Starbucks Releasing NFTs To Their 40 Million Daily Customers!!

Estimated Read Time: 5 min

Hey friends,

A big welcome to any new subscribers from our Tykes newsletter, we are stoked for you to join the squad. In this edition, we have a few stories covering developments from Starbucks' new loyalty program to PUMA entering the metaverse, so let's get into it!

Starbucks Evolving Their Loyalty Program Through NFTs

Starbucks is a household name with over 40 million daily customers worldwide (Statista, 2021), and now an extension to their popular rewards program will see these customers start collecting NFTs. A month ago, Starbucks teased an upcoming Web3 announcement (catch our coverage of it here), but this week marks an important milestone where they have officially launched “Odyssey” in collaboration with the Polygon blockchain. Starbucks has described the new initiative as similar to “digital collectible stamps”, where customers can complete “journeys” through games and quizzes that “deepen their knowledge of the Starbucks brand”. 

As a reward for participating, customers will receive tokens that are linked to their NFTs. Each of these Odyssey NFTs will have different rarities determining how many tokens a person may receive. These tokens can then be spent on experiential and exclusive rewards through Starbucks loyalty programs, such as free drinks or even a trip to a Starbucks coffee supplier in Costa Rica. Starbucks Executive Vice President Brady Brewer said “We're bullish on the future of these technologies enabling experiences that were not possible before, the intention is to be flexible and move with the customers as the web3 market changes … It's really important that we're looking at it for the long-term, but given that we're plugging it into our industry-leading, massive scale rewards program -- we're committed”. 

Starbucks customers can join a waitlist to try Odyssey later this year, and they won't require any prior crypto experience with Brewer saying "It happens to be built on blockchain and web3 technologies, but the customer -- to be honest -- may very well not even know that what they're doing is interacting with blockchain technology. It's just the enabler". According to FindStack, approximately 28.6 million wallets owned NFTs at the start of the year, so with Starbucks' over 40 million daily customers worldwide, it puts into scope the extent to which this Starbucks implementation could help expand global adoption of NFTs.

Japanese Government Issues NFTs As Awards

Every week we see a brand new use case of NFTs that would have been hard to guess when the technology was first developed, and this time around we see the Japanese government using them to issue awards to local authorities at “Summer Digi Denkoshien 2022”. In one of the first cases to issue NFTs as a form of governmental reward, seven mayors were chosen in congratulation of their cities' ideas centred on the digital economy. Specifically, the mayors received special POAP NFTs in commemoration of their work for “using digital technology to solve local challenges”. What's a POAP? A Proof-Of-Attendance-Protocol NFT is a digital collectable that acts as a memento for recording special experiences, they are not intended to be sold and purely act as a digital keepsake. The provably finite nature of NFTs has opened up a world where digital items now have intrinsic value, and using them as digital awards is a wholesome use-case we will probably see much more of in the future.

PUMA Launches First Metaverse Experience With NFT Sneakers

The world's third largest selling sports brand PUMA has decided to play catch up with Adidas and Nike as it takes further steps into Web3 and NFTs through “Black Station”. Unveiled during New York Fashion Week, Black Station offers an interactive and immersive space to experience the future of the brand as it shifts to Web3. As part of the platform, it will feature exclusive NFTs that can be redeemed for limited edition physical sneakers as part of its “FUTROGRADE” show. PUMA’s Chief Brand Officer stated that “twenty years ago, Black Station was Puma’s home for the most innovative designs in fashion. Now, the company wants to bring Black Station back as a new portal for digital exploration across fashion, sports, heritage classics, and innovation”. 

Black Station is designed in Unreal Engine 5 to produce a hyper-realistic digital lobby space, and it contains portals that give PUMAs “Nitropass” NFT owners access to exclusive NFTs linked to physical products and customer experiences. A Metaverse space is not new for brands, with recent implementations like Tommy Hilfiger giving a digital space for people to view close-up digital representations of their products, but PUMA is taking it a step further by linking the Metaverse with real-life physical products through ownership of their NFTs. With Nike topping the brand leaderboard for NFT sales at $185.32 million USD, it's not surprising to see more and more brands like PUMA step out of the shadows to make an early mark on Web3, giving more exposure for what NFTs are capable of. 

Thanks for popping in on this edition of Morning NFTea. Enjoy the next couple of days and we will catch ya on Monday for more news on NFT developments!

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DISCLAIMER: 

None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.