access to token-gated content then you haven't purchased a creative collection — you’ve bought a key to a house you like.
The risk is that speculation comes into play when the key is to a house that’s being currently built. Trust is key, and rare commodity in web3.
This is something I’ve struggled to reconcile with but have now accepted. User journeys should be as simple as possible, tracked backwards from the end goal. If the final target is converting a customer by purchasing something, then keep the steps to a minimum and remove the fluff.
My biggest takeaway? A digital experience only becomes valuable once it is manifested in a physical space.
Value
Here’s the takeaway. If a project built on blockchain fails to hit any one of these three — it should be free.
There is one aspect that I’ve deliberately left off the list and for good reason: Community. The latest buzzword that brands have successfully killed with their misplaced over-enthusiasm.
Very few brands have communities. They have paying customers. But those customers have incredibly varied interests, passions, and deeply woven community networks. The overuse and reliance on ‘community’ has led brands down a path of under-utilised loyalty platforms and extractive projects.
If a brand is to nurture a community, it has to add value and not extract. In blunt terms that means giving things away for free — a tough sell.
When I talk to brands it makes it easier to bucket the output into these spaces. Almost exclusively the outcome is either entertainment or access — and they factor in the brand’s established KPIs.
One common misunderstanding in the world of web3 is that the philosophy and technology are so revolutionary, that they will inevitably create new use cases and new ways to engage online. This implies a degree of readiness and willingness in major brands and an expectation that the world is prepared to change dramatically to fit the technology.
But once you dig deeper, you realise that no matter the path — it usually ends with the same two spaces: Sales and Data.
Instead of removing democratising information and giving power back to the user, it adds layers of complexity and extra steps towards the sale.
The way to prove web3’s value is to provide demonstrable proof that the proposal you’re making somehow hacks the conversion funnel.
This isn’t a negative take, it’s full of optimism. If you can build something fresh from the ground up, then a genuinely web3 native foundational vision can take place. We see this with newcos and the honest organic growth of the New Internet Era.
However, to tackle big brands — a little humility counts a lot. Let’s not revolutionise the system. Let’s bring a degree of entertainment, access, or both. Earn brand love by giving back.
