How NFT Brands Can Cut Through the Noise

managing director at NewCampus, a modern business school in Asia. Exploring the intersection of the future of work and learning with an Asian twist.

NFT brands of all designs and value propositions are popping up on a daily basis. Any new project that thinks they are more valuable because of the uniqueness of their pfp art or potential roadmap is wrong.

The biggest mistake NFT projects make is launching into a market where they have no audience. The best way to cut through the noise is to design brand identities that appeal to a niche audience and build from the ground up. Early adopters can help with this process, but you need to connect with them early, build the genesis community, and expand from the brand you’ve created together. Knowing your brand – who you are as a project – gives you a higher chance of survival.

As a startup entrepreneur building a challenger brand in a crowded environment, I always draw inspiration from adjacent industries in my business strategy. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel; we just need to learn from what has been done by others.

Understand your foundation

What do my holders want? What ideas do they resonate with? How do they like to communicate? Your answers to these questions and others like them will create your brand identity. Deciding on the demographics that fit your community and building your identity around it will tailor your project to your target audience. Once you understand who your core stakeholders are and what makes your project newsworthy, you can craft a pitch that appeals to the right person who wants to buy into your brand culture and vibe.

Develop the materials, assets and communications that best represent your brand identity and community design aesthetic. Update your website and social media to best represent your brand, build community trust and showcase your NFTs in their best light. Then, once you have an understanding of who your owners are and how they contribute to the community, you can create marketing content. Too many founders skip this important step, thinking that after launch they can let the brand market itself. But a project needs more than a polished, distinctive launch to build a long-lasting brand.

Derivatives and duplicates

Sometimes the other mouse gets the cheese. In the NFT world, derivative projects duplicate or steal ideas from artists and well-established independent brands, leveraging their design and community resources to bring to market faster. With the ability to get a new style into the hands of holders in near real-time, spin-off projects are able to accelerate the content, style and community management toolset to satisfy the preferences of smaller, more targeted segments of holders that were unable to invest in the original brand. They can also implement proven NFT properties, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club laser eyes, reducing the design cycle of rarity collections. As a unique brand is identified as a new trend, copycats roll out their ultra-fast fashion designs and launch a competitor into the market as quickly as possible.

I think blue chip projects like Cool Cats, World of Women (full disclosure: I’m an investor) and Doodles can learn from these derivative projects that move faster. Increasingly, we are seeing these new brands distribute playbooks that effectively engage a new crowd of users entering the NFT ecosystem. With the significant decline in Opensea (subscription required) and other marketplaces, it is key for both emerging and established brands to attract the next generation of holders entering the NFT world.

In other words, brands need new ways to break through the noise to engage and retain audiences. Just because an early evangelical community was built doesn’t mean they will stay for long. In the NFT world, a lot depends on “drops”. While Bored Ape Yacht Club is usually credited with creating the phenomenon of drop culture, fast-following projects like Goblintown have innovated by building a strong story into their Airdrop to immerse their audience in their world and keep them on their toes for future revelations. Some established projects, like Cyberkongz (full disclosure: I’m a former investor), have used second- and third-generation drops to capture a wider audience, but for other exclusive brands, where values ​​such as culture and intimacy are inherent to their brand identity, may creating new drops potentially alienating the audience.

Community-led initiatives

The ecosystem is broken, and a brand’s survival often depends on how well they navigate the complicated landscape. Project founders who spend time interacting with the community can have a big impact. Building with a long-term strategy in mind makes sense, but this can also leave owners feeling unheard. Community-driven projects like Genuine Undead can be tailored to their holder’s incentives in everything from social media conversations moderated on Discord and collectively informing decisions about what to build next. By keeping the idea open and emphasizing an iterative process, projects have the opportunity to keep the community culture alive and highly engaged—both before and after a product or feature is shipped.

Despite bearish market conditions, loyal owners want projects that will show them affection: They want personal interactions tailored to their tastes, habits and lifestyles. It is important to coordinate with highly motivated community leaders and find ways to engage the rest of the holders as well. Projects seeking to engage early evangelists, who are likely to have developed a rising reputation, must engage with them in several ways.

Final thoughts

Brand DNA is authenticity at its most powerful, and a smart project will find a brand DNA that helps inform all its decisions, from product development to hiring, partnerships and influencer management. NFT projects that focus on defining and explicitly communicating their unique points of differentiation, their DNA, are the ones that will stand out from the noise, creating loyalty and deep emotional connections with holders that withstand evolving trends and macro downturns.

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