Opinion

How Your Brand Should Use NFTs

Arun Sundararajan

By Arun Sundararajan

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are going mainstream in 2022. You can now show off your favorite NFTs as your Twitter or Reddit profile picture, with Facebook and Instagram soon to follow. Driven in part by a FOMO reminiscent of the 1990s dotcom anxiety of bricks-and-mortar companies, mass-market players and luxury brands alike are launching NFT collections at a dizzying pace.

Granted, a vast majority of mainstream consumers still struggle to make sense of the 2021 NFT world of Bored Apes and CryptoPunks. And the usability of the underlying blockchain technology is still a long way from being consumer friendly.

But don’t make the mistake of thinking that NFTs are a passing fad. While the current hype cycle might be fueled by crypto-millions and Discord-obsessed Gen-Z users, NFTs could be the killer app of Web3 and its gateway into traditional commerce. The really interesting thing about NFTs is the tech they run on, which reveals their broader promise as a vehicle by which brands bypass the platform-centric marketing world of Web2 and reclaim ownership of their digital consumer relationships.

Read the full article in Harvard Business Review.

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Arun Sundararajan is Harold Price Professor of Entrepreneurship, Professor of Technology, Operations and Statistics and Undergraduate Faculty Advisor, Entrepreneurship