Nike Vs. Adidas. The Web3 battle of the lifestyle brands!
Just as the whole world of Web3, Blockchain aka Distributed Ledger Tech seems to be imploding and many of the biggest tech giants are cutting their work forces (Meta axing 10k jobs) why are two of the biggest lifestyle brands in Adidas and Nike doubling down on Web3?
First things first, DLT (distributed ledger technology), Web3 or whatever you want to call it has a vast landscape. Three of the most exciting innovations coming out of this are; the evolution of money aka CryptoCurrency, the disruption of traditional finance with DeFi (decentralised finance) and the evolution of ownership & communication with the tokenisation of assets / NFTs.
Adidas and Nike are branding giants of the World. Founded in 1949 and 64 respectively, early alignment to counter culture and sports personality endorsement saw these companies rise to the top, building generational loyalty embedding themselves into the cultural fabric of peoples lives. For the last 30–40 years they have perfected supply and demand mechanics to evolve sportswear into lifestyle and create the ultimate hyper desirable social signalling apparel. As yet however this has just taken place physically and not digitally — until now!
So what’s happening rn (right now — in and around the 15th Nov ‘22)? Nike are in the process of launching swoosh.nike their answer to their primary Web3 onboarding offering. This is suspiciously timed news - just moments before Adidas commence their unboxed campaign with the unboxing of their NFT Capsules over on their Web3 Metaverse site. No sooner than these Adidas capsules reveal then Nike is set to follow on with their full site launch teased for the 18th of November “22! Another classic Web3 “battle of the titans” the second one in a busy week that saw CZ of Binance ( a crypto exchange) dethrone SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried) and see #2 crypto exchange FTX collapse into ruins. What a time to be alive / awake! In short these brands are launching platforms in which Adidas are and Nike will be launching digital collections of their branded goods with the idea of future use of them within immersive digital experiences.
It’s been an interesting question, how did Nike since acquiring RTFKT almost 1 year back plan to evolve their Web3 canvas? Out of the blue it looks like swoosh.nike answers a lot of these questions for us! It feels days ago (actually two weeks) when RTFKT had their immersive “metaverse mint” in the OnCyber 3D World that presented one of the first minting experiences outside of a regular web experience. Crazy! Reading between the lines it seems RTFKT’s role here is to innovate and challenge consumer and lifestyle boundaries in the MetaVerse direction while swoosh.nike takes up the Web3 co-creation mantra to deliver engaging valuable lasting experiences to its community and work to strengthen those foundations on the existing consumer base. The website mentions; creation, collecting, trading, flexing (social signals), access, collaboration and IRL — all things Gen Z and the Alpha’s are brought up on. One of the biggest challenges and most powerful opportunities in this space is not over thinking and being too digital. Everyone has got their heads up the MetaVerse rn but in reality companies with loyal dispersed communities can leverage this digital technology to break down the geographical communication barriers, encourage collaboration and help their most engaged consumers create new online relationships, ones that add value to all that participate. This is a very exciting opportunity that these companies seem aware of and interested in exploring further. Done right this seems to be a value add win win!
.SWOOSH is a new community experience, designed to give you the opportunity to co-create the future of Nike.
Nike
Where does this leave Adidas. Well, although it might have looked like they had a head start on this, with Nike leveraging the expertise and acquiring RTFKT, Adidas’s DIY approach might not have paid off as well as hoped. Yes, they did some joint ventures and learnt from Web3 native brands but their discord has been reportedly lack lustre. It’s too early to judge but with these two superpowers conjoining into the Digital Collectibles space it will be interesting to see where the space is in a year from now and if these super brands ultimate objectives are any clearer!
ITM (into the metaverse) is our pledge to the metaverse. To make new friends — web3 native or not — along the way. To open the door to web3 and what the future of fashion could be. We touched down in every corner of culture, landing in this wild world where possibilities are truly limitless. We invite you, the original thinkers and doers, to a new age of originality. Join us.
Adidas
What we haven’t talked about is money. What’s in it for these brands? If strengthening your loyal fanbases and having a chance to write the future and retain relevance in an ever growing digital world isn’t enough the NFT royalty is a pretty good reason, RTFKT has banked $87m so far on the CloneX project in less than 1 year. Yea, that’s massive and that’s just royalties.
These figures are eye watering and show you why brands with strong IP are perfectly positioned to enter the world of Digital Collectibles. Another big name preparing to enter the space is Disney. Both Disney and Swoosh.Nike are building on Polygon technologies and if a fairly unknown project like RTFKT can create $87m a year in NFT royalties from a series of fairly small collections imagine the size of the annual royalty revenue market when Disney and Nike have their full IPs released! 🤯
We’re in a really interesting time for NFTs. They are far from being started let alone finished. The term NFT has evolved in the past 2 years from unknown to one of intrigue and desirability to something to avoid. A rebranding has commenced where many now use the term “Digital Collectible”. More free to mint solutions are here, like what POAP and Reddit have achieved and these have demonstrated demand for the tech and helped the term NFT fade and move the JPEGs into a different more mainstream and agnostic light. So it’s exciting times for visual NFTs! They get a rename, become more synonymous with mainstream brands and diverge away from being solely “costly” and “right click save” JPEGs. Imagine what might come next when the people realise an NFT’s image is superficial.
