In brief
Web3 is ingrained with promises of democracy and inclusivity. Yet, in the world of brands, this high-reward, high-risk bet is mostly utilised by big companies that already hold a substantial amount of power. The advocates believe Web3 will create new economies, while the sceptics are contemplating the longevity and enduring value of the novel technologies.
Web3 represents a return to the collaborative roots of the Internet. It throws a life jacket to the users who were enchanted by the Web2 illusion of ownership and decision-making. Everyone can truly own a part of the Internet now.
However, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. The new generation internet faces a list of concerns, posing a threat to its wider adoption. Web3's lack of regulation and wobbly infrastructure raises a question if everything you can imagine can or even should become real.
Third Time Lucky
We are already living in the metaverse, leading multiple digital lives and choosing the ways we present ourselves within those. Brands do too, as they constantly invent and reinvent themselves. Led by the determination to provoke fresh forms of creativity and engage users, brands have been exploring new applications of technology. With that came a risk of over-reliance on tech, giving way to homogenization – everyone’s started to look and sound the same. This proved to be difficult to find a way out. So someone created one.
People like to talk about the mysterious Web3 like it’s a Black Mirror episode. Except it isn’t. The new generation Internet is not the easiest topic to crack. It requires time and effort from agencies and their clients. Yet, mystifying and complicating something that was created “for everyone” is paradoxical.
There is as much hype around it as there is scepticism. Web3 is at the intersection of increased online presence and people’s desire to be offline and get outside so it leaves us in a really confusing place. Should we be inherently suspicious about the longevity and enduring value of the metaverse, NFTs and other novel technologies? Is it a human-made digital utopia? Will the initial interest fade faster than your summer tan?
History 101
The first static version of the World Wide Web emerged in 1990 and its origins were all about consumption, not production. It was all about taking things from the offline world and putting them online. If someone’s aunt hadn’t shared her apple pie recipe on the Internet, we’d still be sending faxes to our friends. Web1 was great at allowing people to communicate and exchange knowledge, but offered limited product functions until the interactive Web2 came along in 2005 and started building social networks. This marked the triumph of Big Tech.
The Internet today is controlled by a handful of big players – Meta, Google… you know who they are. Big Tech uses our personal data in a way that is convenient for them, locking users into their platforms. Here lies the paradox of Web2 – enabling users to generate content whilst also taking user control away. Even though Web2 allows brands to connect with different audiences quickly and effectively, things got out of hand. Does Cambridge Analytica ring a bell?
The Web3 orchestra
Web3 returns us back to the original idea that the Web is for everyone. Or at least it should be. We’re talking about a collaborative place where, for the first time, data is open and secure. At least more secure than it is under the big corp watch.
Web3 describes a decentralised and democratic version of the Internet. It leverages AI and is built on blockchain, including several complicated-sounding cases – cryptocurrencies, decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and even decentralised finance (DeFi). Web3 is owned by users and builders and is orchestrated by digital assets. Often it is mixed with a metaverse, which is a shortcut for virtual worlds. All because technologies that are used to build Web3 have been influencing the way we experience metaverse. But don’t worry, you can join the club with your own definition.
Web3 is what you make it, blowing the concept of ownership and allowing everyone to own a part of the Internet. It’s like one of those sci-fi movies from the 2000s, where fictional planets are run by energetic and suspicious communities who vote, decide and create problems collectively. In those planets, no one could change the company’s name to ‘X’ and implement a baseless rebrand without the community's approval. But we are still on planet Earth, trying to understand what Web3 means for the future of brands and creative communities here.
From products to creators
Web2 holds users hostage for the purpose of monetization and approaches them as products. Web3 makes the Internet a more inclusive place, empowering creators to make and distribute their work without any greedy intermediaries. In the world of Web2, actors and directors have to bow to the big media and hope to get royalties from their work, SMEs are victims of the holy social algorithm, and musicians are tied to a platform that earns more money than the artists themselves. Web3 offers a different way and a bouquet of benefits.
The first one is obvious. Decentralisation enables co-creation, as everyone around the world can work and develop things together and celebrate new forms of creativity. A few years ago creative agencies thought Miro embodied the peak and convenience of seamless co-creation and teamwork. If only we knew what was coming…
Co-creation is co-ownership. Take Pixar, a brand known for its quality storytelling, emotional depth of its films and a broad audience appeal. When you talk about the company's productions, you can’t separate Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Joe Ranft, Lee Unkrich, and Brad Bird (known as the ‘Braintrust’) from it. Pixar’s culture and exceptional storytelling have been dependent on a small circle of ingenious minds with a limited knowledge distribution. That explains how the phenomenal company lost its touch shortly after it was acquired by Disney. It got bigger, not better.
Now, the previously sceptical and retired studio co-founder Ed Catmull sits on the board of Baobab Studios, a new, independent interactive animation studio backed by Disney, Dreamworks and Pixar with a mission “to inspire you to dream and bring out your sense of wonder.” Its new collectable metaverse project, Momoguro, is promising to take storytelling to new heights, focusing on creating a real sense of community with the help of Web3.
Hollywood heavyweights are also joining the Web3 craze. Actors Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher have released an experimental TV show Stoner Cats, empowering storytellers to connect with their audiences directly and even become part of the creative process. The project was a result of a desire to decentralise the entertainment industry, break barriers between creators and audiences and challenge the dominant masculinity narrative within crypto and NFT worlds.
Web3 helps brands to see their audiences as active participants rather than passive consumers. Sharing knowledge and inspiration is made easier. Users can form like-minded communities and observe the direct impact they have over brands’ growth and development, instead of feeding Big Tech algorithms. A win for everyone.
Garden of opportunities
Brands have been experimenting with new digital formats for quite some time. The gaming industry drove a growing demand for immersive media. VR and AR are getting increasingly popular. The metaverse proved to be an innovative gateway to brand and customer relationships.
Virtual spaces work as extensions to existing brand projects and campaigns across a variety of digital channels. This delivers brand loyalty and engagement opportunities on a silver platter. Web3 is characterised by personalised and memorable interactions. As the pandemic and ever-increasing digital opportunities raised the consumer bar, it became evident that brands delivering personalised solutions grow their revenue faster than peers.
Marketeers rejoice and jump on the sticky marketing train. Nike launched .SWOOSH, a Web3 platform to offer everyone from athletes to collectors an equitable space to design and influence the future of sport and the brand itself. This new community experience supports the overall brand strategy and the strong push on diversity.
Major luxury houses have entered the metaverse world. In 2021, Gucci launched the Gucci Garden, an immersive multimedia experience set in Italy, followed by an experimental space Gucci Vault Land built in the following year. The brand took a deep look at customer needs and created a digital high-end boutique experience minus the judgemental looks from the store staff and terrifying security guards.
The world isn’t perfect, but the metaverse might be if brands are willing to reinvent their products and services and embrace gamification, not replicate the old. Gucci has also launched an AR try-on campaign and avatar clothing collection, intending to attract younger audiences and build loyalty by offering affordable digital goods and flexibility. Gucci sneakers for 12 dollars? Sign me up.
Want it, can’t have it
We all know the trope that anything digital can’t be trusted as real. It can be copied, modified, falsified and replaced. This makes it challenging to create scarcity and grow demand. However, one of the new ideas that define Web3 technology is exactly that. Using blockchain, computers can create digital scarcity in ways only humans have been able to do before. Web3 helps users to build wealth through different types of social, intellectual and experiential capital and for brands - to differentiate by providing the opportunity to own one-of-a-kind digital assets. It encourages users to hold things in high regard as they recognize their cultural significance or the status it provides.
NFTs have authenticity certificates. Proof of ownership and asset origins are all recorded on the blockchain. And yet, some argue that digital goods cannot mimic the real value of physical goods. Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist known as Beeple, would disagree. In 2021, he sold an NFT of his work for 69 million dollars at Christie’s, making him one of the most wealthy living artists. Jackson Pollock Studio launched an NFT collection that sold for 525 thousand dollars in less than three days. Web3 is as generous to personal brands, as it is to commercial ones. Regardless of their experience within a respective market.
Untangling the Web
It’s not all rainbows and unicorns. There are many concerns around Web3. One is inclusivity. Women are underrepresented among founders and investors – only 13% of Web3 founding teams include women, and only 7% of founders are women. Web3 conferences attract thousands and thousands of people each year, yet the majority of keynote speakers are male and white.
The dependence on computing power is directly related to increased energy use and tech waste. Even though different Web3 technologies are used to fight climate change, some applications, such as NFTs, are not great for the environment which may clash with the brand's sustainability objectives and ESG goals.
Web3 is unregulated. The whole infrastructure is wobbly. The overzealous adoption of anything tech-related makes users blind to the shortcomings of those innovations. Everything is open and available to anyone. It might cause reputational damage to brands and threaten their security. However, if you stay away from the temptation of copying a Birkin bag as an NFT, you are good. For now.
Is any Web good for you?
The advocates believe that Web3 will create new economies, products and services. The sceptics argue that the hype around Web3 is fading. After all, we live in an overstimulated world, making it hard to engage with something beyond the linear narrative. The economies it might create are speculative and will potentially make already-rich people richer. The new generation Internet is giving power back to the users. But what happens when it gives it to the wrong people?
It’s a high-reward, yet a very high-risk bet. The promises around Web3 should be taken with a pinch of salt. Sometimes, not everything you can imagine should become real.
Megana Mikuciauskaite
Brand Strategist
OPX Studio
In brief
Web3 is ingrained with promises of democracy and inclusivity. Yet, in the world of brands, this high-reward, high-risk bet is mostly utilised by big companies that already hold a substantial amount of power. The advocates believe Web3 will create new economies, while the sceptics are contemplating the longevity and enduring value of the novel technologies.
Web3 represents a return to the collaborative roots of the Internet. It throws a life jacket to the users who were enchanted by the Web2 illusion of ownership and decision-making. Everyone can truly own a part of the Internet now.
However, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. The new generation internet faces a list of concerns, posing a threat to its wider adoption. Web3's lack of regulation and wobbly infrastructure raises a question if everything you can imagine can or even should become real.
Third Time Lucky
We are already living in the metaverse, leading multiple digital lives and choosing the ways we present ourselves within those. Brands do too, as they constantly invent and reinvent themselves. Led by the determination to provoke fresh forms of creativity and engage users, brands have been exploring new applications of technology. With that came a risk of over-reliance on tech, giving way to homogenization – everyone’s started to look and sound the same. This proved to be difficult to find a way out. So someone created one.
People like to talk about the mysterious Web3 like it’s a Black Mirror episode. Except it isn’t. The new generation Internet is not the easiest topic to crack. It requires time and effort from agencies and their clients. Yet, mystifying and complicating something that was created “for everyone” is paradoxical.
There is as much hype around it as there is scepticism. Web3 is at the intersection of increased online presence and people’s desire to be offline and get outside so it leaves us in a really confusing place. Should we be inherently suspicious about the longevity and enduring value of the metaverse, NFTs and other novel technologies?
Is it a human-made digital utopia? Will the initial interest fade faster than your summer tan?
History 101
The first static version of the World Wide Web emerged in 1990 and its origins were all about consumption, not production. It was all about taking things from the offline world and putting them online. If someone’s aunt hadn’t shared her apple pie recipe on the Internet, we’d still be sending faxes to our friends. Web1 was great at allowing people to communicate and exchange knowledge, but offered limited product functions until the interactive Web2 came along in 2005 and started building social networks. This marked the triumph of Big Tech.
The Internet today is controlled by a handful of big players – Meta, Google… you know who they are. Big Tech uses our personal data in a way that is convenient for them, locking users into their platforms. Here lies the paradox of Web2 – enabling users to generate content whilst also taking user control away. Even though Web2 allows brands to connect with different audiences quickly and effectively, things got out of hand. Does Cambridge Analytica ring a bell?
The Web3 orchestra
Web3 returns us back to the original idea that the Web is for everyone. Or at least it should be. We’re talking about a collaborative place where, for the first time, data is open and secure. At least more secure than it is under the big corp watch.
Web3 describes a decentralised and democratic version of the Internet. It leverages AI and is built on blockchain, including several complicated-sounding cases – cryptocurrencies, decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and even decentralised finance (DeFi). Web3 is owned by users and builders and is orchestrated by digital assets. Often it is mixed with a metaverse, which is a shortcut for virtual worlds. All because technologies that are used to build Web3 have been influencing the way we experience metaverse. But don’t worry, you can join the club with your own definition.
Web3 is what you make it, blowing the concept of ownership and allowing everyone to own a part of the Internet. It’s like one of those sci-fi movies from the 2000s, where fictional planets are run by energetic and suspicious communities who vote, decide and create problems collectively. In those planets, no one could change the company’s name to ‘X’ and implement a baseless rebrand without the community's approval. But we are still on planet Earth, trying to understand what Web3 means for the future of brands and creative communities here.
From products to creators
Web2 holds users hostage for the purpose of monetization and approaches them as products. Web3 makes the Internet a more inclusive place, empowering creators to make and distribute their work without any greedy intermediaries. In the world of Web2, actors and directors have to bow to the big media and hope to get royalties from their work, SMEs are victims of the holy social algorithm, and musicians are tied to a platform that earns more money than the artists themselves. Web3 offers a different way and a bouquet of benefits.
The first one is obvious. Decentralisation enables co-creation, as everyone around the world can work and develop things together and celebrate new forms of creativity. A few years ago creative agencies thought Miro embodied the peak and convenience of seamless co-creation and teamwork. If only we knew what was coming…
Co-creation is co-ownership. Take Pixar, a brand known for its quality storytelling, emotional depth of its films and a broad audience appeal. When you talk about the company's productions, you can’t separate Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Joe Ranft, Lee Unkrich, and Brad Bird (known as the ‘Braintrust’) from it. Pixar’s culture and exceptional storytelling have been dependent on a small circle of ingenious minds with a limited knowledge distribution. That explains how the phenomenal company lost its touch shortly after it was acquired by Disney. It got bigger, not better.
Now, the previously sceptical and retired studio co-founder Ed Catmull sits on the board of Baobab Studios, a new, independent interactive animation studio backed by Disney, Dreamworks and Pixar with a mission “to inspire you to dream and bring out your sense of wonder.” Its new collectable metaverse project, Momoguro, is promising to take storytelling to new heights, focusing on creating a real sense of community with the help of Web3.
Hollywood heavyweights are also joining the Web3 craze. Actors Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher have released an experimental TV show Stoner Cats, empowering storytellers to connect with their audiences directly and even become part of the creative process. The project was a result of a desire to decentralise the entertainment industry, break barriers between creators and audiences and challenge the dominant masculinity narrative within crypto and NFT worlds.
Web3 helps brands to see their audiences as active participants rather than passive consumers. Sharing knowledge and inspiration is made easier. Users can form like-minded communities and observe the direct impact they have over brands’ growth and development, instead of feeding Big Tech algorithms. A win for everyone.
Garden of opportunities
Brands have been experimenting with new digital formats for quite some time. The gaming industry drove a growing demand for immersive media. VR and AR are getting increasingly popular. The metaverse proved to be an innovative gateway to brand and customer relationships.
Virtual spaces work as extensions to existing brand projects and campaigns across a variety of digital channels. This delivers brand loyalty and engagement opportunities on a silver platter. Web3 is characterised by personalised and memorable interactions. As the pandemic and ever-increasing digital opportunities raised the consumer bar, it became evident that brands delivering personalised solutions grow their revenue faster than peers.
Marketeers rejoice and jump on the sticky marketing train. Nike launched .SWOOSH, a Web3 platform to offer everyone from athletes to collectors an equitable space to design and influence the future of sport and the brand itself. This new community experience supports the overall brand strategy and the strong push on diversity.
Major luxury houses have entered the metaverse world. In 2021, Gucci launched the Gucci Garden, an immersive multimedia experience set in Italy, followed by an experimental space Gucci Vault Land built in the following year. The brand took a deep look at customer needs and created a digital high-end boutique experience minus the judgemental looks from the store staff and terrifying security guards.
The world isn’t perfect, but the metaverse might be if brands are willing to reinvent their products and services and embrace gamification, not replicate the old. Gucci has also launched an AR try-on campaign and avatar clothing collection, intending to attract younger audiences and build loyalty by offering affordable digital goods and flexibility. Gucci sneakers for 12 dollars? Sign me up.
Want it, can’t have it
We all know the trope that anything digital can’t be trusted as real. It can be copied, modified, falsified and replaced. This makes it challenging to create scarcity and grow demand. However, one of the new ideas that define Web3 technology is exactly that. Using blockchain, computers can create digital scarcity in ways only humans have been able to do before. Web3 helps users to build wealth through different types of social, intellectual and experiential capital and for brands - to differentiate by providing the opportunity to own one-of-a-kind digital assets. It encourages users to hold things in high regard as they recognize their cultural significance or the status it provides.
NFTs have authenticity certificates. Proof of ownership and asset origins are all recorded on the blockchain. And yet, some argue that digital goods cannot mimic the real value of physical goods. Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist known as Beeple, would disagree. In 2021, he sold an NFT of his work for 69 million dollars at Christie’s, making him one of the most wealthy living artists. Jackson Pollock Studio launched an NFT collection that sold for 525 thousand dollars in less than three days. Web3 is as generous to personal brands, as it is to commercial ones. Regardless of their experience within a respective market.
Untangling the Web
It’s not all rainbows and unicorns. There are many concerns around Web3. One is inclusivity. Women are underrepresented among founders and investors – only 13% of Web3 founding teams include women, and only 7% of founders are women. Web3 conferences attract thousands and thousands of people each year, yet the majority of keynote speakers are male and white.
The dependence on computing power is directly related to increased energy use and tech waste. Even though different Web3 technologies are used to fight climate change, some applications, such as NFTs, are not great for the environment which may clash with the brand's sustainability objectives and ESG goals.
Web3 is unregulated. The whole infrastructure is wobbly. The overzealous adoption of anything tech-related makes users blind to the shortcomings of those innovations. Everything is open and available to anyone. It might cause reputational damage to brands and threaten their security. However, if you stay away from the temptation of copying a Birkin bag as an NFT, you are good. For now.
Is any Web good for you?
The advocates believe that Web3 will create new economies, products and services. The sceptics argue that the hype around Web3 is fading. After all, we live in an overstimulated world, making it hard to engage with something beyond the linear narrative. The economies it might create are speculative and will potentially make already-rich people richer. The new generation Internet is giving power back to the users. But what happens when it gives it to the wrong people?
It’s a high-reward, yet a very high-risk bet. The promises around Web3 should be taken with a pinch of salt. Sometimes, not everything you can imagine should become real.
Megana Mikuciauskaite
Brand Strategist
OPX Studio
In brief
Web3 is ingrained with promises of democracy and inclusivity. Yet, in the world of brands, this high-reward, high-risk bet is mostly utilised by big companies that already hold a substantial amount of power. The advocates believe Web3 will create new economies, while the sceptics are contemplating the longevity and enduring value of the novel technologies.
Web3 represents a return to the collaborative roots of the Internet. It throws a life jacket to the users who were enchanted by the Web2 illusion of ownership and decision-making. Everyone can truly own a part of the Internet now.
However, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. The new generation internet faces a list of concerns, posing a threat to its wider adoption. Web3's lack of regulation and wobbly infrastructure raises a question if everything you can imagine can or even should become real.
Third Time Lucky
We are already living in the metaverse, leading multiple digital lives and choosing the ways we present ourselves within those. Brands do too, as they constantly invent and reinvent themselves. Led by the determination to provoke fresh forms of creativity and engage users, brands have been exploring new applications of technology. With that came a risk of over-reliance on tech, giving way to homogenization – everyone’s started to look and sound the same. This proved to be difficult to find a way out. So someone created one.
People like to talk about the mysterious Web3 like it’s a Black Mirror episode. Except it isn’t. The new generation Internet is not the easiest topic to crack. It requires time and effort from agencies and their clients. Yet, mystifying and complicating something that was created “for everyone” is paradoxical.
There is as much hype around it as there is scepticism. Web3 is at the intersection of increased online presence and people’s desire to be offline and get outside so it leaves us in a really confusing place. Should we be inherently suspicious about the longevity and enduring value of the metaverse, NFTs and other novel technologies?
Is it a human-made digital utopia? Will the initial interest fade faster than your summer tan?
History 101
The first static version of the World Wide Web emerged in 1990 and its origins were all about consumption, not production. It was all about taking things from the offline world and putting them online. If someone’s aunt hadn’t shared her apple pie recipe on the Internet, we’d still be sending faxes to our friends. Web1 was great at allowing people to communicate and exchange knowledge, but offered limited product functions until the interactive Web2 came along in 2005 and started building social networks. This marked the triumph of Big Tech.
The Internet today is controlled by a handful of big players – Meta, Google… you know who they are. Big Tech uses our personal data in a way that is convenient for them, locking users into their platforms. Here lies the paradox of Web2 – enabling users to generate content whilst also taking user control away. Even though Web2 allows brands to connect with different audiences quickly and effectively, things got out of hand. Does Cambridge Analytica ring a bell?
The Web3 orchestra
Web3 returns us back to the original idea that the Web is for everyone. Or at least it should be. We’re talking about a collaborative place where, for the first time, data is open and secure. At least more secure than it is under the big corp watch.
Web3 describes a decentralised and democratic version of the Internet. It leverages AI and is built on blockchain, including several complicated-sounding cases – cryptocurrencies, decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and even decentralised finance (DeFi). Web3 is owned by users and builders and is orchestrated by digital assets. Often it is mixed with a metaverse, which is a shortcut for virtual worlds. All because technologies that are used to build Web3 have been influencing the way we experience metaverse. But don’t worry, you can join the club with your own definition.
Web3 is what you make it, blowing the concept of ownership and allowing everyone to own a part of the Internet. It’s like one of those sci-fi movies from the 2000s, where fictional planets are run by energetic and suspicious communities who vote, decide and create problems collectively. In those planets, no one could change the company’s name to ‘X’ and implement a baseless rebrand without the community's approval. But we are still on planet Earth, trying to understand what Web3 means for the future of brands and creative communities here.
From products to creators
Web2 holds users hostage for the purpose of monetization and approaches them as products. Web3 makes the Internet a more inclusive place, empowering creators to make and distribute their work without any greedy intermediaries. In the world of Web2, actors and directors have to bow to the big media and hope to get royalties from their work, SMEs are victims of the holy social algorithm, and musicians are tied to a platform that earns more money than the artists themselves. Web3 offers a different way and a bouquet of benefits.
The first one is obvious. Decentralisation enables co-creation, as everyone around the world can work and develop things together and celebrate new forms of creativity. A few years ago creative agencies thought Miro embodied the peak and convenience of seamless co-creation and teamwork. If only we knew what was coming…
Co-creation is co-ownership. Take Pixar, a brand known for its quality storytelling, emotional depth of its films and a broad audience appeal. When you talk about the company's productions, you can’t separate Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Joe Ranft, Lee Unkrich, and Brad Bird (known as the ‘Braintrust’) from it. Pixar’s culture and exceptional storytelling have been dependent on a small circle of ingenious minds with a limited knowledge distribution. That explains how the phenomenal company lost its touch shortly after it was acquired by Disney. It got bigger, not better.
Now, the previously sceptical and retired studio co-founder Ed Catmull sits on the board of Baobab Studios, a new, independent interactive animation studio backed by Disney, Dreamworks and Pixar with a mission “to inspire you to dream and bring out your sense of wonder.” Its new collectable metaverse project, Momoguro, is promising to take storytelling to new heights, focusing on creating a real sense of community with the help of Web3.
Hollywood heavyweights are also joining the Web3 craze. Actors Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher have released an experimental TV show Stoner Cats, empowering storytellers to connect with their audiences directly and even become part of the creative process. The project was a result of a desire to decentralise the entertainment industry, break barriers between creators and audiences and challenge the dominant masculinity narrative within crypto and NFT worlds.
Web3 helps brands to see their audiences as active participants rather than passive consumers. Sharing knowledge and inspiration is made easier. Users can form like-minded communities and observe the direct impact they have over brands’ growth and development, instead of feeding Big Tech algorithms. A win for everyone.
Garden of opportunities
Brands have been experimenting with new digital formats for quite some time. The gaming industry drove a growing demand for immersive media. VR and AR are getting increasingly popular. The metaverse proved to be an innovative gateway to brand and customer relationships.
Virtual spaces work as extensions to existing brand projects and campaigns across a variety of digital channels. This delivers brand loyalty and engagement opportunities on a silver platter. Web3 is characterised by personalised and memorable interactions. As the pandemic and ever-increasing digital opportunities raised the consumer bar, it became evident that brands delivering personalised solutions grow their revenue faster than peers.
Marketeers rejoice and jump on the sticky marketing train. Nike launched .SWOOSH, a Web3 platform to offer everyone from athletes to collectors an equitable space to design and influence the future of sport and the brand itself. This new community experience supports the overall brand strategy and the strong push on diversity.
Major luxury houses have entered the metaverse world. In 2021, Gucci launched the Gucci Garden, an immersive multimedia experience set in Italy, followed by an experimental space Gucci Vault Land built in the following year. The brand took a deep look at customer needs and created a digital high-end boutique experience minus the judgemental looks from the store staff and terrifying security guards.
The world isn’t perfect, but the metaverse might be if brands are willing to reinvent their products and services and embrace gamification, not replicate the old. Gucci has also launched an AR try-on campaign and avatar clothing collection, intending to attract younger audiences and build loyalty by offering affordable digital goods and flexibility. Gucci sneakers for 12 dollars? Sign me up.
Want it, can’t have it
We all know the trope that anything digital can’t be trusted as real. It can be copied, modified, falsified and replaced. This makes it challenging to create scarcity and grow demand. However, one of the new ideas that define Web3 technology is exactly that. Using blockchain, computers can create digital scarcity in ways only humans have been able to do before. Web3 helps users to build wealth through different types of social, intellectual and experiential capital and for brands - to differentiate by providing the opportunity to own one-of-a-kind digital assets. It encourages users to hold things in high regard as they recognize their cultural significance or the status it provides.
NFTs have authenticity certificates. Proof of ownership and asset origins are all recorded on the blockchain. And yet, some argue that digital goods cannot mimic the real value of physical goods. Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist known as Beeple, would disagree. In 2021, he sold an NFT of his work for 69 million dollars at Christie’s, making him one of the most wealthy living artists. Jackson Pollock Studio launched an NFT collection that sold for 525 thousand dollars in less than three days. Web3 is as generous to personal brands, as it is to commercial ones. Regardless of their experience within a respective market.
Untangling the Web
It’s not all rainbows and unicorns. There are many concerns around Web3. One is inclusivity. Women are underrepresented among founders and investors – only 13% of Web3 founding teams include women, and only 7% of founders are women. Web3 conferences attract thousands and thousands of people each year, yet the majority of keynote speakers are male and white.
The dependence on computing power is directly related to increased energy use and tech waste. Even though different Web3 technologies are used to fight climate change, some applications, such as NFTs, are not great for the environment which may clash with the brand's sustainability objectives and ESG goals.
Web3 is unregulated. The whole infrastructure is wobbly. The overzealous adoption of anything tech-related makes users blind to the shortcomings of those innovations. Everything is open and available to anyone. It might cause reputational damage to brands and threaten their security. However, if you stay away from the temptation of copying a Birkin bag as an NFT, you are good. For now.
Is any Web good for you?
The advocates believe that Web3 will create new economies, products and services. The sceptics argue that the hype around Web3 is fading. After all, we live in an overstimulated world, making it hard to engage with something beyond the linear narrative. The economies it might create are speculative and will potentially make already-rich people richer. The new generation Internet is giving power back to the users. But what happens when it gives it to the wrong people?
It’s a high-reward, yet a very high-risk bet. The promises around Web3 should be taken with a pinch of salt. Sometimes, not everything you can imagine should become real.
Megana Mikuciauskaite
Brand Strategist
OPX Studio
In brief
Web3 is ingrained with promises of democracy and inclusivity. Yet, in the world of brands, this high-reward, high-risk bet is mostly utilised by big companies that already hold a substantial amount of power. The advocates believe Web3 will create new economies, while the sceptics are contemplating the longevity and enduring value of the novel technologies.
Web3 represents a return to the collaborative roots of the Internet. It throws a life jacket to the users who were enchanted by the Web2 illusion of ownership and decision-making. Everyone can truly own a part of the Internet now.
However, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. The new generation internet faces a list of concerns, posing a threat to its wider adoption. Web3's lack of regulation and wobbly infrastructure raises a question if everything you can imagine can or even should become real.
Third Time Lucky
We are already living in the metaverse, leading multiple digital lives and choosing the ways we present ourselves within those. Brands do too, as they constantly invent and reinvent themselves. Led by the determination to provoke fresh forms of creativity and engage users, brands have been exploring new applications of technology. With that came a risk of over-reliance on tech, giving way to homogenization – everyone’s started to look and sound the same. This proved to be difficult to find a way out. So someone created one.
People like to talk about the mysterious Web3 like it’s a Black Mirror episode. Except it isn’t. The new generation Internet is not the easiest topic to crack. It requires time and effort from agencies and their clients. Yet, mystifying and complicating something that was created “for everyone” is paradoxical.
There is as much hype around it as there is scepticism. Web3 is at the intersection of increased online presence and people’s desire to be offline and get outside so it leaves us in a really confusing place. Should we be inherently suspicious about the longevity and enduring value of the metaverse, NFTs and other novel technologies?
Is it a human-made digital utopia? Will the initial interest fade faster than your summer tan?
History 101
The first static version of the World Wide Web emerged in 1990 and its origins were all about consumption, not production. It was all about taking things from the offline world and putting them online. If someone’s aunt hadn’t shared her apple pie recipe on the Internet, we’d still be sending faxes to our friends. Web1 was great at allowing people to communicate and exchange knowledge, but offered limited product functions until the interactive Web2 came along in 2005 and started building social networks. This marked the triumph of Big Tech.
The Internet today is controlled by a handful of big players – Meta, Google… you know who they are. Big Tech uses our personal data in a way that is convenient for them, locking users into their platforms. Here lies the paradox of Web2 – enabling users to generate content whilst also taking user control away. Even though Web2 allows brands to connect with different audiences quickly and effectively, things got out of hand. Does Cambridge Analytica ring a bell?
The Web3 orchestra
Web3 returns us back to the original idea that the Web is for everyone. Or at least it should be. We’re talking about a collaborative place where, for the first time, data is open and secure. At least more secure than it is under the big corp watch.
Web3 describes a decentralised and democratic version of the Internet. It leverages AI and is built on blockchain, including several complicated-sounding cases – cryptocurrencies, decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and even decentralised finance (DeFi). Web3 is owned by users and builders and is orchestrated by digital assets. Often it is mixed with a metaverse, which is a shortcut for virtual worlds. All because technologies that are used to build Web3 have been influencing the way we experience metaverse. But don’t worry, you can join the club with your own definition.
Web3 is what you make it, blowing the concept of ownership and allowing everyone to own a part of the Internet. It’s like one of those sci-fi movies from the 2000s, where fictional planets are run by energetic and suspicious communities who vote, decide and create problems collectively. In those planets, no one could change the company’s name to ‘X’ and implement a baseless rebrand without the community's approval. But we are still on planet Earth, trying to understand what Web3 means for the future of brands and creative communities here.
From products to creators
Web2 holds users hostage for the purpose of monetization and approaches them as products. Web3 makes the Internet a more inclusive place, empowering creators to make and distribute their work without any greedy intermediaries. In the world of Web2, actors and directors have to bow to the big media and hope to get royalties from their work, SMEs are victims of the holy social algorithm, and musicians are tied to a platform that earns more money than the artists themselves. Web3 offers a different way and a bouquet of benefits.
The first one is obvious. Decentralisation enables co-creation, as everyone around the world can work and develop things together and celebrate new forms of creativity. A few years ago creative agencies thought Miro embodied the peak and convenience of seamless co-creation and teamwork. If only we knew what was coming…
Co-creation is co-ownership. Take Pixar, a brand known for its quality storytelling, emotional depth of its films and a broad audience appeal. When you talk about the company's productions, you can’t separate Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Joe Ranft, Lee Unkrich, and Brad Bird (known as the ‘Braintrust’) from it. Pixar’s culture and exceptional storytelling have been dependent on a small circle of ingenious minds with a limited knowledge distribution. That explains how the phenomenal company lost its touch shortly after it was acquired by Disney. It got bigger, not better.
Now, the previously sceptical and retired studio co-founder Ed Catmull sits on the board of Baobab Studios, a new, independent interactive animation studio backed by Disney, Dreamworks and Pixar with a mission “to inspire you to dream and bring out your sense of wonder.” Its new collectable metaverse project, Momoguro, is promising to take storytelling to new heights, focusing on creating a real sense of community with the help of Web3.
Hollywood heavyweights are also joining the Web3 craze. Actors Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher have released an experimental TV show Stoner Cats, empowering storytellers to connect with their audiences directly and even become part of the creative process. The project was a result of a desire to decentralise the entertainment industry, break barriers between creators and audiences and challenge the dominant masculinity narrative within crypto and NFT worlds.
Web3 helps brands to see their audiences as active participants rather than passive consumers. Sharing knowledge and inspiration is made easier. Users can form like-minded communities and observe the direct impact they have over brands’ growth and development, instead of feeding Big Tech algorithms. A win for everyone.
Garden of opportunities
Brands have been experimenting with new digital formats for quite some time. The gaming industry drove a growing demand for immersive media. VR and AR are getting increasingly popular. The metaverse proved to be an innovative gateway to brand and customer relationships.
Virtual spaces work as extensions to existing brand projects and campaigns across a variety of digital channels. This delivers brand loyalty and engagement opportunities on a silver platter. Web3 is characterised by personalised and memorable interactions. As the pandemic and ever-increasing digital opportunities raised the consumer bar, it became evident that brands delivering personalised solutions grow their revenue faster than peers.
Marketeers rejoice and jump on the sticky marketing train. Nike launched .SWOOSH, a Web3 platform to offer everyone from athletes to collectors an equitable space to design and influence the future of sport and the brand itself. This new community experience supports the overall brand strategy and the strong push on diversity.
Major luxury houses have entered the metaverse world. In 2021, Gucci launched the Gucci Garden, an immersive multimedia experience set in Italy, followed by an experimental space Gucci Vault Land built in the following year. The brand took a deep look at customer needs and created a digital high-end boutique experience minus the judgemental looks from the store staff and terrifying security guards.
The world isn’t perfect, but the metaverse might be if brands are willing to reinvent their products and services and embrace gamification, not replicate the old. Gucci has also launched an AR try-on campaign and avatar clothing collection, intending to attract younger audiences and build loyalty by offering affordable digital goods and flexibility. Gucci sneakers for 12 dollars? Sign me up.
Want it, can’t have it
We all know the trope that anything digital can’t be trusted as real. It can be copied, modified, falsified and replaced. This makes it challenging to create scarcity and grow demand. However, one of the new ideas that define Web3 technology is exactly that. Using blockchain, computers can create digital scarcity in ways only humans have been able to do before. Web3 helps users to build wealth through different types of social, intellectual and experiential capital and for brands - to differentiate by providing the opportunity to own one-of-a-kind digital assets. It encourages users to hold things in high regard as they recognize their cultural significance or the status it provides.
NFTs have authenticity certificates. Proof of ownership and asset origins are all recorded on the blockchain. And yet, some argue that digital goods cannot mimic the real value of physical goods. Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist known as Beeple, would disagree. In 2021, he sold an NFT of his work for 69 million dollars at Christie’s, making him one of the most wealthy living artists. Jackson Pollock Studio launched an NFT collection that sold for 525 thousand dollars in less than three days. Web3 is as generous to personal brands, as it is to commercial ones. Regardless of their experience within a respective market.
Untangling the Web
It’s not all rainbows and unicorns. There are many concerns around Web3. One is inclusivity. Women are underrepresented among founders and investors – only 13% of Web3 founding teams include women, and only 7% of founders are women. Web3 conferences attract thousands and thousands of people each year, yet the majority of keynote speakers are male and white.
The dependence on computing power is directly related to increased energy use and tech waste. Even though different Web3 technologies are used to fight climate change, some applications, such as NFTs, are not great for the environment which may clash with the brand's sustainability objectives and ESG goals.
Web3 is unregulated. The whole infrastructure is wobbly. The overzealous adoption of anything tech-related makes users blind to the shortcomings of those innovations. Everything is open and available to anyone. It might cause reputational damage to brands and threaten their security. However, if you stay away from the temptation of copying a Birkin bag as an NFT, you are good. For now.
Is any Web good for you?
The advocates believe that Web3 will create new economies, products and services. The sceptics argue that the hype around Web3 is fading. After all, we live in an overstimulated world, making it hard to engage with something beyond the linear narrative. The economies it might create are speculative and will potentially make already-rich people richer. The new generation Internet is giving power back to the users. But what happens when it gives it to the wrong people?
It’s a high-reward, yet a very high-risk bet. The promises around Web3 should be taken with a pinch of salt. Sometimes, not everything you can imagine should become real.
Megana Mikuciauskaite
Brand Strategist
OPX Studio