Adidas has announced its presence in the metaverse. The sports apparel company has gotten hold of Bored Ape Yacht Club #8774, Indigo Herz, and branded it with the company’s logo. In addition, it has partnered with crypto influencer Gmoney and non-fungible token (NFT) series Punks Comics for the same initiative. But that’s one of several.
Two weeks ago, Adidas made its first appearance in the NFT world by launching a POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) token given to people who visited a particular web page. It enables the token owners to exchange the digital asset for some mystery item in the future. More than 3,300 copies of the same free token were minted as an animated badge, and so far, there have been 3832 re-sales.
Shortly afterward, a tweet from Adidas Originals more than hinted that the company had bought land in The Sandbox blockchain game.
Meanwhile, Adidas rival Nike has been making slow and steady moves in the metaverse space. The Oregon-based company registered seven new trademarks linked to the commercialization of digital branded apparel, and it has established a Digital Product Creation Group.
These may be linked to its collaboration with online gaming platform Roblox for the Nikeland virtual world where users have to move in the real world to prompt their avatars to have super abilities in the game. For example, if a user goes for a run, the movement is logged and the avatar will be able to run at the speed of light. The platform is also full of Nike branded digital apparel for purchase. But the Roblox initiative doesn’t yet involve NFTs.
Back to Adidas, and the acquisition of a Bored Ape is an efficient way to announce its presence in the metaverse and further brand itself as “cool and trendy”, which seems to be what Adidas is going for. Furthermore, the partnership with Gmoney and Punks Comic, names that are mostly recognized by those involved with the NFT ecosystem, highlights that Adidas is not necessarily aiming to launch an NFT product that goes mainstream quite yet.
Adidas also partnered with Coinbase, so more developments are likely in the works.
Music artist Timbaland and a division of Universal Music both have separate projects involving Bored Apes.
