On Tuesday (May 3), American multinational coffeehouse chain Starbucks announced its plans for entering the Web3 era.
Starbucks’ blog post, which was written by chief marketing officer Brady Brewer and advisor Adam Brotman, started by talking about their concept of the “third place”:
“While the ‘Third Place’ has often been described in physical terms — a place between home and work — the essence of the Third Place has always been the feeling of connection and belonging it provides. But in the hyper digital era that we live in, the community connection that Starbucks has always created is equally powerful as we extend the Third Place Connection wherever customers experience Starbucks.“
Next, the blog post talked about NFTs in general and more specifically Starbucks’ plan to create a series of NFT collections:
“Many people see NFTs as a new form of ownership of digital art, often traded in a highly speculative way. While that’s been true on some level in the early days in the space, we are fascinated by how NFTs allow people to own a programmable, brandable digital asset, that also doubles as an access pass.
“We believe NFTs have broad potential to create an expanded, shared-ownership model for loyalty, the offering of unique experiences, community building, storytelling, and customer engagement. And, while doing so also being a source of accretive business that can benefit a number of stakeholders in the process, while creating a new type of digital ecosystem to complement Starbucks current digital platform offering.
“We plan to create a series of branded NFT collections, the ownership of which initiates community membership, and allows for access to exclusive experiences and perks. The themes of these collections will be born of Starbucks artistic expressions, both heritage and newly created, as well as through world-class collaborations with other innovators and like-minded brands.”
As for their choice of blockchain technology for minting these NFTs, it had this to say:
“Our approach to blockchain technology – while ultimately likely to be multi-chain or chain agnostic – will certainly start with collections backed by blockchains and infrastructure that is consistent with our multi-decade commitment to sustainability.“
Starbucks aims to “take a phased approach here, willing to move fast, experiment, learn and collaborate.” Later this year, they will begin with their first NFT collection, membership, and community. This debut collection will “come with a host of unique experiences and benefits, worthy of a genesis NFT collection from Starbucks.”
Disclaimer
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Featured Image by “gwons” via Pixabay.com
