Weekly Roundup — July 19th, 2021
Dear Lympo community,
With a new week comes a new chance to look back on the previous week, while getting to know another Lympo team member in the Behind The Scenes section!
Last week’s recap
Yat’s Bloomberg interview
Yat Siu — Chairman and Co-Founder of Animoca Brands — is a highly sought-after speaker and podcast guest, and last week wasn’t any different. He started off with an interview on the Markets Asia section of Bloomberg to discuss the recent fundraising of Animoca Brands.
Interested in finding out more about Animoca Brands investment and growth plans? Watch the video here.
Yat Siu’s chat with Henri Arslanian on The Future of Money
What is the impact of NFTs on the future of gaming and art? That’s exactly what Yat Siu and Henri Arslanian discussed on The Future of Money podcast. Henri Arslanian is the PwC Crypto Leader and Partner, the former Chairman of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Hong Kong where he teaches the first FinTech university course in Asia. All of that to say that his chat with Yat Siu is definitely worth a listen! Here are the links to find it on Spotify, Apple, or Google.
nWayPlay launches Olympic Premiere Edition Epic Box sale
The International Olympic Committee recently announced its partnership with WayPlay — a subsidiary of Animoca Brands—to officially license Olympic NFT pins and to build Olympic-themed cross-play multiplayer video games, of which the first will be launched later this year.
Last week, nWayPlay has launched the Premiere Edition Epic Box sale, where you can buy an exclusive box that contains 1 Epic, 2 Rare, and 5 Common pins representing posters, emblems, mascots, and pictograms from various Olympic Games. Check it out here!
Behind the scenes
We’ve already introduced 7 members from the core Lympo team throughout the previous Weekly Roundup articles. You can find an overview of those people here, with the link to their respective interviews. Today, we have yet another Lympo team member to put in the spotlight! Introducing Giantautas Nekrosius, Lympo’s former CMO and current Marketing Advisor! Let’s get to know him, shall we?
Who is Gintautas Nekrosius?
Just like most Lympo team members, I was born and raised in Lithuania. I’ve always been fond of numbers and people, and before my first “real” job I was playing poker. Generally, I started off my career in sales. And even though I had the chance to work with lots of different people, there weren’t enough numbers involved for me. After a few successful years in sales, Tadas — Lympo’s current Chief Strategy Officer — offered me a role at his agency as a Project Manager. There I got a chance to dive into all things marketing which got me hooked right away. I’ve stayed in Marketing ever since, leading marketing teams both big and small.
How were you involved in the early days at Lympo, and what is your role now?
In the early days of Lympo, I shifted to the CMO role after Tadas started spending more time on Strategy and Operations. Currently, I am a strategic Marketing Advisor for Lympo, while every now and then I’m still covering day-to-day marketing operations.
What’s a typical day for you?
My day starts when I wake up at 6 AM. I then eat breakfast and meet up with my trainer at a boxing gym at around 7 AM. After getting my blood pumping, I always dedicate time in my calendar for strategy and research. Next, I generally have a few meetings with partners and teams I work with. After I finish my lunch, I have my focus time booked in my calendar. That’s the time I spend mostly on reviewing teams' performance and planning out marketing actions. After that, I usually have a few more meetings before I end my day at around 8 PM with the planning of the next day.
What excites you about Lympo when looking towards the future?
I’m certain that NFTs and play-to-earn games are the future of blockchain. Lympo’s strategic role in the Animoca Brands ecosystem is to cover the Sports and eSports segments. With our current and future partnerships, I’m convinced that Lympo will be a household name in the industry. It’ll be the brand everyone will think of once they hear someone mentioning sports NFTs.
What are the biggest challenges for marketing in the blockchain space?
At the current moment, we are focusing on overlapping audiences, which means we’re not trying to target non-crypt-savvy people yet. We’re currently targeting people who follow our stars AND are also crypto-savvy. That way, it is easier to educate them about the benefits of NFTs on the Lympo platform. In the future, the biggest challenge — not only in marketing but also in the whole NFT space — will be educating the general audience about NFTs and play-to-earn games.
How did the Animoca Brands acquisition change the marketing workflow of Lympo, and what are the benefits and/or challenges of the current situation?
If we look at the marketing perspective, there are two sides to this. The huge upside for marketing after the acquisition is using current Animoca Brands partnerships and working with other brands on mutually beneficial cross-marketing efforts. The only downside I see is being a part of a huge organization such as Animoca Brands adds an additional confirmation layer for our communication, therefore we must sacrifice some speed.
Looking back, what was the Lympo marketing/branding campaign that you’ve enjoyed the most?
I must say that my favorite campaign was with Caroline Wozniacki, as it was our first big campaign with Lympo.
What are you the proudest of so far, with regard to Lympo?
During the years with Lympo, we have managed not only to spread the word about Lympo but to convert simple bypassers to dedicated followers. We truly have a great community that has been with Lympo through thick and thin.
If you could dream about a particular athlete whose NFT you could mint on the Lympo platform, who would it be?
Francis Ngannou, the Cameroonian MMA fighter who currently competes in the heavyweight division for the UFC.
What do you do when you’re not thinking about work?
In my spare time, I go to the gym and do a lot of boxing. I also listen to audiobooks and I love playing chess. Also, I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie, so I do all sorts of crazy stuff such as skydiving, jumping from stuff with a rope, and so on 😁
Looking ahead
Remember what Gintautas said about future marketing activities to attract both crypto-savvy and non-crypto-savvy people? Well, “star tokens” will be part of our strategy!
We will open up the possibility to interact with Lympo’s star athletes — including new ones that we will announce and release in the future — by staking their NFTs and minting “star tokens”. Various activities will be launched around the concept of “star tokens”, and you’ll even be able to purchase “star tokens” directly with LMTs.
Our goal here is to get as many regular fans on board as possible, so also individuals who aren’t necessarily blockchain- or crypto-savvy. Stay tuned as we have many announcements prepared already. 😉 And if you are not aware of what’s coming, you have probably missed the latest Lympo teaser video for Q3, check it out here!
Want to know more?
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