According to the statistics of DAPP data and distribution platform dapprad, NFT market sales reached US $2.5 billion in the first half of 2021, compared with us $13.7 million in the same period of the previous year.
In the past year, the heat wave of NFT (non homogeneous token) has constantly invaded all walks of life, creating a new revenue model for major brands.
From December 21 to 23, ryonoichi Sakamoto made the 595 notes of the main melody in Murry Christmas Mr. lawrence-2021 into NFT and sold them in three batches. Each note sold for 10000 yen. These notes were sold out when they were put on the shelves. The sales platform Adam by GMO was paralyzed by the influx of buyers, and they resold the NFT after they got it, and the price increased dozens of times. According to the statistics of DAPP data and distribution platform dapprad, NFT market sales reached US $2.5 billion in the first half of 2021, compared with us $13.7 million in the same period of the previous year.
2021 is also a year for the fashion industry to enter the meta universe. In early December, Nike acquired digital fashion company rtfkt. Adidas also announced its cooperation with coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, in November.
According to the fashion situation in 2022 released by McKinsey and the fashion business review (BOF) in November, the online business model was a great success during the epidemic. The report predicts that next year, enterprises will continue to invest in digital innovation and try new creative and business forms. Digital assets such as NFT, game skin and virtual fashion will move closer to the mainstream, and some brands will expand to the field of digital yuan universe.
attraction of the metauniverse
Young people spend more and more time in virtual space.
According to the statistics released by the game and E-sports research and data analysis company newzoo in August this year, the younger generation (generation Z and millennials) players spend more leisure time on games than on other forms of entertainment. About 81% of generation Z players have played games in the past six months, with an average of 7 hours and 20 minutes per week, And they watch the screen for eight hours a day. Raymond Kurzweil, Google’s engineering director, even predicted that by 2030, people will spend more time in the meta universe than in the real world.
Part of the attraction of the meta universe is that people can contact others and build communities in it – a need that is even more urgent when the epidemic hinders people’s social contact. Yuanuniverse’s digital assets also enable consumers to have new ways of shopping and barter, as well as new identities.
In November 2017, the virtual cat keeping game crypto kitties was launched. In the game, people can not only keep cats, but also use cryptocurrency to buy and sell virtual cats. These unique cats are stored on the blockchain, setting off an upsurge of cloud cat keeping among cryptocurrency lovers. In 2018, an art institution in Germany also invited the enigmatic cat team to explain blockchain technology to visitors.
With the game increasingly becoming the extension of the real world, and with the increasing participation of the epidemic, the virtual world has become an important target market of fashion brands.
market transformation
According to the McKinsey report, the game is full of a large number of business opportunities, and provides businesses with a platform to attract young consumers and frequently announce their sense of presence to those who usually do not interact with the brand. Launching goods in the game can monetize the brand’s digital assets, because for players, it is normal to “krypton gold” to improve the experience.
Taking the Korean social platform and virtual image application zepeto as an example, Nike, Ralph Lauren and other brands have launched virtual fashion series on it, giving users the opportunity to use their exclusive products or “skin” to dress up their virtual image and “selfie”.
Balenciaga even released its autumn and winter 2021 Series in the form of video games, and then cooperated with the game fortrite to launch available virtual clothing and physical products, and publicized the partnership in traditional and virtual channels at the same time.
In order to celebrate the 200th birthday of the founder, Louis Vuitton launched a video game this year. The game story echoes the life journey of the brand founder. Players can collect postcards and NFT works of art, some of which are designed by the digital artist beeple. In March this year, an NFT work by the digital artist was just sold at Christie’s auction house in New York for a record $69.3 million. As early as 2019, LVMH cooperated with riot games and launched a capsule series in the game League of heroes.
Gucci also designed digital assets for Roblox, Pok mon Go and animal crossing.
At Robles, the world’s largest multiplayer online creation game platform, people can create their own games and play games created by other players. In December, the fast fashion brand Forever 21 cooperated with Robles to launch shop city on its platform. Players can choose and exchange locations there, and participate in store tasks, such as sorting inventory and assisting customers, and obtain virtual goods matching physical goods.
Several fashion brands have chosen to cooperate with Robles to open virtual stores or mini worlds, including Nike and Gucci. In May this year, gucci launched “Gucci garden” at Robles, echoing the special exhibition of “Gucci garden archetypes” held by Gucci in Florence. As many as 19 million players visited the “Gucci garden”. Gucci believes that the development of the meta universe is the general trend. Its CMO Robert triefus previously said that in the past few years, gucci designers will consider the effect of the virtual version of these clothes when designing new products.
not just games
In mid December, Adidas announced the launch of the “into the metaverse” series through the lifestyle brand Adidas originals in cooperation with Yuga labs, the creator of the bored ape Yacht Club in the metauniverse, and others in the field. 30000 NFTs were put on the shelves on December 17 at the unit price of 0.2 ether (about $800). They were sold out in a few minutes, and Adidas earned more than $22 million in just one afternoon.
The development momentum of virtual clothing in the meta universe is getting better and better. Daria shapovalova, co-founder of dressx, a virtual fashion sales platform, said: “gamers are famous for buying ‘skin’ in the game, but we have two (larger) customer groups.” These two groups of customers are millennials and Z generation. The former is an active consumer in the luxury field and is willing to try new things, so they will beautify their social accounts with virtual fashion; The latter are snapchat or tiktok users. Short videos replace static diagrams as their main communication tools. At present, dressx has more than 100 co designers to provide virtual fashion products. The platform estimates that the potential market volume of virtual fashion is as high as US $31 billion.
In late October, Nicolas Romero, a designer active in Paris, sold two pairs of virtual sneakers for $70000. Now, he is creating an online market called future factory to sell more similar virtual products. “People like to express themselves in the real world, and so do they in the virtual world. In a few years, when the technical barriers are reduced, it will become commonplace to wear the clothes of their favorite designers in the online world,” Romero said
The development of technology also provides more opportunities for the new business model of virtual fashion. Ordre, an online fashion wholesale platform, uses full perspective technology to display seasonal products through online exhibition halls, providing a supplementary channel for promoting the management of luxury wholesale network.
As Simon Windsor, co-founder and co president of dimension studio, who has cooperated with Balenciaga to launch video games, said: “we are at the turning point of this new era… It begins to change the meaning of fashion itself.”
(First Finance)
