You can't turn anywhere without hearing the acronym NFT at the moment. There are people who have been looking into it for a long time, others are looking at this trend and trying to understand the value, benefits and applications for their brand or business. 

According to the BBC: “NFTs are "one-of-a-kind" assets in the digital world that can be bought and sold like any other piece of property, but which have no tangible form of their own. The digital tokens can be thought of as certificates of ownership for virtual or physical assets.” 

If that wasn’t clear enough, we chat with Damian Collier, CEO and Founder of Blend Media, to talk us through NFTs, their value and how to use them to deepen brand loyalty. In the full interview, Damian also talks about the impact of Facebook’s rebrand to Meta, the metaverse and its impact on immersive technology content and creators, watch it here...

Here are five great examples of how brands are utilising NFTs

1. NFTs have already made groundbreaking headway in industries like art Beeple’s The First 5,000 Days sold at Christie’s for $69,000,000
   
2. In fashion, both Gucci and Virgil Abloah (in collaboration with Stevie Williams) have created unique pieces 
   
3. Beauty brands have stepped out to explore NFTs with campaigns surrounding exclusive products and artwork. NARS celebrated its hero blush Orgasm by commissioning a collection of three NFT artworks.
   
4. The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs is one of the most successful collections in the non-fungible token space, there are 10,000 Bored Apes which double as a Yacht Club membership card, and grants access to members-only benefits.
   
5. Tarantino plays on the privacy aspect of an NFT with his due to be launched Secret NFT collection. The NFT collection contains the handwritten, never-before-seen screenplay of Pulp Fiction, The owner will enjoy the freedom of choosing between keeping the secret to themself for all eternity; sharing the secrets with a few trusted loved ones; or sharing the secrets publicly with the world...

In the interview with Damian we ask, having worked on the creation and sale of the Charlie Bit My Finger NFT, which sold for $760,999, how can Blend Media can support the development, minting and auction process?

“It's directly in our space and a lot of the immersive technology creators develop AR filters which has been part of our offering to clients and our work with clients for quite some time. Now through our marketplace, those same creators are developing digital art for bands and businesses and issuing it as NFTs. So there's an overlap of shared expertise amongst our creator community, that's part of the benefit of what we've built as a global community of several thousand creators around the world who know AR, VR and 3D and so have the skills to develop NFTs.

"We spent a lot of time understanding the immersive industry (we were incorporated six years ago) and we started as a 360 video stock footage business, and here we are today we've built up the expertise and the community to advise on all things XR and all things metaverse so whether it's someone thinking of minting an NFT we know how to do that and can advise clients all the way through to how to structure the auction and how do you build that auction site. As a business, we make sure that we're up to date as best as we can be but we stay up to date through a global community of experts who know the trends in AR, VR and 3D and that's the value of the community and the power of the network" comments Collier.

If you have an immersive project that you'd like to make a reality get started here; or if you're a creator with immersive skills join our marketplace. For all questions or for more information please get in touch.