- Toxic terms
- New name – new content?
- What is wrong with NFTs?
- To rebrand or not to rebrand?
- NFT Collectible Art Project
- Is rebranding worth it?
The term “NFT” is being increasingly replaced by “digital collectibles” on social media. The time is past when such words as “blockchain”, “NFT” and “crypto” in a company’s name or description could determine half the success. As if to prove this, the Bitcoin miner previously known as Riot Blockchain has rebranded to Riot Platforms. Brynly Llyr, Head of Blockchain and Digital Assets at the World Economic Forum, has gone further to suggest rebranding the entire crypto space around “decentralized systems.” Could it be that NFT companies will soon be forced to rename their businesses and reword their offers?
Toxic terms
“For a while, we definitely don’t want to call them NFTs,” said Baron Davis, an entrepreneur and a former professional basketball player. SLiC Images, his NFT-based platform for photographers and videographers, attempts to avoid mentioning NFTs at all.
Crypto terminology has become toxic as of lately. While the word “blockchain” in a company’s name used to improve its standing, now “crypto”, “Web3”, “NFT” and other buzzwords are a big no-no in crypto marketing.
Even the word “metaverse”, which was intended to define the ultimate transformation of the decentralized web, was hijacked by Mark Zuckerberg with the goal of pivoting Facebook.
New name – new content?
Although crypto is still the focus of attention of “a younger generation distinctly wary of non-traditional investments,” Katie Baron, Head of Retail at Stylus Media Group, believes that it needs a “judicious refocusing.”
“I do think these terms have become somewhat toxic — particularly crypto and NFTs — partly because the initial feeding frenzy was pitched as being synonymous with a brave new ultra-democratized world in which everyone could win big by investing in or making digital assets,” said Katie Baron.
Dickon Laws, global head of innovation services for Ogilvy Experience, believes that such terms as “crypto” and “Web3” are so off-putting not just because of the bad industry players, but due to “terrible product-market fit.”
“Nobody has made Web3 relevant or accessible for the masses, or really spent the time trying to understand how it solves ‘mass’ market problems or improves consumers’ lives,” he commented.
Laws also added that the “crypto gold rush” of the recent years didn’t become more widespread due to its failure to solve problems that most ordinary people could relate to.
The issue was aggravated by the fact that brands and companies “didn’t follow their usual due diligence when investing,” Laws said, referring to the fact that they had not built long-term plans to support their blockchain investment. He added, “so while lots of headlines were generated for ‘world first,’ they don’t have answers for their stakeholders on what their money was spent on and its impact, meaning that growth and ongoing investment – good money after bad – is a really tricky sell.”
What is wrong with NFTs?
Initially, NFTs were criticized for their environmental impact. Later, non-fungible tokens became associated with fraud and get-rich-quick schemes.
National Geographic gave up on its plans to issue NFTs after being severely criticized on social media. The gaming industry has faced continued criticism from fans. The publishers of such games as Worms and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 decided to dismiss their initial plans of using NFTs.
Ребрендинг или нет?
It seems that the rebranding of NFTs and the new term “digital collectible” have proven successful, with millions of Reddit users buying “collectible avatars.”
“Everyone says ‘digital collectible’ works. Is it a better branding than NFT? I don’t know,” commented Alexandre Tsydenkov, co-founder of NFT Paris.
“Every six months people find a new word. NFTs were a has-been, now it’s the metaverse. But now Facebook is rebranding to Meta, so we need to change,” he added. He believes that before renaming NFTs, the community should wait until “things have calmed down, and maybe NFTs can be in the mainstream without people understanding what the NFTs are.”
This brings up the question of whether crypto companies should proceed with rebranding and drop the potentially toxic words from their names.»
NFT Collectible Art Project
Ubisoft, the publisher of many famous games, including Assassin’s Creed, is sticking to blockchain with no signs of slowing down. This week, the publisher launched NFTs of its Rabbids franchise in metaverse game The Sandbox. “We understand where the sentiment towards the technology comes from, and we need to keep taking it into consideration every step of the way,” said Didier Genevois, Blockchain Technical Director at Ubisoft, in 2021.
He stated that the company’s blockchain initiative was an experiment that was “meant to understand how the value proposition of decentralization can be received and embraced by our players.”
Is rebranding worth it?
According to Martin Raymond, owner and co-founder of The Future Laboratory, at the end of the day, the words won’t matter.
“I suspect that a lot of the reaction we’re seeing is just a prejudice to the new. I think this happens with every innovation cycle or tech cycle,” he commented.
Gartner hype cycle is a methodology commonly used when introducing new technology.
Raymond claims that what the current terms need is not rebranding but rather detoxifying. This can be achieved by the technology’s proponents, journalists, and the finance and banking industry that strive to benefit from the technology.
Laws agreed, saying, “Web3 is about as relevant to the average person as the term ‘HTML.’ It’s a crucial technological evolution but do we need to know what Web3 means, like most people need to know what HTML means?”
He believes that users do not care whether something is an app, dapp, NFT, smart contract, or IoT system as long as the tool they are using brings benefit.
