Over the past two years, iconic footwear brand adidas has collaborated with technology partners and creative , have also launched their own NFTs.
Leading this effort is Erika Wykes-Sneyd at the recent DPAA Global Summit. She has experience in fintech and gaming technology at PlayStation, Venmo and Uber.
This is the step Adidas has taken so far.
Build a team ready for Metaverse
Adidas begins February 2021, their journey to the Metaverse. Tesla’s Elon Musk just tweeted that his company will accept bitcoin for car payments. This increases the credibility of cryptocurrencies, as well as the underlying blockchain technology that governs web3 transactions. If more users are to collect and showcase blockchain-based NFTs, this is also a space where brands should be involved.
Wykes-Sneyd has formed a Metaverse Working Group that allows anyone within the organization to opt in and contribute ideas.
“I immediately found a lot of passionate people in the organization who were already thinking about the space,” she said, adding that they They are “frontline workers” who are not in the C-suite or in the IT department. They are the people who are spending more time on web3 projects during the pandemic lockdown, usually on Discord.
From 55 people who initially showed interest in corporate chain emails, Wykes-Sneyd created a working group of 22 people, This includes employees across the organization.
The working group was then invited to come up with ideas.
“We identified opportunities and talent pools in the organization,” said Wykes-Sneyd.
Using these ideas, Wykes-Sneyd developed a marketing strategy based on consumer and category research that she and other companies use for the same product launches. The difference, she said, is that, in this case, it’s a bottom-up process involving people at all levels of the organization.
“Bring in people who live it every day,” she said. “It won’t be top-down.”
Carefully choose your partner
“There are a lot of different ways to get into this space, but you could say we are riskier because we did put NFTs on the blockchain and now we have to The community that serves it is there forever until we decide not to do it anymore,” Wykes-Sneyd said.
Media platforms to 3D virtual gaming platforms like Discord and Roblox, Adidas wanted to make sure they had a real, believable presence in front of a web3 audience exist.
Adidas dropped the NFT, allowing users who bought it to become part of a special club of like-minded Adidas fans.
They are with GMoney, a well-known pioneer in the cryptocurrency space. For better or worse, they’ve also partnered with the Bored Ape Yacht Club, an Ethereum-based NFT collective – they’re well known in the community and were recently investigated by the SEC. Adidas is also involved in the branding of NFT-based comics created by PUNKS Comics.
“It’s really hard for marketers to find ways to be culturally credible, local and organic, so these micro-communities will rise and what’s next will be Smart, savvy marketers emerge,” Wykes-Sneyd said.
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Create Roadmap
Building a cultural currency with a skeptical audience that demands authenticity requires a long-term game plan.
Every collaboration established by Adidas brings more exposure to web3 users and demonstrates the brand’s commitment to the space.
Every step in the journey brings brands closer to selling real goods and virtual wearables and tokens through web3 channels. The plan is for Adidas to build secondary revenue from merchandise by adding NFTs to every item it sells. When a pair of Adidas shoes is resold, the NFT’s blockchain will record the transaction. And embedded into that blockchain will be a protocol that will reward Adidas for a share of these secondary sales.
But whether it’s physical merchandise, or virtual wearable avatars, the point is to empower consumers to showcase their brand wherever they are Affinity.
“Identity is the next big thing to explore,” Weeks-Snyder said. “How would you like to be identified in your virtual world? How would that identity be displayed? What kind of person do you want to be? What is your pseudonym, what kind of traits do you want?”
She added, “This field is full of hope. Please don’t get caught up in negativity. Start ignoring this because once you do, you’ll have a better idea of what the younger generation is looking for. Opportunity. They’ll make it happen with or without us. So, I’d say we want to be with them.”
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About the author 
Chris Wood has over 15 years of reporting experience As a B2B editor and reporter. At DMN, he served as an associate editor, providing original analysis for the growing field of marketing technology. He interviewed leaders in technology and policy, from Canva CEO Melanie Perkins to former Cisco CEO John Chambers, and Vivek Kundra, who was named America’s first federal CIO by Barack Obama. He is particularly interested in how new technologies, including voice and blockchain, are disrupting the marketing world as we know it. In 2019, he moderated a panel discussion on “Innovation Theater” at the Fintech Inn in Vilnius. In addition to his marketing-focused coverage on industry sectors such as Robotics Trends, The Age of Modern Breweries, and AdNation News, Wood writes for KIRKUS and writes fiction, criticism, and poetry for several leading book bloggers. He studied English at Fairfield University and was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He lives in New York.
