Another sports brand has started on NFT. On May 11, according to the tweet of American lawyer Mike kondoudis, lululemon has submitted metauniverse and NFT related trademark applications for its brand name and logo, covering NFT, encrypted transactions, metauniverse retail stores, metauniverse sports classes, virtual clothing, etc.
Puma, another sports brand, has also taken a step towards NFT. According to the official website of Manchester City Club of the Premier League, in order to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Manchester City's first Premier League Championship and the landmark "93:20" moment, Manchester City will cooperate with puma (PUMA) to launch the "93:20" digital football shoes NFT created by digital artist musketon, which will be released on makersplace in the NFT market on May 13, with a limit of 120 pieces.
According to incomplete statistics of titanium media app, since this year, sports brands such as Anta, Tebu, Nike, 361 °, China Li Ning and puma have released NFT related sports trendy products.
Public information shows that the full name of NFT is non fungible token, which is translated as non homogenous token. It is a digital asset encrypted by blockchain technology, with unique and indivisible characteristics. This means that no matter what is "attached" is pictures, songs, blind boxes, or virtual sneakers, people can trade assets, especially in the secondary market, which usually has a good premium.
For example, during the Winter Olympics, the nwayplay platform sold a Bing Dwen Dwen NFT blind box officially authorized by the International Olympic Committee, with a total of 500 Limited sales, each of which was $99, and each of which was limited to 5. The secondary transaction prices generally rose to $800 to $1000, and some even quoted $88888.
So, from Nike, Anta and Li Ning to lululemon and puma, what is the charm of NFT that attracts sports brands to rush to the beach?
Sports brands involved in NFT
How popular NFT is, you can feel it by looking at the atmosphere in the field of sports brands.
During the Winter Olympic Games, Anta created an immersive interactive digital space of "Anta ice and snow spirit", and launched the "2022 limited high-energy ice and snow NFT digital collection", which was distributed 72 hours after it was launched.
On March 20, Tebu released a pair of digital running shoes named "160x metaverse", with a price of up to 1603 yuan and a network limit of 321 pairs. They were sold out 70 minutes after release.
On April 20, 361 ° United tide play brand IP fatko launched the NFT digital collection of "I am the future of the East" series for the first time, presenting the fashionable lifestyle advocated by young people in a scene with tide play as the carrier.
On April 23, Nike and rtfkt launched their first Ethereum based NFT sneakers, which are digital wearable items designed for use in the metauniverse. At present, this series of NFT sneakers has been resold in the secondary market. The starting price on the opensea platform is about 5 eth, and the price has soared all the way.
“ALIEN”/“MURAKAMI”
On April 24, China Li Ning announced that it had reached a cooperation with the non homogenous token (NFT) numbered #4102 of bored ape yacht club to sell a series of products of "China Li Ning boredom ape Trend Sports Club". At present, products such as T-shirts and baseball caps have been launched, and a trend flash shop called "boredom is not boredom" has been opened to combine the current pixel style with trendy sports elements such as frisbee and motorcycle.
Recently, the football brand kipsta of decathlon released its first NFT shoe kipsta barrio, with an NFT exclusive exchange code, so that consumers can get a personalized and exclusive experience.
In May, the sports brand wading NFT kept walking. Lululemon submitted the application for yuanuniverse and NFT related trademarks for its brand name and logo. Puma sold NFT football shoes on makersplace in NFT market, which has the potential to catch up with the trend.
According to the observation of titanium media app, among the major sports brands, Nike has the most extensive layout in the field of NFT.
Photo source @ Nike official promotional film
According to public information, Nike had previously created "nikeland" on roblox, built in sports themed games, and sold digital virtual shoes, clothing and accessories.
In December last year, Nike spent $200 million to acquire rtfkt, a well-known virtual sneaker design company. John Donahoe, CEO of Nike, said: "this acquisition is another step for Nike to accelerate its digital transformation and can serve athletes and creators who are at the intersection of sports, creativity, games and culture."
In those years, Musk's shoes that resembled the cybertruck of an electric pickup truck were made by rtfkt
At the same time, Nike has applied for the blockchain patent "cryptokicks", which can track the shoe holders and NFT related trademarks such as shoes, clothing and works of art.
In addition, Nike also announced the establishment of the virtual studio Nike virtual studios and appointed Ron Faris, vice president of snkrs, as the head of the new department. The Department will operate as an independent studio and establish creative centers in Los Angeles and New York to serve the Creative Communities in these key cities.
Adidas, another giant, is not idle. In cooperation with the famous NFT collector and ambassador gmoney and the popular punks comic NFT project, it released its first NFT series "into the metaverse" at the end of last year, successfully sold 30000, and the holder can open an exclusive experience in the sandbox metauniverse. According to statistics, Adidas officials in this series alone earned more than 22 million US dollars.
At the end of April this year, Adidas announced that it would distribute physical products such as sweatshirts, sportswear and hats to intothe metaverse NFT holders to match the brand image of gmoney and punks comic.
It is worth noting that many domestic sports brands call NFT products as "digital collections", while foreign countries uniformly use the term "NFT", which is caused by the different development modes of NFT at home and abroad.
According to titanium media app, in the overseas NFT market, the transaction volume of NFT in the secondary market is much larger than that in the primary market, accounting for as much as 80%, which also shows that its market has become mature, its financial attributes are obvious, and the liquidity of NFT products is better.
Picture source @ Anxin securities
In contrast to the domestic market, the national regulatory policy on virtual currency has always been strict. Although NFT is different from virtual currency, it is strictly controlled in view of the financial risks such as speculation and illegal fund-raising in digital collections. In this case, domestic NFT transactions are mainly limited to the primary market of digital collections, and most platforms do not open secondary market transactions.
At present, including whale detective under Alibaba, Baidu's "Baidu digital collection", Tencent's "magic core digital collection" and Netease's "Netease planet digital collection", secondary trading and resale in any form are not supported.
This also means that Anta, Li Ning, 361 ° and other sports brands have entered NFT one after another, not mainly for commercial transformation, but more emphasis on the marketing value behind it.
Taking Li Ning of China as an example, the "boring ape" with which it has reached cooperation is one of the most famous NFT avatar projects in the world. 10000 copies were issued in 2021. Celebrities from all walks of life, including Jay Chou, Justin Bieber and O'Neill, are its buyers. Relying on the recitation of these pioneer characters, "boring ape" has become the top of the NFT industry and attracted countless young people to follow.
China's Li Ning bought 4102 avatar, and since NFT opens IP copyright to holders, China's Li Ning can continue to use it to do anything allowed by law. For example, produce and sell clothes, shoes and hats with boring ape heads, or hold offline marketing activities, or even shoot advertising videos to gather popularity in various ways.
Li Ning co branded "boring ape" Sanlitun to open a flash shop. The picture comes from @ China's Li Ning official microblog
In the eyes of young people, becoming cool, fashionable and trendy is undoubtedly what Li Ning in China pursues. Brands can use digital collections to connect directly with users for more refined user operations, such as providing electronic gifts, cards and vouchers, or developing virtual sneakers to strengthen users' brand perception. It can be said that there are many ways to play, which is an excellent marketing weapon.
Of course, overseas sports brand giants will not miss this marketing bonus. For example, Adidas once photographed the boring ape number #8774, created the role known as "Indigo Herz" for the second time, equipped it with customized Adidas brand sportswear, and then used it as the avatar of social media. Marketing methods are also full of tricks, such as launching a series of comics to promote their own NFT projects and develop marketing value to the greatest extent.
In addition to the field of sportswear, NFT is invading more fields such as games, luxury goods and music. For example, luxury giant Gucci has reached a cooperation with fashion company superplastic and jointly launched the "supergucci" NFT series. The series plans to create 250 NFT works, which will be released in three times.
"Supergucci" NFT series
It can be said that at the moment of "everything can be NFT", major brands are unwilling to be behind others, either in the name of marketing or in the name of trading, have cut into the NFT track in succession, with the intention of eating the market cake.
NFT squeezes the foam. Where is the "virtual future" of sports brands
According to titanium media app, NFT is one of the emerging technologies in the Web 3.0 community and is considered to be the key or pass to open the meta universe. However, with the metauniverse, Web3 0 is becoming more and more popular, and the NFT trend seems to begin to appear a "foam".
Recently, the first quarter report of 2022 released by NFT market data and analysis company non fungible showed that the global NFT market was depressed in the first quarter of this year while the sales volume, the number of active wallets, and the number of buyers and sellers appeared.
Coincidentally, the value of NFT works has also plummeted.
According to the NFT market 2021 annual report released by non fungible, after the NFT market plummeted in May last year, the loss resale transactions surged in the secondary market, that is, the transactions between users, much higher than the profit resale transactions.
Relevant cases abound.
On February 11, the day Bing Dwen Dwen NFT was sold on February 11, the highest transaction unit price was once as high as US $1888. However, the next day, the trading volume and floor price continued to fall. By the 15th, the trading volume of Bing Dwen Dwen NFT in the whole network was only 3, and the floor price also fell from thousands of US dollars to US $340.
In March last year, the founder of twitter made his first tweet released in 2006 into an NFT auction, which sold a sky high price of $2.9 million. Recently, the buyer Sina estavi wanted to sell it for $48 million. However, there were only seven bidders, and the highest bid was only $277, which reduced the price 10000 times.
In addition, according to the Wall Street Journal, an NFT buyer bought the snoop dog series NFT named "Doggy 4292" for about $32000 in April. The work was recently auctioned and bid for $25.5 million. The embarrassment is that the highest bid is only about $210.
Accordingly, the Wall Street Journal pointed out that this phenomenon may be a harbinger of the complete collapse of the NFT market.
Even "Iron Man" Musk has criticized NFT for a long time.
On January 22 this year, twitter announced that it would launch a feature on its subscription service twitter blue, allowing IOS users to use NFT as their avatar. Musk immediately expressed his attitude: wasting resources is too annoying.
On May 4, musk changed his twitter avatar into an image containing 101 boring ape avatars. At the same time, he sent a twitter, joking: "I don't know... It seems a little replaceable". In other words, if users want to use the "boring ape" Avatar, they can download it on the Internet. It was not long before people questioned the substitutability of NFT avatars.
Musk's "boring ape" head
In fact, NFT copyright issues that have emerged in recent years have attracted the attention of all countries and are constantly tightening regulatory policies.
In March this year, the Biden government issued the first administrative order on digital assets in the history of the United States, calling for strengthening supervision. In terms of consumer protection, the Biden government evaluated and studied investor scams, and strengthened supervision on the systemic financial risks brought by digital assets.
Titanium media app noted that just last month, Hangzhou Internet court held a public hearing in accordance with the law to hear a dispute involving NFT's infringement of works' information network communication right, which is also the "first case" of domestic NFT infringement.
In this case, the plaintiff with the authorization of NFT work of "fat tiger vaccination" found that he sold the work without permission on the "meta universe" platform operated by the defendant. After the trial of the case, the Hangzhou Internet court ruled that the defendant immediately deleted the works involved published on the platform involved, and compensated the plaintiff for economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling 4000 yuan.
Picture source @ official official account of Hangzhou Internet court
Insiders said that the case provided a certain reference basis for the punishment of subsequent relevant cases in the digital collection market, and also put forward more stringent compliance requirements for the trading platform.
Even though the NFT foam has loomed and relevant laws and regulations have become stricter, some non-conforming digital collection platforms in China are still common. Not long ago, official account including yidianzang, Yuanben space, zero earth, Huasheng meta, Ibox and so on were banned. These platforms are all involved in NFT digital collection trading.
It is worth noting that sports brands in it should pay more attention to the dynamics of NFT primary market while making good use of NFT for marketing.
Taking the digital collections of domestic cultural and Museum categories as an example, last year, Jingtan and Dunhuang Institute of fine arts launched two digital collections with a total limit of 16000 sets, which were sold out as soon as they were sold out. Since then, major museums have launched their own characteristic digital collections. In addition, the digital collection of trendy play is also the "sweet pastry" of the primary market, which is favored by consumers.
These digital collections have a feature, that is, through IP operation, the value of digital collections has been improved.
In this way, whether Nike builds a virtual flagship store nikeland on roblox, acquires rtfkt to build virtual sneakers, or Adidas creates boring ape characters for the second time, the logic behind it is the IP operation of the virtual "trendy shoes" industry, while the flow of foreign trendy shoes culture and relatively loose regulatory policies make it have natural IP shaping power.
Of course, the rise of domestic national tide also gives domestic sports brands the opportunity to build digital collection IP. It is worth looking forward to what kind of chemical reaction will be produced by the combination of cultural creation, Sinology and other elements with the virtual world.
(this article is the first titanium media app, written by Liu muzong)