Experimenting with emerging Web 3.0 tech requires huge investments and therefore limits the pool of early adopters.
However, Thinkerbell, with a little bit of out-of-the-box imagination, was able to play around and learn about NFTs which then allowed the agency to launch its first Web 3.0 creative campaign.
On stage at AdNews Melbourne L!VE, Adam Ferrier, chief thinker, Thinkerbell said: “As an agency, it’s hard we can't experiment with other people's money, but we need to stay on top of these trends.
“So what we did last year was give NFTs to all of our clients and our community as Christmas presents.
“We did that as a cost effective way to understand the world of NFTs and blockchains, which blew my mind.
“We got to not only experience what creating an NFT is like but we also got to see all the data from our clients.
“We saw who opened the email and got their NFC out for Christmas, who opened the digital wallet, who watched our little instructional video on how it was created and who actually paid for the NFT gas.
“At the end of the day a very small proportion of our clients actually ended up getting their NFT out for Christmas, but it gave us great data in terms of how interested people are in this space, and also got us up to speed.
“If you hear of agencies saying we're investing really heavily into the metaverse or NFTs, or if Facebook gets up here and say we’re doing this, I'd say watch out because they are just going to try and sell you stuff.
“You know if you've got a sunk cost in something, and it's really really deep, then you have to make up that sunk cost by selling it on to someone else.
“So we need to understand the price - when things are proven on the market or the mass market game then we go in there.
From this internal experiment, Thinkerbell developed enough knowledge about the ecosystem to start creating their own Web 3.0 campaigns, with one of the first clients being NRMA Insurance.
“NRMA Insurance wanted to attract the next generation of users. So we went to where those users already were, which was Minecraft.
“We built an amazing kind of game called Climate Warriors teaching the next generation how to tackle climate change and gave them preventative actions.
“This had about 5 million downloads, and that's been a really nice success.”
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