In last week’s roundup, we saw yet another F&B brand dipping its toes into the NFT world.
Its new ice cream outlet in Sunway Pyramid is designed to act like an NFT museum of sorts, featuring works from popular NFT artists.
More than art appreciation or utility, brands hopping onto the NFT train appear to be primarily leveraging the marketing value it drives.
And lo and behold, it was only a matter of time before we actually found a marketing agency that appears to be leveraging this.
NFTs as a marketing tactic
Creative marketing agency, JUMIX is leading by example for what NFTs can do. Its own NFT project, BeUtopia (BeU) brings light to those who feel misplaced in society for being different.
The characters are inspired by Matryoshka dolls, and are meant to evoke self-expression. 10,000 BeU collectibles were made available and can be minted using BeU’s network, via Polygon’s blockchain.
There will be several stages to the project, each meant to involve and engage with the community.
For example, a donation amounting to 10% of the proceeds will be made to a charity of the BeU community’s choice, once 20% of the collectables (2,000 pieces) are sold.
At 60%, the company will launch merchandise for the owners of BeU. Once 100% of the collectables are sold, the company will develop a game for the BeU community.
The main intention JUMIX has for creating BeU is to show clients and prospective ones that the agency is ready to help them grow their NFT marketing campaigns from start to finish, should they choose to do so.
Do note however that although it’s clear JUMIX is behind BeU, the key team members running the project have not actually doxxed themselves, so as with everything, DYOR.
NFTs produced from a HP mentorship project
During a three-month-long mentorship programme held by Hewlett-Packard (HP), 11 Malaysians learnt how to create NFTs under the mentorship of three industry creatives.
The mentors are Malaysian pop singer and songwriter Zee Avi, music producer and composer Daniel Veerapen, and creative director and co-founder of a creative agency Edwin Raj.
Under the mentorship, creative mentees from various backgrounds managed to produce art and music using HP’s laptops.
HP has officially released its official NFT audiovisual experience and 100 exclusive collectable NFTs that can be viewed and bought on NFT Pangolin. Half of the proceeds will be donated to Kakiseni, an arts and culture non-profit, while the other half will go to the programme’s mentees.
Fuel for thought
NFTs are often portrayed in a negative light by eco-conscious activists.
These communities cite the drastic amounts of electricity required to mint a single NFT. Ethereum has been said to consume about 84kWh of electricity, enough to power a normal household for almost two days.
At present, fossil fuels are still needed to generate electricity, releasing pollutants into the atmosphere.
However, there are ongoing efforts being made by relevant stakeholders to reduce the technology’s environmental impact.
Some of the ways include making NFT minting and transactions more efficient, or using new innovative solutions, and creating more energy-efficient blockchain platforms.
We wrote an explainer article that dives into the specifics of how these solutions function, so if you’re confused or curious, you can check it out to learn more.
- If you’ve got something NFT-related to share that’s both exciting and locally-relevant, hit us up with your story at malaysia.team@vulcanpost.com.
- Read other articles we’ve written on NFTs here.
Featured Image Credit: BeUtopia / HP
