I can’t recall a case where a character brand in its formative stage has ever been helped by collaborating with large brands. Even Tokidoki had to work up to LeSportSac, and some will argue that the bag collab, long term, is what held them back vs propelled them. One thing is clear… what worked 20 years ago no longer creates the same element of wonder. Brand association is far too “expected” by the general public, and in general, interpreted as marketing.
Chasing awareness typically leads to doom. Instead, character brands find success (to various degrees) when they become one with culture (vs marketing to them).
Bugatti presents zero context right now. There’s no element of awe or surprise. It’s too expected.
That said, I do believe nouns is 100% on the right path to earning collaborations with an unlimited number of major brands in a way so that each will hold meaning.
Otherwise, we are chasing validation, and in my opinion, the wrong way.
I suggest such because aligning with either would place us in certain physical settings where nouns has a greater potential to be a source of discovery, and create meaning.
Instead of a collab with the Ford Motor Company, align with places, and the entities Ford wishes they could collaborate with. Slowly adding their tribes to our own until they are one.
A Dehara Nouns would bring the true curiosity of thousands. Then do 100 more like that, at that level, and found in physical oasis’s away from the noise of marketing… until nouns carries true meaning via association and juxtaposition to millions.
It seems to me that, as a character designer, you are looking too much only from the “character brand” angle. Here nouns as a brand, has something more to offer. And the noun characters themselves are just a certain outgrowth. Certainly not limited only in this particular space.
As I wrote above, the need is to develop an adaptation model for large companies to web3. Evidently they are not coping with it. The market is still too fresh. Of course, nouns can pioneer this kind of action.
That is, nouns gives solutions to such a large company in web3. These could be, for example, SubDAO of their brands subsumed under nouns.
In return, nouns gets “space” in their spheres of activity.
It is obvious that NOUNS will not be able to compete with the giants and there is no need to push themselves where they don’t need to.
Of course, this is just an example and depends on the question of how to approach the subject.
Nevertheless, thanks for the needed voice in the discussion. Certainly valuable.
Thank you for the insight, which holds merit to be sure ( I am less of a character designer than I am a character brand owner and director ).
Due to the CC0 nature of nouns, their being “web 3” more than a character brand, or only a character brand, is not really our call, and consumer behavior is what it is, at least at the moment.
That said, we have an “early to the table” opportunity to have a direct impact more now than we might in the future.
While I personally believe the beauty of the protocol will drive its future, the nouns as characters draws outsiders in, the way Space X inspires youth through the dream of humans one day becoming a space faring species… while in reality, Space X is a delivery and service company.
Knowing what we know, the slower we race towards “big brands”, the more time we have to craft a more nounish model VS wrapping nouns imagery on yet another surface.
Brand collaborations are, in general, the best way to end the long term potential of a character brand, unless handled with specific care.
While we may think the market we are in is new, we are up against Sanrio. That train has left the station.
Big brands colaborate with whatever flavor of the week shows up at their door step, and once they are done they move on to the next big shiny thing. Nouns needs to focus on our own path and selectively curate partnerships. If Nike wanted to use nouns they can just go ahead and do it, Samsung just did that at NFTNYC last year. I am all in on @DAVID strategy I have traveled with him to Japan and Korea to see what he is talking about first hand and I think that the path he is proposing for colaborations is a good one. having said that anyone can use nouns from Sony to Delta airlines to porn-hub, this is the crazy experiment we are all running right now.
Web3 projects are often more focused on selling stories and intellectual property (IP). Compared to web2 companies, web3 is known to be a smaller, more exclusive community with less reach. This makes it difficult for web3 companies to be effectively promoted within web2. In other words, most web2 users need to understand what web3 has to offer before they can be attracted to web3 projects. Therefore, web3 projects should promote themselves in web2 by creating an easily understood IP. Of course, the IP image must be popular and unique enough to attract people.
On the other hand, Nouns should consider the following questions: What benefits do Nouns bring to web2 users, and what is their competitive advantage in the market? Do web2 users have a need for Nouns-based products? What kind of business model is suitable for Nouns?
These are some of my thoughts. Let’s discuss them further!
