Starbucks officially announced Tuesday its plans to create a series of NFT collections, according to a company blog post written by Brady Brewer, chief marketing officer, and Adam Brotman, consultant.
So smart and creative. Love this team, and this project so much. Kindred spirit with @benmezrich NFT project.
“Our business aims to disrupt how content is created and distributed in the web3 era.” – @jenkinsthevalet
Community + Utility.
Disruption + Creativity around IP.
— adam brotman (@adambrotman) April 27, 2022
The global coffee chain said it believes NFTs have the potential to “create an expanded shared ownership model for loyalty, unique experience offerings, community building, storytelling and customer engagement,” while creating a new type of digital ecosystem that complements its current app-based offerings.
The Starbucks app currently has more than 30 million active users in the U.S., making it the second most popular form of mobile payment in the country, behind Apple Pay.
In addition to NFTs, Starbucks hopes to build on its app to create what it calls the “Starbucks Digital Community Web3 platform.” The company said the platform has the potential to “pioneer the combination of an accessible front-end, backed by the right blockchain technologies that are fast and inexpensive.”
For its NFTs, Starbucks plans to collaborate with other like-minded brands and creators. The company said it is taking a multi-chain or chain-agnostic approach to blockchain, and will start with blockchain-backed collections and infrastructure that are sustainable.
Brewer and Brotman wrote that Starbucks’ ownership of NFTs will initiate community membership, allowing members to access exclusive experiences and benefits. The themes of the NFT collections will be based on the Starbucks brand and both heritage and newly created artistic expressions.
Starbucks NFT collections will launch in phases throughout this year. The NFTs will be based on coffee art and storytelling and will come with “a series of unique experiences and benefits,” although the company has not disclosed what these benefits will be.
The company’s plan to launch NFTs was revealed by CEO Howard Schultz at a town hall meeting in early April. “If you look at the companies, the brands, the celebrities, the influencers, that are trying to create a digital NFT platform and business, I can’t find any of them that have the treasure trove of assets that Starbucks has, from collectibles to the entire heritage of the company,” Schultz said during the meeting.
While several global food chains, such as McDonald’s and Wendy’s, and others, have preemptively filed trademarks for NFTs and the metaverse, Starbucks has yet to do so. A search of the USPTO site shows that Starbucks’ last trademark application was filed in June 2021 for advertising and business.
With its NFT plans finally officially announced, it is only a matter of time before we see new trademark applications for the metaverse from Starbucks.
Starbucks NFT – Expectations for the launch date of the Genesis NFT Collection
Coffee giant aims to build a sustainable digital community WEB3 platform.
A new meaning to connect with the Starbucks community
Starbucks Chief Marketing Officer Brady Brewer has thrown out some fascinating insights into how they plan to build the NFT Digital Platform. It’s not just about NFT’s business, but about customer engagement.
The initial goal is to adapt to the Web3 platform, but with the goal of building a community. In other words. Starbucks wants to incorporate everything it stands for. For example, collaboration, art, experience and ownership. They plan to enter the world of art, music, books, etc.
A digital third place
We all know that our workplace and our home are two places. Then there is a third place that people may frequent. It’s usually a regular club or entertainment area. Starbucks aims to create such an ecosystem where people can participate using cutting-edge blockchain technology.
Since the blockchain community is also looking for value-based NFT charging, this could positively affect the company.
Access Pass – Branded Digital Asset
The goal of Starbucks’ NFT business will be to bring together digital communities with a multi-decade commitment to progress. It can become a treasure trove of assets such as Starbucks card art, coffee art and storytelling all rolled into one.
However, community membership will also become an asset. The Starbucks NFT collection will help cardholders gain access to an exclusive property that will provide them with a variety of unique experiences.
Expectations of Starbucks branded NFT collections
The Starbucks NFT business model could be developed in many ways. As we know, digital art is part of the NFT world. Starbucks also claims that its collection will be something drawn from Starbucks’ artistic expressions. This will be from both heritage and newly created collections. So, we can expect:
- A collection of diverse coffee art NFTs
- Storytelling through the NFT collection for the user experience could also be in the books.
- The branded NFT series will certainly provide community headlines.
As Starbucks wants to build future collections, we can expect them to use the digital ecosystem to provide evolving NFTs. They could also integrate customizations or the ability to mint new NFTs in the digital realm.
Being a leading brand, we could also witness NFTs that can be showcased in the Metaverse. This would include showcasing Starbucks’ signature artistic expressions, products and more.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s announcement and what we can speculate
The coffee giant announced in April 2022 that it would enter the blockchain and Web3 phrase with Genesis NFT Collection. The first collection will help form the core of the digital community. We could also see Starbucks partnering with like-minded brands to offer an exclusive experience.
In any case, we can assess the following aspects of Starbucks’ announcement:
Always adapting to change
Starbucks has always adapted to rapid technological changes. In the past we have seen them incorporate mobile ordering and payment systems. They have never hesitated to take the most advanced technology and turn it into something unique. That’s also their goal with the latest NFT business model.
We know that Starbucks customers have never had any problems with newly created or implemented features. Therefore, we can expect the community to quickly adapt to them.
Easily accessible to the general public
What does it mean that Starbucks intends to integrate “the art of coffee and storytelling”? Truth be told, they want to access the broad potential of blockchain technology and offer it to the mainstream public to build future collections.
If anything, we’ve seen Starbucks can create such an ecosystem that people will adapt to more easily. So what are they going to do for it?
Environmentally friendly blockchain technology
We can expect Starbucks’ NFTs to be based on a cross-chain or agnostic infrastructure. Moreover, Starbucks leaders have already stated that they want to approach this with environmentally friendly methods. Thus, they plan to incorporate blockchain technology that targets a decades-long commitment to sustainability.
They seek to scale and trace environmentally friendly blockchain technology. Therefore, they do not plan to rush to launch their NFT collection or its geneseed version in the near future. They will take their time to come up with everything. For example, whether there will be a shared ownership model or how NFTs initiate community membership, among other factors.
The bottom line – Starbucks’ coffee art and artistic expressions
The announcement of the Web3 adaptation came with NFT’s quarterly earnings call in April. An NFT project takes time to create and launch. Since Starbucks plans to take its time and build a community with it, we can expect it to be quite a while before we hear anything about the launch. It could be a couple of months or even until the end of the year before we see Starbucks launch its own NFT collection.
