MARKETING NFTS
experimenting with the technology to boost brand awareness among new audiences. Ciaté London developed its NFT collection in-house and sold the entire line for $2,200 via online store Bitski in dollars, rather than traditional cryptocurrency. The move, Nora Zukauskaite, Marketing Director of Ciaté London, says was to tap into the fan community of the collection’s collaborator Christine Quinn, rather than already existing brand fans. A Netflix star with two million Instagram followers, Quinn certainly has a mass appeal outside of cosmetics. “The one purpose was to offer a collection for consumers outside of beauty [and] at the same time introduce a completely new audience to our brand,” continues Zukauskaite. Rather than selling the NFTs via cryptocurrency (most are Ethereum- based tokens) Ciaté only sold its limited edition run via dollars to “democratise” the sector for new NFT consumers. A similar decision was made by e.l.f. Cosmetics, which also opted for Bitski, to sell its nine NFTs, which were gold versions of its Holy Grail products. Zukauskaite says: “The more we thought about it, the more we realised that we wanted to remove barriers for our consumers outside of the whole NFT and Metaverse industry.” The decision to opt for dollars, rather than cryptocurrency, was also to address environmental concerns, claims Zukauskaite. Ethereum is regularly criticised for using too much energy and was named the second most energy consuming cryptocurrency per transaction in 2020. The findings by investment platform Forex Suggest found that, after Bitcoin, Ethereum produced the next-highest amount of CO2
at 16.6 million tons. To avoid contributing to this carbon footprint, Ciaté opted for dollars and to offset emissions with a tree planting scheme. Guerlain and NARS, meanwhile, opted to use Ethereum-rival Tezos, which is often touted as an eco-friendly blockchain alternative.
CREATIVE CROWDFUNDING While some brands are using the NFT space as an awareness strategy, often selling the collectables for very little money, another approach is to use NFT as an alternative to crowdfunding. Nadeem Crowe, founder of British fragrance house Rook Perfumes, partnered with NFT experience agency Lily & Piper to develop the Scent for the
58 December 2021
‘
The one purpose was to offer a collection for consumers outside of beauty [and] at the same time introduce a completely new audience to our brand
‘I’ve NFT’d a perfume, I’d like $10,000 for it please’.”
Ciaté London teamed up with Selling Sunset star Christine Quinn and street artist 1Penemy on four digital artworks
Metaverse campaign. Buyers could purchase one of 100 NFTs for 0.3 ETH (Ethereum), or approximately £700, to receive a code and become part of a community to work with Crowe to develop (and co-own) an upcoming Metaverse-themed fragrance. Over 30 people purchased an NFT from all corners of the globe, Crowe says, with the shared goal of taking a historically natural world-inspired category into the digital realm. From a financial point of view, he admits that the sale of NFTs can help support niche fragrance “until somebody like Estée Lauder comes along and buys you, like what happened with Frederic Malle or Le Labo”.
On merging the perfumery and NFT communities, Crowe continues: “The notion of bringing together people from a different world, outside of fragrance, but who are interested in fragrance, and allowing them to work in a collaborative process with me was very interesting. “Their purchase of entrance to that collaborative process, essentially funding the creation of new scents, meant that the NFT structure suddenly was something that was familiar, useful and artistically fulfilling for me. “It didn’t feel like I was just saying
At the moment it’s pretty obvious that the beauty industry is still figuring out the potential of NFTs. Will NFTs become a viable revenue stream, or will it remain a brand awareness tactic? The meaning of ‘success’ is also still being defined in relation to the growing digital strategy. “I am not sure the first metric for a random NFT should be success but we should look at its relevance as a mechanism,” says Guerlain’s Prazan. “Any NFT is by nature successful, as it is an unbreakable, reliable and immutable tool to certify the property and the origin of any digital file.” But one thing is for certain, NFT is here to stay. Following the success of NARS’ Orgasm NFT, the brand confirmed it will integrate the digital artwork into key activations planned for 2022. The decision for brands to embrace NFTs is likely to be incentivised by Facebook’s announcement in October that its Metaverse will support NFTs, allowing consumers to showcase their purchases in the immersive world. “This will make it easier for people to sell limited edition digital objects like NFTs, display them in their digital spaces and even resell them to the next person securely,” said Vishal Shah, Facebook Head of Metaverse Products, at the announcement.
In the not-so-distant future packaging design will likely be impacted by the rise of NFT. As beauty packaging now has to be ‘Insta-ready’, new products are likely to have to be ‘NFT-ready’ to support launch campaigns and allow beauty enthusiasts to show off their Metaverse version of the ‘shelfie’. Ciaté’s Zukauskaite, for example, has alluded that NFT artists, in particular, will feature more frequently in the brand’s launches.
While the NFT hype undoubtedly has unprecedented potential within beauty, from CSR to loyalty schemes and packaging design, it is advisable to embrace NFTs as a purposeful long-term strategy, rather than low-hanging fruit. As NARS’ Fierro advises: “Despite the high profile projects launched in recent months, the reality is that we’re still very early in the adoption curve for NFTs. “At NARS, we believe NFTs present a compelling, long-term opportunity to build community, nuture advocacy and unlock value for consumers in the months and years ahead”
cosmeticsbusiness.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
