How NFTs Might Shakeup Food Marketing, Plus United Fresh and More
For food companies, NFTs may be about more than speculative trading. They can increase brand awareness and loyalty. Plus, United Fresh and PMA are combining, and sesame gets added to the Big Eight.
Earlier this spring, NFTs — aka non-fungible tokens — were all the rage. The digital tokens or certificates can be a photo, gif, song or video, and are sold using blockchain, making each one unique and unable to be replicated. It’s that one-of-a-kind nature that caused NFTs of works of art, NBA highlights and an animated cat with a Pop-Tart for a body to fetch up to $600,000 and more on various marketplaces.
And although the bubble may have already burst — total sales and dollar amounts were drastically down as of late April, according to nonfungible.com, which tracks NFT sales — the pop culture shifting digital doodads (a Saturday Night Live skit from March might be the best explanation out there) could be useful to food brands.
“It’s like the digital representation of a physical collectible. This is another way to attract irrationally loyal fans of your brand.”
Gabor points to Pringles’ release of 50 NFTs of a 5-second video highlighting a new, not-actually-real flavor called CryptoCrisp. All the money raised went to the Ukrainian artist who created the video, while Pringles got all the publicity.
“This is a way to take a brand and have it transcend the actual product,” Gabor said, “which [for Pringles] is a can, and it’s full of these processed potato chips that you can put in your mouth and make a duck bill out of.”
Much like people all over the world wear shirts with the Coca-Cola logo, NFTs are a way for people to demonstrate their fandom for a product, and it’s a way to drive engagement. Taco Bell released NFTs of animated tacos, and Pizza Hut Canada released one that’s a digital image of a pixelated slice of ’za.
Although NFTs could become the next here-for-one-summer Pokémon Go, Gabor thinks there might be enough energy around it to pick up steam.
“When consumer packaged goods companies, experiential brands, exciting content creators and sports brands start to create mass around a movement, that may be enough to actually sort of thrust this into the world of something that’s realistic,” she said.
NFTs are realistic enough that there’s been some backlash online about their environmental impact. Since they’re bought and sold using marketplaces that use cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, which takes a lot of electricity to generate, critics say the environmental costs outweigh the benefits.
“My response to that is, ‘Holy sh*t, calm down, people,’ ” Gabor said.
She countered, pointing out that trading cards, T-shirts, mugs and other physical manifestations of collectibles also have potential environmental impacts.
But, Gabor added, it is important for brands to be prepared if NFTs continue to pick up steam.
“Brands need to keep their ear to the ground to understand what all of the underlying sentiments are and who is having an outsized share of voice in a conversation,” she said. “Make sure that [you] are prepared — not necessarily to respond, but to be proactive about, what is [your] stance on these things.”