CPG brands make a splash with NFTs

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CPG brands make a splash with NFTs

2 May 2023

Maggie Glisan

Maggie Glisan covers consumer trends and emerging markets for the Commercial Baking media group. She spent the bulk of her 15-year career as the senior food editor at Better Homes and Gardens, where she was responsible for producing, writing and editing stories and developing recipes for the monthly magazine and special interest publications. Prior to that she worked as graphic designer and assistant art director in the Food Group at Better Homes and Gardens, where she took on an increasing role in content creation and editorial development.

KANSAS CITY, MO — How are food and beverage brands thinking about NFTs? As expected, some of the largest global QSR players were among the first to jump on the bandwagon. At the start of 2021, big names like McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Taco Bell made flashy headlines with an onslaught of high-profile releases.

To mark the relaunch of its McRib sandwich, McDonald’s gave away 10 McRib NFTs as part of a sweepstakes promoted on Twitter. The chance to obtain one of the exclusive digital art pieces was aimed at superfans hoping to own a piece of the McRib’s 40-year history.

Coca-Cola’s inaugural NFT collection dropped just in time for International Friendship Day with proceeds from the auction benefiting Special Olympics International. The four unique multisensory NFTs reimagined some of the brand’s most notable features for the metaverse including a custom-designed jacket wearable and sound visualizer that brings to life a Coke’s iconic audio cues.

Taco Bell hopped on the NFT train by selling taco-themed GIFs and images, which were also accompanied by a $500 digital Taco Bell gift card reserved only for the NFT’s original owner.

Despite the buzz generated by these campaigns (and apparent demand: Taco Bell’s 25 tokens reportedly sold out in just 30 minutes), brands don’t appear to be in a hurry to repeat these efforts with similar initiatives.

“There was this feeling that brands were saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got an NFT collection, and it’s really cool,’ but beyond that, it was difficult for consumers to understand why they’d really want it,” said Ben McDougal, a tech founder, author and entrepreneur, noting that giant brands could only entice their audience with Willy Wonka’s golden ticket so many times before they caught onto the gimmick.

But it’s not just the world’s most massive QSR brands that have dipped a toe in the NFT pool. Baking and snack brands big and small are also experimenting.

The Kellogg Co. and General Mills were two of the bigger players to test the NFT waters in early 2021. Kellogg’s joined the NFT frenzy with a limited-edition release of CryptoCrisp Pringles, a virtual flavor of the popular chip rendered in the form of digital art by Ukranian artist Vasya Kolotusha (proceeds from the auction of the 50 artworks went directly back to Kolotusha). Despite the fact that consumers couldn’t actually “taste” the exclusive new flavor, early bids for the collectibles went for upwards of $800 on Rarible, an Ethereum-based NFT marketplace, after starting at just $2.

General Mills, on the other hand, took a page from McDonald’s’ playbook and leveraged interest in the tech to support nonprofit Feeding America. To mark the return of chocolate Dunkaroos, the company auctioned off 10 original digital artwork NFTs dubbed “new frosting tokens” inspired by Dunkaroos artwork from the 1990s, when the snack was in its heyday. All proceeds from the Rarible auction went to Feeding America’s network of food banks, and the highest bidders also scored an exclusive first taste of the nostalgic snack before it hit store shelves.

While many of these early NFT campaigns leaned heavily into scarcity and collectability — and the hope that the collectible NFTs would increase in value over time — they lacked utility, which McDougal said is crucial for mainstream adoption.

According to Maru Group, only one in four US adults said they were aware that some NFTs could provide real-world benefits, so increasing awareness about the more practical uses could encourage greater consumer interest.

“If you have a huge audience with a ton of reach and brand loyalty, collectability is a realm you might want to experiment with,” McDougal shared. “But if you are a small baker and your bandwidth is already maxed out, you don’t need to make a big gimmicky splash with NFTs or try to make a bunch of money off Web3. Instead, just start to consider how NFTs can provide value to your customers — whether that’s a loyalty program that delivers exclusives to NFT holders or access to unique events. They need to be more than just a digital token to collect.”

This story has been adapted from the April | Q2 2023 issue. Read the full story in the digital edition of Commercial Baking.

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