Per the firm's recently released Q2 fiscal results, Starbucks eyes the potential viability of using digital assets to compensate consumers and elevate the brand into the "third place," more widely known as the metaverse. The company voiced plans of leveraging NFTs specifically with its own minted collection of digital collectibles that will give customers a range of benefits, exclusive rewards, and additional content.
"Emerging technologies associated with Web3, and specifically NFTs, now enable this aspiration and allow us to extend who Starbucks has always been at our core. We are creating the digital third place," explains Brady Brewer, Starbucks' Chief Marketing Officer, amid the investors' call. "To achieve this, we will broaden our framework of what it means for people to be a member of the Starbucks community, adding new concepts such as ownership and community-based membership models that we see developing in the Web3 space."
Starbucks made no real specifications on how its NFT would take shape, alluding to potential designers, additional membership incentives, or even what specific blockchain it would exist under. The company did, however, note that its NFT would be "chain agnostic" and "multi-chain," as well as highlighting the building of a full NFT community that exists within an "environmentally sustainable" platform.
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It seems, in contrast to various other brands dipping their toes into the Web3 space, that Starbucks is certainly thinking far in advance before leaping headlong into the fray. Not only is the company in the throes of searching for a new, more blockchain savvy leader, according to its sitting CEO Howard Schultz, but it is likewise in the process of adding to its roster various talents of the same ilk.
Starbucks is sequestering the Starbucks app's Mobile Order & Pay mastermind, Adam Brotman, as among the faces for its forthcoming NFT project. The scheme has acquired $4 billion across its existence, raking in within the last year a 20% increase overall. Starbucks' Mobile Order & Pay system alone broadened the concept of utilizing one's phone as a form of payment. Thus Brotman's inclusion in the project proves it will be worthwhile.
To Schultz, the NFT realm is the perfect way to bridge the company to younger audiences while also enhancing its own internal business-related efforts. NFTs could serve a multi-functional facet, allotting both revenue and traffic increases for the Starbucks brand while providing unique marketing efforts on a widespread forum.
"I think the next CEO is going to be a creative person who's going to understand that the equity of the Starbucks brand has real legitimacy and relevance outside of our stores," says Schultz. "And the world we're living in today, our customer base is getting younger, they're digital natives, and they expect Starbucks to be as relevant outside of our stores as we are inside."
Starbucks elaborated only a bit further in a blog post released not long after its Q2 results, which goes over much of the same jargon in a more streamlined way. Of main importance to the brand is the potential for broadened growth in the space through additional collections and collaborations moving into the future. Starbucks did specify that its NFT would hinge on "coffee art and storytelling," while also allocating "a host of unique experiences and benefits."
Other realities surrounding Starbucks as a whole seemed to weigh more on investors' minds as opposed to the news of a full-on Starbucks NFT collection. The company is currently steeped in myriad issues, such as woes within China, worker unionization, and more. It did meet its financial expectations, taking home a little over its prospective $7.6 billion, even with increased lockdown efforts in China. Starbucks stock is up by about 7.88% as of writing, at $80.19 a share.
