In this episode, we talk about building a brand in a Web 3 world. How you can start to adapt your brand to fit into this new community-driven digital world. How you can plan and take steps now so you don’t get left behind.

MENTIONED IN THIS WEBSITE
Bored Ape Yacht Club – https://boredapeyachtclub.com/#/
World of Women – https://www.worldofwomen.art/
Veefriends – https://veefriends.com/
Flyfish Club – https://www.flyfishclub.com/
Starbucks Odyssey – https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2022/the-starbucks-odyssey-begins/
Wisher Vodka – https://wishervodka.com/
Gucci Town – https://vault.gucci.com/en-GB/story/metaverse
Louis Vuitton – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/louis-the-game/id1574401807
Dencentraland – https://decentraland.org/
Roblox – https://www.roblox.com/
Sandbox – https://www.sandbox.game/en/
Clarks Shoes – https://www.clarks.co.uk/kids-sports-shoes/the-cicaverse-roblox
Nike – https://www.roblox.com/games/7462526249/NIKELAND
The Fabricant – https://www.thefabricant.com/
Horizon Workrooms – https://www.oculus.com/workrooms/
Horizon Worlds – https://www.meta.com/gb/horizon-worlds/
Vaynermedia – https://vaynermedia.com/
Discord – https://discord.com/
City Xtra – https://www.youtube.com/@CityXtra
Australian Open – https://events.decentraland.org/event/?id=a53e6b18-8ec6-4b18-8b0a-7c48db5beffc
Occulus – Buy Quest 2 Headset (Affiliate link) https://www.oculus.com/referrals/link/londonwebgirl/

PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Rory Sutherland – https://twitter.com/rorysutherland
Dara Denney – https://www.tiktok.com/@daradenney
Sophiena – https://www.tiktok.com/@sophiena_official
Lex Nicoleta – https://www.tiktok.com/@lexnicoleta
Anni Vanderbeek – https://www.tiktok.com/@annivanderbeek
Allison Bornstein – ​​https://www.tiktok.com/@allisonbornstein6
Sammi Jefcoate – https://www.tiktok.com/@sammijefcoate_
Keith Lee – https://www.tiktok.com/@keith_lee125

EPISODES MENTIONED
5. The Wisher Vodka Project – https://www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk/the-wisher-vodka-project/
11. Board Ape Yacht Club? – https://www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk/what-is-the-bored-ape-yacht-club/
14. What is the World of Women Project?
https://www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk/what-is-the-world-of-women-project/
18. What is Veefriends?
https://www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk/what-is-veefriends/
21. What is the Flyfish Club? – https://www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk/what-is-the-flyfish-club/
36. What is Starbucks Odyssey? – https://www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk/what-is-starbucks-odyssey/

RESOURCES MENTIONED
Ash B Medium Article
Serendipity Furniture – https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYS4uXhY/

BRAND QUESTIONS
1. What are your brand values?
2. What do you want from your community?
3. How are you going to show up and be authentic?
4. Who exactly is your customer?
5. How are you going to engage with them?
6. How are you going to build your community?
7. What platform best suits your brand and your community?
8. What is your strategy for them to transition into web 3 when you do?
9. How are you going to reward them for being loyal?
10. How are you going to tokenise your brand?
11. What are your first steps into the Metaverse?
12. How are you going to give depth to your brand look so that it suits the new Web 3.0 technology?
13. Are you going to buy land?
14. Who are the experts in this area?
15. Are any of your competitors already doing this?
16. What brands can you study where their ideas may translate?
17. What is the long-term goal for your brand in Web 3.0?

We hope you enjoyed the show and that it inspired some ideas. Join us next week to delve further into the Metaverse

If you have any questions, comments and/or want to become part of our community join us on our Facebook group and/or on Discord.

Or visit us here:
Website: www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wotmworld
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WOTMWorld
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wotmworld

IMPORTANT NOTICE
This podcast is for entertainment and education purposes only. We do not give any investment or financial advice and we strongly recommend you always DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.

Show Transcription

[00:00:00] Cheryl: Welcome to Women of the Metaverse. I am Cheryl Laidlaw

[00:00:07] Angela: I am Angela Harkness. We have been and are still on a journey to discover the Metaverse with 3.0 NFTs and anything that we are required to know to join this world 

[00:00:20] Cheryl: from. From this podcast, we will help you to unlock how the metaverse is going to impact your business and even personal life.

[00:00:30] Angela: Join us as we take the mystery out of this new digital universe. Welcome to Women of the Metaverse. In this episode, we are talking about how brands will change in this new Web three world. I think Cheryl and I have experienced this from different sides. Cheryl, we tried to get clients to understand elements of design when creating their brands.

[00:00:57] Angela: and how the small details can make a huge [00:01:00] difference. And myself, from a coaching perspective, it can sometimes be challenging to get business owners to understand the importance of a strong brand. I think over time the web brand and marketing has become mainstream, and with the rise of personal branding, people do understand it more.

[00:01:19] Angela: However, there are still many businesses that have created beautiful websites and understand the look of their. , but maybe miss out because they don’t take the time to write brand values and understand exactly who their customer is and ensure that their brand is threaded through every part of their business from the words they use to how they deal with customers, and also ensuring that the new employees understand the brand, so it does not become diluted as the company grows.

[00:01:50] Angela: This is not just for small brands, but bigger brands also suffer from this as. Just to give you an example, we talked about this in another episode [00:02:00] where the brilliant Rory Sutherland was talking about customer experience and how important that it is in a brand for a more high-tech hotel brand where you can open your door using your phone so you don’t have to wait to deal with the check-in desk to the opposite.

[00:02:17] Angela: Check-in experience at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, where they take you to your room and make your cup of. whilst you complete the check-in process. These are two very distinct brand experiences, but both know who they are dealing with. I think we, you have experienced that a lot with your web design, right?

[00:02:38] Angela: Well 

[00:02:38] Cheryl: also it, uh, some and not so much now, but they used to think that a brand was just your logo. Yeah, I’d say they a lot of small business owners, so it’s the whole shebang from. your values through to, I mean, we, we talk about it in, in 

[00:02:57] Angela: this, but yeah, I have the same [00:03:00] with coaching. Just trying to get people to invest in it.

[00:03:04] Angela: You know, even that sort of doing your website by yourself or your logo by yourself and not understanding everything, even the way you take photographs for Instagram, as it was at the time when this was really becoming. , it’s, it’s challenging to get people to understand how important it is. Definitely. 

[00:03:26] Cheryl: We got this from an article on Medium written by Ashby who mentioned Kevin Kelly, who is the author of a thousand True Fans.

[00:03:36] Cheryl: His vision was that the internet could be the perfect matchmaker where creators and brands could find a thousand true fans from whom they would make enough money to to sustain the. But the internet being centralized and the majority of the content is dictated by Google’s algorithm. If it changed, many companies [00:04:00] were often, often screwed.

[00:04:03] Angela: Do you remember we had one person that we knew who the whole business relied on Google and the position on Google, and then Google changed the algorithm and they almost lost their business. That’s how bad it is. It is, um, 

[00:04:18] Cheryl: horrific, actually. Lots of horror stories. Then social media, which was an incredible way to show your brand for what it was and show the personality behind the logo also became highly centralized, and again, at the mercy of the algorithm gods.

[00:04:37] Cheryl: But Web three, as we’ve talked about many times, is trying to be different. It is trying to move away from the hold of the big corporations and be a universe that is more about community than it is about followers. Whether that will be the outcome we are yet to find out, but what we do know is that you have the chance to start [00:05:00] now to your research.

[00:05:01] Cheryl: Take the time to think about your brand and what you want it to mean going forward, and who you are going to integrate it into Web three. Are you going to change your brand values going into the metaverse? Who exactly is your customer? And therefore what is your community and how you are going to guide them to take this journey with you?

[00:05:24] Cheryl: So let’s break it down a bit so you can see the scale of how you comply. This in web three, we are going to stay away from the technical side, but quickly note, cause of the decentralization and blockchain, it will make the technology and your data more. . 

[00:05:40] Angela: Okay. Tokens. Tokens enable a value add to your brand that has never been possible.

[00:05:48] Angela: Loyalty can now be rewarded through the purchase of tokens for a worthwhile piece of the brand, and also help you to grow a loyal community. You only need to look [00:06:00] to ordinate your club world. The women be friends, and in the most commercial sense, look to the fly fish. And how they have grown very quickly a loyal community by creating a tokenized membership as opposed to the standard buy into type approach.

[00:06:19] Angela: The most recent one we discussed is Starbucks Odyssey, how Starbucks have taken their already successful rewards program and advanced it through tokens. The beauty of this is that they are not using wallets or cryptocurrency. You can purchase tokens in the same way you would purchase a cup of coffee.

[00:06:39] Angela: We will leave links to all of these episodes in the show notes. There are so many episodes we have given ideas about how you can tokenize your brand and probably all the web three methods you can use. This is probably the and cheapest to apply, but take our warning. It has to be about adding. [00:07:00] So many N F T releases these days.

[00:07:02] Angela: The rewards seem to be an afterthought. They don’t need to be expensive for your brand, but they do need to reflect the fact that you want to share your brand with your community. For example, if you have a podcast, you could offer tokens where listeners could get exclusive episodes. If you launch physical product tokens could again enable you to release exclusive products for token holders.

[00:07:27] Angela: or you could offer loyal customers to be top of your wait list. They don’t even need to be income earning. They can sometimes be something that is offered to loyal customers, showing your community you care about them by offering them the opportunity to engage and give opinions about new product. There are no limits to tokens and you can use them how you want.

[00:07:51] Angela: The key to this is to remember your brand. and to release tokens in line with them and your community. 

[00:07:59] Cheryl: The [00:08:00] Metaverse, this is a massive subject and may seem to some still a little out of reach or yet not a reality, but the Metaverse really does enable you to show what your brand is about because it really has the possibility to be limitless.

[00:08:17] Cheryl: So what we’ve talked about, how brands have built incredible spaces that you can visit that really highlight their worlds and what they are about. Partnering with the likes of Decent Land, the Sandbox and Roblox retail and big brands have really caught on to the power of the Metaverse. We have talked about them.

[00:08:37] Cheryl: Gucci, Lou Futon, Selfridges, even Clark Shoes have created a brand collaboration and one of the most successful in the Metaverse world is Nike. For us, smaller brands, it can seem a bit daunting, but it is not impossible. One of our favorites because they really stepped outside the box, is Wisher Vodka who opened a distillery in the [00:09:00] central land to help build a community around their product.

[00:09:04] Cheryl: But we do understand people being put off. Buying land is expensive, but does the cost outweigh the benefits? It is maybe worth time to research. However, if at this stage it is a definite no, you can still build a world for free. In worlds you can use and personalize horizon workrooms. You can hold events for VR uses.

[00:09:31] Cheryl: Should not stop you from investigating and dipping your toe into the metaverse waters. It may even be possible to build partnerships with other brands so that you could find a collaboration way to enter the metaverse. Look at how the Fabricant have partnered with world Women, but what is important and why is Key to start and look at the Metaverse as part of your future strategy is that it enables you to create a much deeper brand recogni.

[00:09:59] Angela: It’s [00:10:00] important for people to start looking at least, isn’t it? Well, 

[00:10:02] Cheryl: we’ve got Apple VR coming out this year. Yeah. Um, they, they reckon it’s gonna be around 3000 pounds and I really feel that Apple are gonna lead the way. Now I feel that it’s gonna be, because all the apps are gonna be integrated into the VR headset, it’s just a no-brainer that people will be able to see that as something that they can use.

[00:10:26] Cheryl: Straight away. 

[00:10:28] Angela: Yeah. The only problem, the only problem I think it’s becoming a little bit now is it’s a bit like the, um, like echo and the saunas and the, they don’t, they almost don’t interact with one another, do they? If you bring out it’s. If you bring out a VR headset, you should be able to interact.

[00:10:46] Angela: That’s the problem is the interoperability, isn’t it? You can’t, well, 

[00:10:49] Cheryl: well, in my opinion, I think that’s why Apple have actually waited, whereas Facebook released theirs and then we had to connect them to our Facebooks where it should have been. A [00:11:00] case of us connecting our VR headsets, signing into our Facebooks, and boom, everything’s there.

[00:11:07] Cheryl: But it wasn’t quite like that. Yeah. Was we got our 

[00:11:09] Angela: VR headset. You know, the thing I find with, um, this VR headset, so the meta quests, it’s almost similar to having a PC where every time, so every one thing that needs updating, it has to be done separately. , there’s no kind of integration into it. So if you’ve got a phone, whilst you have the update apps on your phone, you can choose to say, update all, and it does it for you.

[00:11:38] Angela: Sometimes the VR headset seems so, um, lacking an integration that every time you’ve gotta come out, go back into Facebook, put this code in link. and it’s still, you know, we are still talking about technologies. It’s incredibly new so it will get better. Yeah. You know, it’s sort of, [00:12:00] you know, children in 20 years time will be like, think it’s similar to phones that only made phone calls.

[00:12:07] Angela: That’s how new we are to it. But yeah, I think there is, there’s still a long way to go, but I think like we constantly say, you have to just invest. because if you don’t, you’re really gonna be left behind, aren’t you? So 

[00:12:22] Cheryl: are you gonna invite, are you gonna buy a headset, Angela

[00:12:28] Angela: Probably. But you know, we’ll see. We’ll see. I just have FOMO with these things, . I know, that’s why I asked. But yeah, probably. Anyway, so the next one, community. We cannot talk about this subject. Web three is about community. It is about engaging with people who want to engage with you. No longer is it about following, but and an involved community.

[00:12:55] Angela: TikTok is a perfect example of the start of this. Groups of [00:13:00] like-minded people come together to discuss. So you have, but talk, Dalton talk, beauty talk where people can really feel like a community. Don’t get us wrong, TikTok can be hateful. , but it shows the shift in how people want to engage with brands.

[00:13:17] Angela: One of the current trends, which is de influencing beauty product, shows that people no longer have patience for the old school selling. I was listening to a video that was Duetted on the original creator called Dara Denny, who is a content creative for big brands and works on a lot of paid for. Said that there has been a shift and that creative is the only thing that mattered.

[00:13:45] Angela: And it was duetted by a creative called J M O, who is actually the media via for Bena Media, so Gary VA Company, and he was agreeing with what she said. Basically what they are saying is that it comes [00:14:00] down to authenticity and creating for your audience and allowing. That way rather than putting money into Facebook ads and what hashtags are working in s e o.

[00:14:13] Angela: Not to say that they have stopped working, but again, it comes down to community. The reason why I’m talking about TikTok is we would say it was the first platform where it wasn’t all about highly stylized content. So you can come on in your dressing gown, like subpoena to pack the kids’ lunch boxes and be your.

[00:14:35] Angela: And grower. Following from that Lex Nicoletta and coastal grandmother, Annie VanDerBeek and her unnecessary necessities, Alison Bornstein and her three word method, Sammy, and it’s Wednesday. Let’s get dressed and not to miss out. Keith Lee, who at the recording of this show, has reached over 10 million followers by sitting in his daughter’s chair reviewing food.[00:15:00] 

[00:15:00] Angela: All of these people do something completely different, but are authentic. And have put their own creativity into the content they are producing another platform that is decentralized, which is free for you to use, and a great way for you to build a community is Discord. Many brands are really starting to build engaging conversations with their community.

[00:15:22] Angela: In this space, you can offer open service for anyone to join and close service for paying or for super loyal community members such as city. Another perfect example of a brand that understood community, and we got it from the Ashby Medium article, is the Australian Open Tennis fans are loyal, but the Australian Open found that during the pandemic, their attendance figures, not surprisingly, went down, contributing to a hundred million loss.

[00:15:54] Angela: So they got creative, understood their community, and created incentives. [00:16:00] So they launched 6,000 nft. , each one represented a plot on the tennis court, which gave buyers the chance to own a physical piece of the Australian open. Other benefits were also included, but they also created the Australian Open Precinct Inland, which included the Grand Slam, oval Practice, village Press, conference room, the gym, so they could really gain a tennis experie.

[00:16:29] Angela: There were gamification elements in the way of challenges. There were some live performances, but they also could engage with other members of the community. What they did with this approach was to show they understood how much people loved tennis, how much they loved the Open Australia, the Australian Open, and how they open their doors in a virtual way to give them this adventure.

[00:16:53] Angela: They didn’t just push ads and products at. . This is not something to just think about when you enter the [00:17:00] Webby space. It is about what you can do now to start to take this on board. Who is your community? Who do you want to be part of your community? What can you do to show that you appreciate their loyalty and what can you do to leverage that loyalty?

[00:17:16] Angela: The sooner you start, the easier it will be to take them on this web free journey with. A lot in there about community. I love what the Australian opened it. Yeah. Amazing. That’s just really smart though, isn’t it? Because it’s just, you know, they, they just looked at it from there rather than, oh, let’s just throw more ads at it.

[00:17:37] Angela: They looked at it from a really creative way and, and it, I mean, I don’t have the figures, I didn’t put the figures down, but they really, really managed to grow their income that way as well. . It’s just a smart way to think about it. 

[00:17:51] Cheryl: Yeah. I get lots of adverts from, um, the Royal Ascot and, you know, you could do so much there.

[00:17:59] Cheryl: [00:18:00] Yeah. 

[00:18:00] Angela: So much. Yeah. That’s such a good idea actually. I’m sure they’re on the ball, right? Yeah. Because it’s difficult, like Ascots amazing to go to, but then there comes a point in your life when you’re just like, right, I can’t do it again. I can’t stand in a dress in high. In a field basically all day , they’re just surrounded by drunk people and depending on the weather, you know, and it’s a really small town Ascot to get to as well, isn’t it?

[00:18:25] Angela: So they could do that Metaverse, you’re absolutely right. It would be brilliant. 

[00:18:31] Cheryl: it would be, right. So let’s go back to basics. What is your brand? What do you want your brand to stand for? Now is the time to take a really deep, deep dive into your brand, D n A, and really lay out what it is. Does it still reflect you?

[00:18:51] Cheryl: What is the true purpose of your business? We suggest that you take some time out by yourself or with a team, or if you have a [00:19:00] budget, use the help of an expert who understands Web three and can help create a brand strategy that will take you into the next version of the internet. Some of the questions that you can ask, again, I won’t go through them all.

[00:19:15] Cheryl: We can put ’em in the show notes. What are your brand values? What do you want from your community? , how are you going to show up and be authentic? Who exactly is your customer? How are you going to engage with them? How are you going to build your community? What platform best suits your brand and your community?

[00:19:40] Cheryl: What is your brand strategy? And for them to transition into web three when you. , how are you going to reward them for being loyal? How are you going to tokenize your brand? What are the first steps into the metaverse? And the list goes on. But please do go to our show notes, um, for, for the whole list that you can go through [00:20:00] with your, with your team or expert.

[00:20:03] Cheryl: So these are just a few questions that you could be asking for you to create a strong strategy going 

[00:20:07] Angela: forward. Yeah. And they were just some questions. I mean, you’d ask more anyway. Wouldn’t. I just 

[00:20:16] Cheryl: an expert. They’ll be able to guide you through it anyway. 

[00:20:20] Angela: But also the other thing that I was thinking about with this is it doesn’t stop you.

[00:20:24] Angela: So think about the story we’ve talked about with Roary Sutherland. If you still want your brand to be very old school, it doesn’t stop that. If you have a sweet shop where you have old style suites and you still wanna serve them in a paper bag, it doesn’t stop you doing that. But you do have to think.

[00:20:42] Angela: Continuing your brand going forward and building that community. So it’s just important to just constantly think about it. Web three completely enhances the way in which customers interact with your brand, giving them experiences [00:21:00] that they could never get just by walking to a shop or going to a Web two website.

[00:21:06] Angela: Cheryl sent me an incredible video the other day about a portal that was placed on a. Furniture store called Serendipity, and they create furniture inspired by sea creatures and being underwater. And they placed this thing on the beach, and when you walked into it, you looked like you were actually under the water.

[00:21:28] Angela: And you could look at the furniture that they created and you could look at their catalog. And we put a link of the video into the show. But it’s a perfect example of what we are talking about. I can’t even work out how they did this. I can’t, 

[00:21:45] Cheryl: I think it was through the, through the eyes of the VR set. 

[00:21:48] Angela: No, it was smart.

[00:21:49] Angela: It was clever, whatever it was. Cuz it just took like a pitch of like a massive picture frame placed on the beach, didn’t it? Yeah. And he walked through and, and he walked through. Yes. [00:22:00] The point is, you have the chance to bring your brand to life in a way that you can never have. Imagine. and the technology is there to help you do it.

[00:22:10] Angela: This goes to you if you are looking to seamlessly navigate your brand into Web three, but it also goes to those that help navigation. If you are a brand consultant, web designer, business coach, creating content for your client, you need to know what is available now and what is coming through this podcast and other podcasts through your own research and wherever you can get the information with people, you.

[00:22:37] Angela: You need to start to have an understanding of blockchain tokens, decentralization, the Metaverse avatars, AI to name a few. 

[00:22:47] Cheryl: As a woman in the space, there is a chance for you to be ahead of the game and really forge forward before this is even a spark of an idea in another brand sports, you could really make your brand stand [00:23:00] out.

[00:23:00] Cheryl: We hope that you enjoyed this episode. Join us next week as we continue our journey into the meta. 

[00:23:06] Angela: Bye for now. Bye for now.

[00:23:11] Angela: Thank you for listening to this episode of Women of the Metaverse. 

[00:23:16] Cheryl: You can find all information, links and people we talked about in the show notes on our website. If 

[00:23:22] Angela: you have enjoyed this podcast, please comment and subscribe. 

[00:23:27] Cheryl: Join us again in the next episode as we continue this exciting metaverse journey.