sustainability

Are NFTs the future of event marketing?

Monday, May 17th, 2021 by Adrian Segar

NFTs event marketing: photograph of a snake-oil salesman sitting at the front of a "wild-west" stagecoach covered with advertisementsThe TLDR version: in my opinion, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are not the future of event marketing. Read on to learn why.

Introduction

This post was prompted by a recent conversation in the private EventProfs Mastermind for Event Planners Facebook group. [You’ll need to be a member to read it.] Entrepreneur hustler Gary Vaynerchuk has launched a novel way to sell access to his future conferences and services: VeeFriends.

Mr. Vee is using a conventional reverse Dutch auction to sell 10,255 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that act like traditional tickets for events and services. NFTs are data stored in a digital ledger, aka blockchain, that cryptographically certify a digital asset to be unique.

Let’s be clear that digital assets linked to their NFT owners are not private. Anyone can view or make a copy of the digital asset. For example, anyone can view or download Beeple’s “The First 5000 Days” artwork, the NFT for which sold for $69.3 million on March 11, 2021.


The sole advantage of “owning” an NFT, then, is that you can prove to others you own it.

In addition, NFTs are typically purchased with cryptocurrency, adding an extra layer of complexity (at least for most of us) to the sales process.

What are the advantages of event marketing using NFTs?

Using NFTs to market access to events has a few, in my view dubious, advantages.

NFTs are flashy and hot

We already have perfectly good ways to buy and bid for things we want. Perhaps you’ve heard of “money”, and “auctions”? However, Mr. Vee is jazzing up his marketing with cryptocurrency and NFTs, and this has generated great publicity for him.

NFTs are (hopefully) hard to forge

Due to the way blockchain works, it’s thought to be hard to forge ownership of an NFT (though that hasn’t stopped people from trying). From the event marketing perspective, that means that using NFTs may make it harder to fake an entry credential or service access than when using conventional ticket security. But I’m not sure this is a big deal, except perhaps for very high-security events.

NFTs can provide control over the resale of event purchases

Like regular tickets, NFTs can be set to expire at a future date. You can also resell NFTs on NFT marketplaces. The original issuer of the NFT can keep track of resales and, if desired, extract a fee on resale. (For example, Mr. Vee’s NFTs can be resold, and Mr. Vee receives an additional 10% “royalty” when this occurs.) NFT issuers probably see this as an advantage, while resellers and repurchasers probably don’t.

What are the disadvantages of event marketing using NFTs?

Sustainability

Ethically, the biggest strike against using NFTs is that they are an incredibly energy-wasteful technology. NFT transactions involve minting, bidding, selling, and transferring a digital token. Because of the energy-intensive processes that blockchain uses, the transactions involved in creating and selling a single NFT consume large amounts of electricity, with associated carbon emissions.

For example:

There are arguments about how to accurately calculate the energy and climate effects of NFTs (and cryptocurrencies in general—bitcoin alone already consumes ~0.6% of global electricity consumption). In addition, people have proposed new crypto approaches to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. Nevertheless, using NFTs to replace far simpler and less energy-wasteful traditional methods of proving ownership is hard to justify in the face of humankind’s climate emergency.

Over the past ten years, the meeting industry has become increasingly aware of the global effects of in-person meetings on energy and resource consumption. We need to continue to do our part by eschewing new, unnecessary ways to consume energy and emit carbon.

No added value to purchasers over existing channels

By incorporating NFTs into his business model, Mr. Vee adds nothing of value to what he’s doing, which is selling access to his conferences and person and networking with other fans.

Yes, Mr. Vee gets publicity and additional NFT resale income. And I’m sure his fans will suck it right up.

That’s great for him. But I see no upside for buyers.

Added, unnecessary, complexity

Purchasing NFTs requires the involvement of blockchain, and access to cryptocurrencies (currently, usually Ethereum).

Here’s what you have to do to purchase one of Mr Vee’s NFTs!

I’d prefer to use my credit card.

Conclusions

Last week, the value of most cryptocurrencies dropped ~10% in one day.

You may think I’ve been harsh on Mr. Vee’s enthusiasm for NFTs for event marketing. There are some who are harsher. For example, the well-known author Charlie Stross (I’m a fan) said:

“And about NFTs, the less said the better. Grift, 100% grift, and exploitation of artists as well. Oh, and it appears to be mostly used for money laundering. So fuck off and die if you own any, and especially if you thought pirating some of my work and turning it into NFTs would be a good way to milk the gullible.”
—Charlie Stross, Because I am bored …
(I recommend reading the whole article.)

And I haven’t the time or energy to go into what many believe are fundamental problems using cryptocurrency as money (e.g. 1, 2, 3).

Anyway.

These are my reasons why NFTs are not the future of event marketing. I’d love to hear why I’m wrong, or any other comments you’d like to share below!

Tags: , , , , , , , | Posted in Marketing, Meeting industry | 1 Comment »

Pick the right sustainability battles at conferences

Monday, May 19th, 2014 by Adrian Segar

sustainability in meetings Simon Sinek 4657383798_a7761bfe79_oSome people have a funny idea of sustainability in meetings.

In 2011 Simon Sinek keynoted MPI’s World Education Congress. As I and thousands of attendees watched, he began to share his message by drawing a diagram on a flip chart pad. Almost as soon as Simon picked up his marker, people started tweeting that he was wasting paper.

At recent conferences, I’ve been asked if I really need to have attendees work with sticky notes and flip charts. People ask, “Can’t they just talk to each other?” I’ve also encountered resistance to requests to print a few attendee tour photos for use in artifact-building exercises.

Let’s put these and similar requests in perspective.

I am a supporter of sustainable events. From 1978 – 1983 I managed a solar energy business and didn’t do it for the money. I am glad that apps have made it unnecessary to print the vast quantities of schedules and vendor catalogs that we schlepped around in the past. I applaud the installation (and flexibility) of electronic signage. And I love the efforts to minimize the appalling food wastage we took for granted when running an event.

The case for using recyclable materials

Yes, I know that people rarely keep the flip chart sheets, note cards, and sticky notes produced during interactive exercises. But they are needed for the experience of creation. Writing something down, sketching, or drawing a diagram provide powerful alternative modalities for learning and sharing that we traditionally restrict to hearing and looking (which often, by the way, don’t translate into listening and seeing). The act of building these creations into an appropriate concrete event metaphor—like the cardboard box bridge participants constructed at the Green Meetings Industry Council’s 2014 Sustainable Meetings Conference—also increases the effectiveness of participants’ experience.

sustainability in meetings: photograph of Adrian Segar and Ann (Hansen) Berendtsen, meeting facilitators and designers at the 2014 GMIC Sustainable Meetings Conference. Photo attribution: Bay Area Event Photography

Let’s take a quick look at the sustainability impact of using these materials at an event, using the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) approach. I’ve rounded off the figures, which I obtained from carbon footprint calculators available on the internet; smaller amounts are better.

  • Making and printing a single sheet of office paper: 10 grams CO2e
  • An average meal: 3,000 grams CO2e
  • Driving a Toyota Prius 300 miles to a conference: 70,000 grams CO2e
  • Flying from Boston to San Francisco: 750,000 grams CO2e

Sustainability in meetings

As you can see from these figures, the modest use of sheets of flip chart paper and sticky notes at an event contributes insignificant CO2e compared to the carbon footprint of the meals and travel of a typical attendee. While we should work to use as little of these (recyclable) products as possible, let’s focus on reducing the much larger contributions to greenhouse gases caused by the food consumption and travel to and from our events.

Photo attribution: Flickr user centralasian and Bay Area Event Photography

Tags: , , , , , , | Posted in Event design | 3 Comments »