Many people have joined the world of crypto and NFT in the past couple of years. Companies are taking part as well. Starbucks is launching its NFT loyalty program for fans and dedicated token lovers.
Starbucks Adds NFTs To Expand Its Customer Base
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have become a new world of opportunities. That’s why Starbucks is joining the line of companies and restaurants that produce their NFT products – it’s fun, popular, and fairly easy to push to the masses in 2022. While non-fungible tokens were first made to appreciate art more, they quickly turned into a business. Now, Starbucks wants to return to the roots of NFT. “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,” Starbucks wrote in the official statement.
But the company is not following other restaurants such as McDonald’s by creating its art piece. Instead, there will be a whole NFT loyalty program. The concept was explained during the Q2 2022 earnings presentation. The company will add “new concepts such as ownership and community-based membership models that we see developing in the Web 3 space,” Starbucks interim CEO Howard Schultz and executive vice president and chief marketing officer Brady Brewer told investors. “Imagine acquiring a new digital collectible from Starbucks, where that product also serves as your access pass to a global Starbucks community, one with engaging content experiences and collaboration all centered around coffee,” Brewer added.
New Technology – New CEO
The original blog post announcement also said that there are a few NFT collections in the plan. Owners of these token collections will appear as community members, who get their own unique experiences and bonuses. “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,” it continued. NFT and crypto is not as eco-friendly, though. Won’t Starbucks have any problems with that? Thankfully, the NFT community will reside on an environmentally sustainable web3 platform, supporting the eco-friendly ideas of the company. That said, the blockchain technology in the NFT loyalty program will probably be “multi-chain” or “chain agnostic,” according to the company’s statement.
The company is also looking for a new CEO. Of course, the main quality they should possess is the understanding of NFTs. Schultz said they must be open to other new technologies, like web3, in the future. So far, Schultz is temporarily guiding the company after Kevin Johnson’s departure following a unionization push. Soon, Starbucks intends to connect to more young customers. “I think the next CEO is going to be a creative person who’s going to understand that the equity of the Starbucks brand has real legitimacy and relevance outside of our stores,” the CEO said.
“And the world we’re living in today, our customer base is getting younger, they’re digital natives, and they expect Starbucks to be as relevant outside of our stores as we are inside.”
Sources: MSN, Starbucks, TechCrunch