Chapter 7: The Institutions are Coming …just not the ones we expected
7.7 Community Commerce via Collabs = Multiplayer
Finally, the ability for brands to collaborate is second to none in web3. We’ve seen this play out in web2 gaming in a very significant way. Fortnite alone has done collabs with the likes of: Marvel, the NFL, Marshmello, Stranger Things, Air
Jordan, DC Comics, Star Wars, Travis Scott, Rocket League, Street Fighter, Tomb Raider, Batman, the NBA, Superplastic, Ferrari, Balenciaga, Ariana Grande, Monopoly, League of Legends, the Matrix, Lego, Cobra Kai, X-Men, Wu-Tang Clan, Indiana Jones, Among Us, WWE, and Eminem. Think about what we’ve seen already in the NFT space452 — an abbreviated list includes:
Nike x RTFKT (CloneX)
The Hundreds x Bored Ape Yacht Club
Adidas x gmoney x Punks Comic x Bored Ape Yacht Club Gucci x Superplastic
Gucci x Yuga Labs
Tiffany & Co. x Cryptopunks Adidas x Bape
Sandbox x Alo Yoga
American Eagle x Starcatchers Wrangler x Deadfellaz
L’Oréal Group’s Shu Uemura x RTFKT Rimowa x RTFKT
NBA x Dapper Labs
Alex Danco, who runs blockchain for Shopify, best describes the power of web3 collaborations as follows:
Collabs are the lifeblood of creative work; ask anyone in music, streetwear, or any kind of scene. But online, how do you organize a collab merch drop that’s exclusive for a superset of people: my fans plus your fans? There’s no
conventional way to do this that’s both exclusive and not janky. But
tokengated commerce makes this so easy. Connect your wallet, access drop with any of these NFTs. Bam. I let you in, and you let me in.
452 Major shoutout for Vogue Business’ NFT Tracker, which can be found here:
https://www.voguebusiness.com/technology/the-vogue-business-nft-tracker. I can’t say enough fantastic things about Maghan McDowell and her team at Vogue Business, including Madeleine Schultz. I ended my subscriptions with the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, and a bunch of substacks so I could subscribe to Vogue Business, which is where I get the vast majority of my brands / web3 alpha. I highly, highly recommend subscribing!
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What are tokengated collabs? When The Hundreds does a collab with Deadfellaz, and you can unlock limited edition merch with an NFT from either of their collections, that’s a tokengated collab. When Superplastic does a collab with Gucci that’s gated to holders of a secret SUPERGUCCI NFT, that’s a tokengated collab.
Here’s where the magic starts to happen: I belong to my community, you belong to your community, but when we do a collab together, I can invite you in; and you can invite me in. Tokengated collabs flip exclusivity into reciprocal inclusivity. A century-old brand like Gucci gets to endorse a really hot brand like Superplastic, in a way where their fans are both inviting each other into this shared experience, and this shared community they now have together.
But for now - when we look back ten years from now at 2022 and ask, “What was really obvious and in front of our faces that whole time?” I think one answer will be that collaborative gating will be the mechanic that
dramatically simplifies how brands collaborate and endorse each other, and that simplification will mean that community commerce is about to get a lot more multiplayer.453
That last line — “community commerce is about to get a lot more multiplayer”
— is such an incredibly insightful statement and one that I have highlighted throughout this essay: it’s a key component of the lifeblood that allows 100+ year- old brands to stay culturally relevant. One of the upcoming collaborations that I’m most excited about was announced in July 2023. RTFKT is partnering with L’Oreal Group’s Shu Uemura to develop physical stickers that will be worn around both human eyes and CloneX PFP avatar eyes. The stickers are inspired by Japanese calligraphy and will contain NFC chips that when scanned with a smartphone will activate a variety of AR lenses. This is a true multiplayer collab consisting of the L’Oreal Group, Shu Uemura, RTFKT (owned by Nike), and RTFKT’s community, which will be invited to co-create stickers for their clones. The collab is also focused on reaching a Gen Z audience, which RTFKT brings to the 114-year-old L’Oreal Group. In an article about the collab, Vogue Business writes454:
“In RTFKT, the 114-year-old L’Oréal stands to gain the attention of a Web3 community that is accustomed to digital enhancements and new approaches to fashion and design. And, with Shu Uemura, RTFKT is able to continue to push into new areas beyond sneakers, and reward its loyal community with more perks and opportunities to monetise their creativity.”
Further Benoit Pagotto, founder of RTFKT says:
453 https://www.notboring.co/p/tokengated-commerce
454 https://www.voguebusiness.com/technology/would-you-wear-face-stickers-embedded-with-nfcs
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“Beauty is about self-expression and identity and an area that has a lot of innovation to do. I’m very interested in how Gen Z is using filters and different beauty codes, and it is a lot more diverse than what it was for a long time. The concept of beauty with younger generations is completely different and more transformative.”
Finally, Asmita Dubey, Chief Digital and Marketing Officer at L’Oreal Group recognizes RTFKT’s relevance in gaming and calls the approach:
“O plus O plus O”, which stands for “offline, online and on-chain” and says:
“We believe the future of beauty is physical, digital and virtual, and we know there will be new codes of beauty for new audiences,” Dubey says. “RTFKT is very much at this intersection of physical and digital — they are into gaming, fashion and design, digital value — and that is a common ground for both of us.”
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Chapter 8: But isn’t Everything Old, just New Again? …and what about