https://medium.com/superdao-blog/the-state-of-web3-mass-adoption-48e3e3c77a6f

At Superdao, we’re at the centre of Web3. We’re the ‘inside guy’ when it comes to statistics relating to community demand and attitudes towards the new incarnation of the Web. Indeed, across the board, we’re seeing individuals and businesses increasingly trying web3 mechanics, launching NFTs, tokens and digital merch. It became interesting for us to understand why they do this, what goals they pursue, what works well, and which mechanics work out worse. As a result, we conducted a large internal study involving 500+ cases of Web3 adoption in traditional industries to identify top use cases, popular mechanics, the best results so far, and key barriers to entry. This study will be the subject of today’s article.

We hope this report will assist leaders of innovation at brands and agencies who take risks and experiment with crypto. Web3 startups, investors, marketers, brand managers, and reporters are sure to find valuable insights too.

Industries leading web3 adoption

We group industries into a few major groups based on their approach to web3. You will find brands, common web3 mechanics, the best outcomes, and the brightest visuals for each industry. Our selection criteria are the biggest brands, the best results, and the most innovative mechanics.

Fashion, Luxury, and Beauty

The first group brought in more revenue than all other industries, with Nike led by $185M in revenue. The main success factor was exclusive digital items from well-established brands in their industry.

The main mechanics for such brands as Gucci, Nike, Tiffany, Bulgari, Porsche, Sephora, and others are exclusive items and access to private events, not only in the Metaverse but in real life.

Experience innovation with product brands has reached a new level — wearable clothing, digital rights, and interaction between physical and digital items. Tiffany is an excellent example, as they demonstrated that there is no gap between your virtual and actual identity with the help of blockchain.

Common mechanics

Best outcomes

Media, Movies, and TV

The next group of industries is focused on exclusive access to content and services plus digital products’ collectible parts. The group includes such brands as Time, Forbes, Netflix, The Rolling Stones, Stephen Curry, Shawn Mendes, and even Quentin Tarantino, with six lawsuits.

Exclusive content, merch, and access to some services and products are widely developed and easily applicable to almost any industry. Still, the Media has adopted this web3 technology at the highest rate.

Best outcomes

Consumer products

The food and beverage industry was one of the first to use NFT collections and web3 technologies for its consumers. Using non-utility-based cases was still possible initially, but now it is almost out of the question. Brands such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Barbie, and Hennessy have all entered the web3 world with their NFT collections dedicated to particular occasions.

This group has excellent taste in web3 adoption, combining the physical and digital world with the combo sale, providing access to product experience through metaverses and interaction with digital objects that you can own through NFTs.

Best outcomes

Sports, Music, and Art

Speaking of fan engagement, brands constantly strive to surprise their audience and give them unforgettable experiences. Web3 experiments seem to fit this perfectly.

For example, Kings of Leon made their very first NFT album that also acted as a ticket, offering lifetime front-row seats at any of their concerts. Another example was Mike Tyson’s NFT collection in collaboration with the artist Cory van Lew with one unique piece that unlocked a personal boxing session with Mr. Tyson himself.

Best outcomes

The most popular mechanics

The main question when we look at successful cases of other companies is Which mechanics should be used? As a result, we have collected for you the most popular and effective mechanics to use.

Collectibles and virtual goods

Exclusive access makes users feel special. They belong to a tribe, proudly support its mission, and get rewarded for doing so in the long run.

Event rewards and tickets

Give your attendees memorable NFTs from events. Sell tickets as NFTs with perks

• Sephora Metaverse event in the virtual “house party” format with 16k attendees
• McLaren MCO LAB (McLaren) events via NFT 2k NFTs
• RedBull racing Factory Pass NFT Auction
• Coachella NFT lifetime tickets

Social media challenges

Rewards for retweets, follows, subscribes, comments, and likes

• McDonald’s Ribs NFT giveaway for retweet
• Lacoste 12.12M social media mentions

Loyalty programs

Get tokens, grow levels and virtual characters, unlock rewards and unique experiences

• Visa + ShopNEXT Loyalty program ShopNEXT token reward with Visa payment
• Tacobell loyalty program and NFT sale $500 electronic Taco Bell gift card
• Singapore Airlines Loyalty NFT wallet with Access to physical goods

Learn to earn

Finish your education, get an NFT that will always stay with you and act as a proof of study on the blockchain

• NFT diplomas — Hoseo University 2,830 NFT diplomas issued
• Alchemy Web3 Academy — Proof of education NFTs 1,000+

Pay with crypto

Several physical spots started offering crypto payments in addition to fiat

• McDonald’s in Switzerland
• Atlas Cafe in San Francisco
• Konzum retail chain in Croatia
• Varus supermarket chain in Ukraine

More mechanics

Achievement system, Customer research rewards, NFC tags connected to NFTs, Intellectual property NFTs, token-gated chats, meetings, etc.

Measures of success

We have seen different results for Web3 adoption cases — some brands were driven by revenue, while others wanted to boost their audience engagement. As a result, we defined several of the most common success metrics.

Revenue
Nike — $185M revenue + 67.2k transactions
Gucci — $11.6M revenue + $31M in secondary volume
Prada — $191M net income
Tiffany — $12.6M revenue

Activations (attendance, downloads, quizzes, etc.)
Louis Vuitton — 2M game downloads
Sephora Metaverse — 16k metaverse event attendees

Money raised for charity
Givenchy — 49 ETH Karuizawa $75k
Singaporean Development Council — $60k

Lead generation and referrals
Balmain — 10k members joined their membership program

Social media engagement
Lacoste — 12.12M social media mentions in September

Creativity (community designs and submissions)
Tom Felton — 500+ fan art submissions for a charity

Things that don’t work (yet)

Failed and failing cases

Despite the huge number of success stories, don’t forget about the failed experiences of companies. We have also compiled a few examples of big brand failures to warn you of (currently) failing practices.

CNN — The company has announced it would shut down the Vault, CNN’s NFT marketplace, after just one year since its launch.

Decentraland — according to the recent investigation with the data pulled from DappRadar, Decentraland has just 30 DAUs Daily Active Users) despite a billion dollar market cap.

Lil Nas X — Tik Tok x Lil Nas X NFT project has been cancelled entirely. TikTok has refused to comment, citing delays.

Security and Legal

DAO setup / IP rights / Government law
Temple DAO $2.3M hack — Temple DAO is an old Ethereum-based Olympus DAO fork. Users earn a share of its treasury yields by staking its FRAX-backed native token, TEMPLE. The DAO launched Stax Finance in May, introducing liquid staking. A smart contract error on Stax’s code enabled one hacker to drain ~$2.3M on Oct 11.

Rabby Wallet hack — Rabby Wallet is a self-custodial Ethereum-based browser extension wallet by DeBank that supports more than 30 chains. The protocol suffered a hack due to a smart contract bug.

Quentin Tarantino — after being sued for copyright infringement by film studio Miramax following the announcement of his “Pulp Fiction” NFT collection, director Quentin Tarantino did the project release after all, as only he owned the screenplay.

Tencent — the Chinese technology conglomerate has announced its exit from the NFT market after a year due to increased government scrutiny.

Use case sustainability

Some of the cases we have added to our analysis appear to be one-offs only, mostly due to the irreplaceable demand principle. They target superfans ready to pay big money to own a piece closely related to their idol. Another pattern is the audience accumulated over decades who have been waiting for the project’s NFT drop.

For example, the Harry Potter NFT collection excited TV series fans as they wanted to own a digital piece of their favourite character.

However, if the project leads decided to mint a similar NFT collection one year later, no new fans would be accumulated over the year (hence the series is over), so who would they buy it again? Where would the demand come from?

Future predictions

So, let’s move on. What can we expect from the traditional market when it comes to future Web3 demand?
Here are some trends that our research has indicated will have an impact on future demand.

Faster experimentation cycles
Enablers and in-house web3 leads will continue to make blockchain adoption easier for web2 businesses by providing relevant tools and strategic consulting.

Advanced NFT mechanics
NFT collections will have more complex mechanics such as character growth, mystery boxes, QR codes, and more complex metadata behind each NFT.

Collaboration culture
More partnerships between brands and influencers will result in more crypto-coordinated campaigns.

How to lead web3 adoption at your organization

Overall, our report uncovered the key industries leading the way with Web3 – if your industry is on that list, great! Perhaps follow in the footsteps of a successful case and adjust your go-to-market plan accordingly. If your industry isn’t on that list, perhaps you’ll be able to develop a niche and succeed all the same.

We also uncovered the most popular mechanics at play when it comes to successfully hitting Web3 – regardless of whether you’re looking to implement learn-to-earn or a charity auction, we trust you’ve found our case studies of use. As an added bonus, our research delved into what hasn’t worked that well too. Perhaps you’ll be able to learn from their mistakes or improve on half-baked tactics.

You might be able to navigate choppy legal water that they couldn’t or bolster security by investing in innovative technical infrastructure that didn’t exist at the time those mistakes were made – in any case, we hope that we’ve been able to expose valuable insights that will help your project to succeed in Web3.