What customer relationship in the age of Web3?
What if blockchain technology were at the heart of future loyalty programs in order to be able to deploy a new ecosystem and redefine the customer relationship of tomorrow
Asics partners with STEPN
In the age of Web3, the world of sport is in turmoil around the notion of “move to earn”. That is to say that sports activity such as jogging or walking is remunerated by cryptocurrencies. An emerging trend whose brand Asics took the lead by partnering with the STEPN app. Asics communicated around this partnership saying that the objective was to motivate Web3 players to practice physical activity. STEPN allows you to earn cryptocurrency simply by walking or running thanks to NFTs and blockchain technology. To access the rewards, users must purchase virtual shoes in the form of NFTs within the app or on an exchange.
Then for each walk or jog users are paid, with the STEPN GMT token, based on their physical activity. Physical activity is measured by the STEPN mobile application. The tokens earned can then be used to improve the virtual shoes, acquire new ones or be resold… Asics with this partnership has created a dedicated sneaker collection, in the form of NFTs. The entire collection was sold out in a few hours, and today the price of these virtual shoes exceeds $3800. With such a price, owning a pair of these virtual shoes becomes a status item within the Web3 ecosystem. It is also a real boon for the brand, which has generated additional revenue but which will above all be able to animate this sports community via NFTs and the associated smart contract. One can imagine that during a shop visit the owners of these virtual shoes canaccess specific offers. Like what Adidas did with its NFTs collection a few weeks ago.
Reward people who come to the store
In this context, why not create a new form of loyalty with the concept of “visit to earn“, the objective of which is to compensate the consumers who move and consume in physical stores.
A startup like iHunt4 offers an augmented reality treasure hunt solution. It is similar to the famous Pokémon GO but for shopping centers, chain stores or cities. The principle is quite simple: using an application users must discover places, once there the application displays in augmented reality coupons, promotions or gift cards. In addition to each place visited, users earn IGC tokens that can be used on the startup’s marketplace to buy products from partner brands, services and even other NFTs.
This is a blatant monetization of feeds to keep consumers going to malls. Perhaps soon, an actor like Westfield will launch its cryptocurrency with this logic of treasure hunting and the currency won can be used in the shops or restaurants of its shopping centers.
And if the future of customer relations passed by the deployment of NFTs beyond the logic of gamification and remuneration that we have just seen.
An NFT to follow the life of your car
This is the path taken by the car manufacturer Alfa Romeo. The manufacturer has decided to associate an NFT with each sale of its next SUV. Buyers of each vehicle will have a unique NFT associated with their car. This NFT will be dynamic throughout the life of the vehicle, that is to say that each maintenance at the dealership can be recorded there. It is therefore the vehicle maintenance log that will be dematerialized in the blockchain via this NFT.
When the vehicle is sold on the second-hand market, this NFT will be transmitted to the new buyer with the vehicle. And this is where everything will change because the brand can be informed of this sale and activate dedicated communication via the NFT smart contract.
This initiative, beyond providing transparency, traceability, trust, will potentially generate a new dimension of customer relationship. A long-term relationship that will be based on the life of the products. Brands will then be able to communicate, offer services, push content, access owners of products purchased second-hand for thanks to the deployment of NFTs.
The value of NFTs is not only in the artistic and speculative dimension that can be seen with collections like the Bored Ape Yacht Club, but in the structural dimension that they offer for the customer relationship.
During SXSW, the startup Vylto explained how NFTs will be at the heart of tomorrow’s CRM. NFTs have the power to redefine the famous 4Ps of marketing because they allow to know the origin, the presence, the property and to interact with people. Brands and companies must understand NFTs as an infrastructure tool for the Web3 customer relationship and not as a speculative product to collect images as is all too often presented in the majority of the media. .
