It’s been no secret that serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk – founder of VaynerX, VaynerMedia, and other endeavors – is a NFT advocate. His NFT dedicated project, VeeFriends, recently surpassed $11M in secondary sales while raising over $100K for charity in the process. VeeFriends has totalled over $50MM in total sales as well. This week, VaynerX announced the launch of a new project, VaynerNFT. With the announcement, the VaynerNFT signed on a substantial client in Budweiser’s parent company AB InBev.
Cheers To That
Budweiser has been a VaynerMedia partner for nearly a decade. The two have collaborated on award-winning campaigns for the beverage brand, and now they have a new venture to toast to. VaynerNFT will serve as the ‘NFT agency of record’ for Budweiser, a first-of-its-kind agency representation deal for a brand as large as Budweiser.
VaynerNFT will serve as consultants for strategic NFT integration for brands. The team will look to be NFT projects that have long-term value, expand new revenue streams that leverage IP and owned assets, and create unique value-adds for NFT holders.
VaynerNFT is showing flexibility in how they work, offering clients services that include both strictly consulting and full-scale executional abilities.
“At AB InBev, we’re always looking for new ways to innovate and provide the best experience for our consumers,” stated Head of Global Brands for AB InBev, Richard Oppy.
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Bullish Behavior
The moves from Gary Vee and team show clear optimism around the NFT marketplace. The new VaynerX NFT-dedicated division will be led by Gary Vaynerchuk himself, along with long-time VaynerX veteran Avery Akkineni.
“NFTs promise to be a major part of the digital ecosystem going forward, so it’s important for brands to know how they can fully leverage this space – from opportunity to execution,” said Vaynerchuk. VaynerNFT joins a list longer than just VeeFriends for Gary’s NFT projects too. Earlier this year, Vaynerchuk teamed up with Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz and Fanatic’s Michael Rubin to form NFT start-up Candy Digital. The firm kicked off business by partnering with Major League Baseball.
For AB InBev, the agency addition comes just a month after the firm minted NFTs for sub-brand Stella Artois and established a partnership with NFT horse-racing platform ZED RUN. 50 unique horses were created with ZED RUN, and commanded millions of dollars worth of sales. Spencer Gordon, a marketing team lead at AB InBev, stated that sales monies were donated to help bars and restaurants in Europe who were impacted from COVID-19.
The Budweiser NFTs with VaynerNFT can be expected sometime in the second half of 2021.
Crypto's continued broad growth is suggesting that it will be a mainstay for premier brand engagement. | Source: CRYPTO-CAP on TradingView.com
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Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com
