Multinational consumer brand giants are now buying and marketing NFT art to help their own brands. Budweiser is next to follow the NFT hype.
Budweiser isn’t the only big name to join the NFT bandwagon this week. But if there were ever a brand that exemplifies “middle America” it’s Bud. The move into the NFT space further solidifies mass corporate adoption of the technology. Budweiser joins payments titan Visa and beverage maker Arizona Iced Tea in the NFT art market.
The beer giant also bought an Ethereum domain name, beer.eth, for 30 ETH (nearly $100,000) and a hand-drawn beer rocket NFT for 8 ETH (approximately $26,000). Artist Tom Sachs created the NFT for the Rocket Factory NFT series.
Budweiser is the latest household name to announce its adoption of NFTs, which are blockchain-based tokens that represent physical or digital media such as artworks, videos, and music.
Visa goes Punk
Visa made NFT news on Monday after shelling out $165,000 for a CryptoPunk, one of 10,000 pixelated avatars from 2017. Visa’s announcement made it clear that it considers its CryptoPunk to be art:
“From early paper credit cards to the zip-zap machine, Visa has amassed a collection of historic commerce artifacts. CryptoPunk #7610 joins our collection as we enter a new era of NFT-commerce,” Visa tweeted.
An Ape that sells Tea…maybe
Why should Bud and Visa have all the fun? Perhaps that was thinking when Arizona Ice Tea bought a Bored Ape NFT from the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
This particular ape won’t be bored for long. The beverage brand plans to put their new Ape to work selling tea. That Arizona Iced Tea used its brand logo in a “inappropriate” way in its tweet is a sign that interesting copyright disputes will soon arise in the NFT world.
Only recently, brands like Charmin, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut were rushing to put out their own NFTs depicting their own products. Visa’s purchase of an NFT from an existing hot collection shows that a major credit card company sees artistic, financial, and reputational value in embracing CryptoPunks.
What this means moving forward
Visa wants access to the NFT community, which bodes well for Visa’s future embrace of crypto. Likewise, Budweiser registering an.eth domain.
However, what big-budget brands do in the NFT space may have a longer-term impact: In how long will brands start paying licensing fees to rare NFT owners? And which big brand will follow?
Jay Speakman is a technology writer based in San Francisco, California. He writes on the topics of blockchain, cryptocurrency, DeFi and other disruptive technologies. Clients include Avalanche, Be[in]Crypto, Trust Machines and several blogs devoted to blockchain gaming. He will not rest until fiat currency is defeated.
