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Monday’s Marketing Minute: a16z’s Can’t Be Evil NFT License, NCAA Prez Embraces Brand Ambassadors, Starbucks Adds Web3 to Loyalty Program

Happy Fall, y’all! Temps are still a bit warm but calendar says September so I’m calling it Fall.  Hope everyone has an amazing week, here’s a few marketing and business stories I read over the last week that caught my eye:

 

Investment firm a16z is pushing it’s Can’t Be Evil license as a way for NFT holders to allow others to use its token and build upon it’s image and properties.  The license is free to use and apply to NFTs, and the hope is that it will become a standard license for NFTs to help holders protect their IP rights, as well as more easily allow others to build upon and remix and share that IP within the confines of the license.

 

Kristi Dosh had an interesting sit-down recently with NCAA President Mark Emmert on a variety of topics. Obviously, NIL was a big focus of the conversation. Emmert lamented the fact that paying student athletes could change their role in the eyes of the law to being employees of a university.  Which opens up the SA and university to a lot of legal issues that neither side may want to entangle themselves in.

Emmert suggested that a better alternative may be to explore the idea of universities employing more Brand Ambassadors.  Emmert suggested that universities focus on quantifying the amount of brand value that its SAs are creating, and then compensate SAs from that ‘fund’ based on each SAs contributions, which could be measured using some formula or criteria.  Colleges have used ambassadors for years, but the idea of treating student athletes as ambassadors is a new untouched, so it will be interesting to see how this idea could play out as the NIL era emerges.

 

Starbucks is looking to incorporate NFT technology into its existing loyalty program.  This idea of brands incorporating NFTs into loyalty or ambassador programs is something I’ve talked about here before. In general, the Starbucks Odessey program will leverage the additional functionality that NFTs can provide into the structure of the loyalty programs it has used in the past.

This is a good start, but as more brands begin to incorporate NFTs and blockchain technologies into ambassador and loyalty programs, members will begin to want more.  As more web3 savvy customers become involved in these programs, they will expect their NFTs to grant more than digital perks and discounts.  They will expect their tokens to grant ownership and even governance over the programs.  Watch for this to become more common in the coming years.

 

So that’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute, I hope everyone has a fantabulous week!

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About Mack Collier

My name is Mack Collier and I am a digital marketing and content strategist located in Alabama. Since 2006 I've helped companies of all sizes from startups to global brands such as Adobe, Dell and Ingersoll-Rand, create customer-centric programs, content and experiences. A long-time internet geek, I've been online since 1988 and began using social networking sites in 1991 when I joined Prodigy. Today, I help companies understand how new technologies like web3, crypto and artificial intelligence can integrate with existing marketing strategies to lead to exceptional customer experiences.