As part of the promotional campaign of Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures’ collaborative blockbuster movie Dune, a non-fungible token (NFT) collection will be launched in partnership with iv gallery, Lineage Studios, and MakersPlace. The first set of the collection will drop on September 22 and additional drops after that, with the movie to premiere in American cinemas on October 22.
Dune’s cast is full of celebrities that appeal to younger audiences such as Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, who collectively have over 120 million followers on Instagram. The story written in 1965 will appeal to a young sci-fi savvy audience through futuristic themes and special effects-filled battles.
NFTs are a new class of officially licensed products to engage and profit from a fan base, similarly for official merchandise and other lines of products. Hence it’s quite likely going forward that many movies, especially in certain genre, will issue NFTs.
“This collection represents an exciting new direction in the NFT space,” said James Ngo, EVP of Franchise Management for Legendary Entertainment. “We are thrilled to have created a new collectible experience for the fandom by using exclusive assets taken directly from the film to give enthusiasts a whole new way to not only acquire film memorabilia but also further immerse themselves into the world of Dune.”
Despite the volatile activity in the NFT market over the last couple of months, it is still a buzzword. In addition, managing an NFT auction is not the most expensive marketing strategy and has less supply chain frictions than merchandise and other promotional products.
Imaginative unexploited market opportunities?
But there are still many unexplored opportunities with the use of NFTs in marketing. In Dune, for example, owning an NFT of the official collection could offer a discount at the movie theater, there could be ticket NFTs for the first 500 people to see the movie or some of the NFTs could be randomly streamed at the end of the film. Owning an NFT could also give access to a platform with exclusive content and outlets to discuss the movie. These ideas and more showcase the expansion potential of NFTs’ utility when looking to build a fan base around a product or intellectual property content. However, these are all hypothetical ideas not been mentioned by any member working on the Dune NFT project.
Meanwhile, PepsiCo’s chips brand Lay’s is using NFTs in a marketing campaign in Romania, and rum brand Bacardí is using digital assets to promote a limited edition brand of rum. On the entertainment side, Fox entertainment will launch an animated show curated entirely on blockchain alongside an NFT, and Marvel will launch digital collectibles of some of its iconic characters.
