Awareness is the first stage in the buyer’s journey toward purchasing a product or service. Here, buyers become aware that they have an unfulfilled desire or need and they seek out or discover potential solutions to satisfy their pain point. In this stage, the potential customer may not know what all their options may be, but know that potential solutions are available. In this search or discovery, the buyer first learns about these potential brand solutions.
People today discover new brands in myriad ways. We see others using a brand that we have not previously seen. Branded products are placed in movies. We view ads in printed catalogs, in magazines, in direct mail postcards and on billboards. An often-quoted marketing statistic estimates that Americans are exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 ads per day. It’s no wonder that brands struggle to create awareness with new audiences when there is so much noise in the word.
Brands Thrive on Word of Mouth and Social Media Sharing
A 2021 research study shows that, aside from TV/radio ads, people are increasingly learning about brands from social media (55%) or through word of mouth (50%). For Gen Z, 78% say they discover brands through social media, followed by 61% of Millennials. What insight does this research reveal about brand discovery? That people organically share brand information that they perceive as remarkable, relevant, and valuable.
Tiffany & Co. Sparkles with Free Media
When Tiffany & Co. prepared to drop its NFTiff collection of 250 Cryptopunk pendants, its EVP of product and communications went directly to Tiffany’s fans. In a Twitter poll, he asked: “Do we custom make @TiffanyAndCo Cryptopunk pendant available for Cryptopunk owners to order for 1 week?” Over 80% of respondents answered with a resounding yes.
The NFTiffs were a collection of 250 digital passes (NFTs) that buyers could mint and redeem for a custom designed pendant and a NFT digital artwork resembling the final jewelry design. The minted NFT could then be retained in each holder’s crypto wallet.
Tiffany & Co. dropped the “pendant and token” combo for 30 ETH each, or just under $51,000 each. Many of the company’s 1.7 million Twitter followers shared the tweet and many others reshared and shared the news again. Following a press release and hundreds of news stories that were published in the coming days, Google.com displayed more than 119,000 web pages for searches for “Tiffany crypopunk.” Again, only 250 physical pendants and associated digital tokens were sold.
This NFT project is a veritable case study in how a brand can earn millions of dollars worth of media attention at virtually no cost.
Millions of people became aware of this campaign. It’s unknown how many hundreds of thousands of people learned about the Tiffany & Co. brand or at least thought about it for the first time in a long time.
Partner with an Experienced NFT Marketing Firm
If your brand wants to design and execute a world-class NFT project, large or small, why try to do it alone? Partner with a leading team with deep experience and proven expertise. Partner with a marketing firm like Web3 Pro that lives NFT strategy with brands every day. Web3 Pro is a leader in NFT marketing.
