The reticent truth regarding legacy brands flirting with adopting an effective web3 strategy is that they have none. The arbitrage of web3 marketing lies in the understanding that these otherwise market juggernauts have not adequately explored the new medium they will soon have to participate in.

The term loyalty is thrown around the web3 community exceedingly. It’s become a crutch, a selling point for the industry, for lack of better appurtenances. Legacy brands have loyalty. They’ve massaged and crafted it for decades, some longer. They are better at loyalty than anyone in web3. They don’t need web3 to “build loyalty.”

The hard truth about web3 is that most individuals are not ready or not interested in it. Even if they are, there is barely a web3 to speak of.

What legacy needs is:

1. Assistance transferring their existing customer base into the evolving digital landscape

2. Capture new growth or attract a “digital first” audience

3. Unlock a new economy, accelerate revenue

The methods of executing these initiatives will vary according to brand, but these three points will need to be addressed in order to be proven successful.

The best current method of executing these points of success is to run an auxiliary business parallel to the legacy business. If this sounds crazy, I’ll give a few examples and some visuals to help guide the point.

The best example of what I’m calling ‘auxiliary’ business is the US economy. Since the introduction of blockchain, there has been an economy running parallel to the “legacy” US economy. Blockchain technology has sucked more than $1.6 billion out of the ecosystem and is expected to continue its growth as more households convert USD to digital assets. This money didn’t disappear. There is an alternative economy running alongside our existing one. Rather than attempt to convert the entire country at once, the digitally native were first to adoption. The remanding population, weary of the promised utopia, tested the waters, slowly trickling in to the digital economy. As the two worlds continue a gradual, evolutionary synchronicity, the digital natives will meet the traditionalists in the center. See the image below.

Another example of successful parallels is Nike. To date, Nike has earned over $185 million in revenue and royalties from NFTs alone. They’ve unlocked an entire economy that was nonexistent one year ago, and it’s just getting started. Similar to the US economy, they didn’t attempt to convert sneaker-heads into NFT collectors. The digitally native understood the value immediately, while the legacy audience will find their way into the ecosystem. Those more attracted to Nike’s physical items, will at some point, merge with those more interested in digital goods.

Where Nike’s economy differs from the US economy, and is more aligned with web3 brand strategy, is their consolidation of talent (specifically creatives). If web2 was the consolidation of developers (with examples of Google, Facebook, etc. hiring devs with good salaries to take them off the market to competitors) then web3 will be the consolidation of artists and creatives around brand.

Nike has engaged the creative class to refresh and spur new vitality into the brand. Instead of maintaining just one auxiliary business model, they have numerous teams, or pods, working outside the traditional constraints of Nike’s corporate structure. These teams have access to the exorbitant resources of Nike with the freedom to nurture ideas in a modest environment. The positive financial and cultural reverberations of focusing on design in web2 will carry over into web3. New artists and directors will be catapulted to acclaim and compensated for their creative endorsements by larger institutions .

The best web3 strategies will run parallel entities who excel at melding creative, cultural pulse, with tech innovation, to create contemporary gratifying experiences.

The reticent truth regarding legacy brands flirting with adopting an effective web3 strategy is that they have none. The arbitrage of web3 marketing lies in the understanding that these otherwise market juggernauts have not adequately explored the new medium they will soon have to participate in.

The term loyalty is thrown around the web3 community exceedingly. It’s become a crutch, a selling point for the industry, for lack of better appurtenances. Legacy brands have loyalty. They’ve massaged and crafted it for decades, some longer. They are better at loyalty than anyone in web3. They don’t need web3 to “build loyalty.”

The hard truth about web3 is that most individuals are not ready or not interested in it. Even if they are, there is barely a web3 to speak of.

What legacy needs is:

1. Assistance transferring their existing customer base into the evolving digital landscape

2. Capture new growth or attract a “digital first” audience

3. Unlock a new economy, accelerate revenue

The methods of executing these initiatives will vary according to brand, but these three points will need to be addressed in order to be proven successful.

The best current method of executing these points of success is to run an auxiliary business parallel to the legacy business. If this sounds crazy, I’ll give a few examples and some visuals to help guide the point.

The best example of what I’m calling ‘auxiliary’ business is the US economy. Since the introduction of blockchain, there has been an economy running parallel to the “legacy” US economy. Blockchain technology has sucked more than $1.6 billion out of the ecosystem and is expected to continue its growth as more households convert USD to digital assets. This money didn’t disappear. There is an alternative economy running alongside our existing one. Rather than attempt to convert the entire country at once, the digitally native were first to adoption. The remanding population, weary of the promised utopia, tested the waters, slowly trickling in to the digital economy. As the two worlds continue a gradual, evolutionary synchronicity, the digital natives will meet the traditionalists in the center. See the image below.

Another example of successful parallels is Nike. To date, Nike has earned over $185 million in revenue and royalties from NFTs alone. They’ve unlocked an entire economy that was nonexistent one year ago, and it’s just getting started. Similar to the US economy, they didn’t attempt to convert sneaker-heads into NFT collectors. The digitally native understood the value immediately, while the legacy audience will find their way into the ecosystem. Those more attracted to Nike’s physical items, will at some point, merge with those more interested in digital goods.

Where Nike’s economy differs from the US economy, and is more aligned with web3 brand strategy, is their consolidation of talent (specifically creatives). If web2 was the consolidation of developers (with examples of Google, Facebook, etc. hiring devs with good salaries to take them off the market to competitors) then web3 will be the consolidation of artists and creatives around brand.

Nike has engaged the creative class to refresh and spur new vitality into the brand. Instead of maintaining just one auxiliary business model, they have numerous teams, or pods, working outside the traditional constraints of Nike’s corporate structure. These teams have access to the exorbitant resources of Nike with the freedom to nurture ideas in a modest environment. The positive financial and cultural reverberations of focusing on design in web2 will carry over into web3. New artists and directors will be catapulted to acclaim and compensated for their creative endorsements by larger institutions .

The best web3 strategies will run parallel entities who excel at melding creative, cultural pulse, with tech innovation, to create contemporary gratifying experiences.