I'm Back In Action

And it is time to bring the heat

Yeehaw my friends,

I just realized its been several months since I’ve published a newsletter. I hardly know where to start. So much has happened!

One thing is obvious though, most people in the world of advertising and marketing are waking up to web3. Last year everyone I talked to about web3 thought I was crazy. Some might actually be correct in their assessment of my mental state regardless of the accuracy of any predictions I’ve made.

And with that, today I want to revisit some of my predictions. The summary of this exercise is that I was horribly wrong. Everything is happening way faster than I ever predicted.

Earlier this year I was projecting that brands would start making moves in web3 around 2023. In reality, three major brands made significant moves. Visa bought a Crypto Punk. Arizona Iced Tea bought a Bored Ape. And Budweiser purchased Beer.eth.

How can we gauge the significance of this?

One way I view these moves is in relation to how long it took publicly traded companies to purchase Bitcoin. Let me walk you through my thinking.

I feel that it is fair to say Bitcoin reached mainstream awareness around 2012. Most of the major news networks covered or mention Bitcoin, and most people shrugged it off. Yet, it is safe to say that Bitcoin had reached mainstream awareness, but not mainstream adoption.

In June of 2020, MicroStrategy purchased BTC, followed by Square and Tesla. Using these events, it took 9 years for Bitcoin to go from mainstream awareness to being purchased and held by publicly traded companies as an asset.

Let’s compare this to NFTs and big brands.

It’s safe to say that NFTs reached mainstream awareness in February 2021. This is when NBA Top Shot blew up in sales, Beeple sold art for $60+ million, and Saturday Night Live aired the skit, “WTF is an NFT?”

Fast forward to August and we see Visa, Arizona Iced Tea, and Budweiser all purchase NFT/web3 brand assets.

This means it only six months for NFTs to go from mainstream awareness to being purchased by publicly traded companies. Now compare this to the 9 years it took companies to purchase BTC.

So what’s the takeaway?

Culture moves fast. Consumer behavior moves fast. And both move way faster than financial markets.

Every brand and agency now has a task force dedicated to figuring our their 2022 NFT strategy. It’s not a corner of the market where only crazy people like myself hangout.

We all know that marketing budgets get planned annually. No brand or agency had a budget ear marked for NFTs/web3 in 2021. Everyone was blind-sided.

Now as we head into 2022, the number of brands and agencies building teams and strategies to enter web3 is real. Marketing budgets across the world now include a NFT/web3 line item.

If I’ve learned anything since quitting my agency gig in March and venturing on my own into web3, its this … we’re in for a wild ride and we haven’t seen anything yet.

-Jeff