Future of Art brands — NFTs of Artwork
In 2021, Beeple artwork auctioned by Christie’s, which recently sold for an incredible $69m as NFT(non-fungible tokens). NFT means it bring verifiable scarcity and ownership to online assets that cannot be manipulated, enabling brands to sell exclusive, limited digital goods. Throughout 2020 and 2021, with the popularity of the concept of Metaverse and NFT, people believe that Metaverse is the future of the Internet and NFT is the economy of metaverse. NFTs market cap according to Statista, has 138.7% of year-year growth. It has become a opportunity for most companies in the world including art brand companies.
According to Passport, the 15–29 age group of people only has less than 10% of them never play a video game. Hence, new consumers’ route has increased the demands for fashion products suitable for games and social media. Due to the impact of the pandemic, the vast majority of outdoor activities have been restricted or controlled. For the younger consumers, they urgently seek a place to express themselves, such as tiktok(social medias). Fashion is always a constant pursuit of mankind. Under these conditions, it is not strange that they spend money on these virtual artwork related to gaming and social media.
Because of these needs, art brand companies can convert their electronic ownership of products into NFTs or digital clothing to sell, so as to obtain greater profits to make up for the losses and market shortage caused by the pandemic. Furthermore this is also a kind of advertising about the art brand itself. Brands can build more branded experiences by Metaverse.
It is reported that Nike has submitted several new patents, indicating its intention to manufacture and sell virtual Nike brand sports shoes and clothing. The company is still waiting for the patent of “cryptokicks”, an NFT that allows users to “cultivate” different shoes to create customized sneakers, and then manufacture them in the real world, blurring the boundary between physics and virtualization, while taking advantage of their monetization opportunities.
Technology can help the art brand companies find the right audience as well that referred to by Chris as “people’s viewing habits are being ‘tracked’ by companies”. To a certain extent, it is a win-win situation. It will arrange and combine your preferences and interests to provide the best recommendation to you; From another perspective, it is also a kind of damage to privacy. As the peer mentioned in danger of Internet: ‘‘Both private and public data is stored online and anyone can access it’’. The risks of data theft are always exist which cannot be ignored.
Over 22 brands from varying areas had launched NFTs, including Nike, McDonald’s and Budweiser. This technology is definitely a good solution for the monetization of the art brands.
At the same time, the uncertainties behind NFTs are obvious as well. Metaverse and NFTs are the new industry. As Statista shows, more than 40% people tend to adopt a conservative attitude towards theses concepts. Nobody knows what the metaverse looks like in the future.
Although people have paid enough attentions to the metaverse, the technology of virtual reality still does not reach a level that can be widely needed by consumers. Metaverse definitely is a immature society. Like bitcoin, NFTs can be seemed as a digital currency, which provides the value through the confirmation of the copyright of art products. Compared to the bitcoin, its purchasing threshold is much lower, thus, new consumers are able to buy the low price NFT and have an enough tolerance for it, leading to today’s popularity.
This is particularly important as consumers’ demand for greater sustainability accelerates, as the pandemic highlights the adverse impact of the fashion industry on the environment and society. This works of art have almost zero environmental damage.Therefore, companies can obtain market data for the style of products through this low-cost digital clothing. Reducing the cost of trails and errors and strengthening the connection with the new consumers.
For the new art creators, it is easier for them to create the virtual artwork rather than the real products because the market share has already been allocated by the big companies. It spends a lot to make the real product and hard to salvage cost. Oppositely, for digital clothing or virtual artworks, the exposure and sales of NFT or digital clothing is simpler. The new creator can inject vitality into society, which is more conducive to social development.
For small and medium-sized art enterprises, choosing to create their own NFTs is a beneficial and harmless choice. Its cost is not high and the entry threshold is low as well. However, once one of their products become famous, they can obtain a large amount of funds and consumers for future products. For large enterprises, NFT’s profit is not much, but they invest to the future of the metaverse. They believe that the future of the Internet is metaverse or something better. They layout in advance to seek the future and grasp people’s preferences and directions faster.
