Visa's Leap Into Web3: The Revolution of Customer Engagement

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Marketing Meets Web 3, a podcast that helps marketers navigate the news trends, opportunities and insights surrounding Web 3. Today's conversation is for information purposes only and does not constitute legal or investment advice.

Speaker 2: 0:23

Hello Nick, how are you doing?

Speaker 3: 0:25

Hey Alberto, I'm doing good. How are you?

Speaker 2: 0:27

I'm doing fine. I am excited about the developments happening in Web 3 loyalty memberships. Some of them are the ones that we have to discuss. Maybe we should get started on those.

Speaker 3: 0:43

We should definitely dive in, but we should also just take a moment to recognize that the BTC DTF is live. This is not a show about crypto or market action, but it's something that the entire industry has been watching for a long time. It's a very positive indicator for our industry. It's the first time that ordinary investors will be able to get exposure to Bitcoin in their normal investing activities through things like 401Ks and IRAs. I think, if we zoom out, what this signals for the United States is that digital assets are legitimate, that digital assets are something that everybody can participate in. We're starting to open up the aperture in terms of what are viral use cases and ways to deliver value with digital assets. I'll get off my soapbox now, but I just wanted to give a shout out to Bitcoin on the beginning of this episode before we dive back into loyalty.

Speaker 2: 1:45

Yeah, well, it makes sense to make that show out, as you said, because it's going to bring the bus again to this area, which maybe for some time has been a bit neglected. But, yeah, the ETF, it's definitely bringing things back on. Maybe this is related, actually, to our first piece of news today, because we have to talk about this loyalty program launched by Visa. It's not just a loyalty program as the others. It's specifically a Web3 loyalty engagement solution, which is nice, I have to say, because, well, I wouldn't say that Web3 has been very, very used as a word in the past few months. It was like the top of the trend at, I'd say, in February, march, 2023, or maybe the end of 2022. But for the past, for the end of the 2023, it wasn't so used by companies. And here we have Visa announcing this pretty much at the same time as the ETF thing is happening. So maybe I don't know, maybe they're all related. What do you think?

Speaker 3: 3:08

Well, I think it's a good point.

Speaker 3: 3:10

I think, looking at an industry giant like Visa, who is responsible for millions and millions of transactions every single hour probably I don't know what their transaction count is, but it's incredibly high Think about how many times you personally swipe a Visa card throughout the course of your day or your week.

Speaker 3: 3:29

So seeing a big industry player like this come to the table and recognize Web3 not only as an industry trend or opportunity, but actually developing a Web3 solution, as you said, a loyalty engagement solution I think that's really exciting. I think that, really, it says something about where this industry is headed, and if you're a marketer and you're thinking about loyalty or you're thinking about engagement, I think this is a clear indication that the signs are pointing toward Web3, and now is probably the right time, if you haven't started looking at this technology, to at least get a baseline understanding of it, so that your customers don't show up at the door expecting you to support Web3, and you don't know what's going on. So break it down for us a little bit, though. How does this solution work? What is Visa proposing here?

Speaker 2: 4:21

Well, it's proposing the whole deal, everything Basically talking about creating this Web3 solution, as I said, which implies, of course, web3 wallets, and on the website they speak of the advantages of creating a Web3 wallet, because this will be, of course, used to store digital collectibles.

Speaker 2: 4:42

So an interesting choice of words here, talking about digital collectibles instead of NFTs. That's a trend that we've seen. I think it was Disney, maybe the one that started with digital collectibles or the one that made it more common. So they're talking about digital collectibles and storing them in Web3 wallets, and they're also talking about the value of Web3 wallets when it comes to simplifying authentication and enabling this is going to be interesting enabling connected consent and, of course, allowing for no cookies. We're going to be talking about cookies today, not because we are having coffee as we speak, but because it's one of the topics of the day. But, yes, maybe we can stop here because there are a few other things that they did discuss and we can cover, but I want to talk a bit about the simplifying authentication and enabling connected consent, those two features that they think are valuable and that Web3 wallets offer.

Speaker 3: 5:48

Yeah, one of the interesting things that happens when you have industry giants come into a space and start really understanding and promoting a technology is you know, you've got very bright minds working in a lot of these organizations, and very large not that we are, by the way, 100%. You know, in these large marketing orgs you have a lot of talent, simply put, and you have a lot of resources to direct toward breaking things down in a way that a consumer, an everyday consumer, could understand. And so one of the problems in the web three space is that this whole industry was rooted in technology and the beginnings of this industry started with technologists. And so technologists are not always the best or the most articulate when it comes to explaining concepts. They slash. We tend to live in this world where, you know, we think a lot about technology, we think a lot about how to make that technology work, and sometimes we have challenges when it comes to explaining it to our mom. I think we've all had the experience in the web three industry of having an awkward conversation at a Thanksgiving dinner when you know aunt or uncle turns to you and says so you know, nick, what are you doing these days, what are you working on and you have to try to explain web three in a way that doesn't make somebody's eyes gloss over. And so, getting back to your point here about the some words that they're using that I think are interesting, so, simplifying authentication. What we're talking about there is the fact that in web three, I no longer, if I don't want to, I don't need to have a login or an account in your system to be able to log in. So if I don't want to use a password, if I don't want to connect to Google account, if I don't want to use my mobile phone, I can simply connect with a web three wallet and I can authenticate who I am. And that wallet now becomes my passport to playing in the marketers world. And so, using, you know, creating a solution where they're simplifying authentication for the user with web three, I think it's playing to one of the inherent strengths of this tech.

Speaker 3: 8:05

The second bit the connected consent and dash no cookies. We live in a world today where you know our browsers are filled with these first, second, third party cookies although third party is largely going away out of the fear that you know it's ending support and Chrome but these cookies are basically little pieces of data that track our interactions with these brands, and so they live in our browsers. And when we go back to websites or to other websites, the owners of those websites can use that data to understand who we are and to tailor an experience or to target us with advertising. And in many cases, particularly with second and third party cookies, we don't always know what data is being collected about us. We don't always know how that data is being used to target us.

Speaker 3: 8:57

And web three gives us a whole new way to think about what they're calling consent, they being visa without cookies, and that is I can connect my wallet and my wallet, because it stores my NFTs, it stores my digital collectibles, it stores my digital assets. I'm giving that brand permission, I'm giving them consent by connecting my wallet, to be able to look at those assets and now tailor an experience for me without a cookie, without putting something on my computer. But if I decide, at whatever point, maybe I'm not getting value from the brand, maybe the brand did something that I didn't like, or maybe I'm just not into that brand anymore. I can disconnect my wallet and by the nature of just pulling the plug, disconnecting I'm rejecting consent and that brand can no longer use my data as a way to tailor or customize an experience for me, and that's really powerful when it comes to enabling consumers or empowering consumers, to control their digital online experiences.

Speaker 2: 10:00

Yeah, it's interesting to see again the phrasing of all this enabling connected consent. This is one sentence we haven't said in the past, but we've been talking about this. Well, we talked about that, but let's focus, then, on a couple of the features that they think this loyalty program Web3 based is going to bring to the users. And they say with the platform, you can provide your customers with a Web3 wallet allowing you to engage customers with virtual, digital and real life experiences, provide a seamless digital experience that can unlock promotional tokens, perks and benefits, and offer new and existing customers fun and rewarding experiences in the digital world.

Speaker 2: 10:46

One more thing I want to highlight here is that they say and this is very interesting because we've talked about this a lot in the past they say loyalty programs powered by data collectibles deliver value beyond points and mileage, which means it's not only about points and mileage when it comes to loyalty reward programs, and there's much more that you can do, Although, yet it is true that with Web2, some of these things can be difficult. With Web3, the possibilities become much more. So, yeah, I don't know what do you think about this, because, to be honest, I think I know your opinion already, but it's crazy Again. It's crazy to see Visa, in this case, talking about these features that, well, not only us, but that the whole Web3 arena has been discussing for the past two years.

Speaker 3: 11:42

Yeah, I think you know my perspective. I'm very bullish, I'm really excited to see these kinds of developments, but this is really an evolution of our lives in the modern world, being more and more connected and being more and more reliant on a digital experience and soon a virtual experience. And I wanted to just call out that I like that they've differentiated between virtual, digital and real life. And you know, somebody might say, well, what's the difference between a virtual and a digital experience? And the way that I think about that, virtual experiences to date are few and far between, I think, meaningful virtual experiences, but I think that's about to change. So, you know, we've been hearing a lot about the Roblox platform and how it's incredibly popular with kids, but it's also starting to gain steam with older audiences. In fact, they're talking about a Roblox dating app soon, and so this idea that we're going to have these virtual experiences, which really what we're talking about, are digital experiences with other people, and so when we add the other people into that, that means that we're going into some sort of digital environment and we're interacting in a way that maybe we can't do in the real world.

Speaker 3: 12:59

You know, during the COVID lockdown, these ideas started to come to light because we couldn't get together in person anymore and we were craving that sort of connection and that sort of interaction.

Speaker 3: 13:08

And you know, I don't know if you've seen some of the stats on Gen Z, but Gen Z is actually they're the most connected but the most isolated generation out there, meaning that they have access to be able to connect to each other, but they're not finding these meaningful connection places in their world.

Speaker 3: 13:24

And that's where this interesting idea of a virtual experience comes to light is how do you take that digital connection and now put multiple people in there, and now they can have a connected digital experience, whereas a digital experience that could be as simple as interacting with a website or interacting with an app, and that's something that we're all used to. And then the real life side of things you know, thankfully we can go outside in the world now and have great experiences and connect to each other again. And so, when you frame this all with Web 3 and loyalty, it's this idea of now being able to engage your customers across all of these different touch points and create incentives and experiences and rewards that follow them or can be really taken by them to all these different environments, whether it's virtual, digital or real life, and I just I think it's a whole new arena of loyalty and a whole new playground for marketers to be thinking about creative ways to create new and exciting customer journeys.

Speaker 2: 14:24

Yeah, and there's this one last point I want to highlight in here because it also connects to your comment about the ETF, because, well, if one thing brings the ETF is, of course, liquidity.

Speaker 2: 14:35

It brings more people that can trade this thing, and that's valuable by itself.

Speaker 2: 14:41

And one of the points that Visa makes in here is that this Web 3 wallet can allow for the benefits of the program to be earnable, redeemable, possessible, possessible I don't know how the program is that and, of course and this is the one I want to highlight transferable. And well, this is about the liquidity, in this case, the liquidity of the benefits you know, being able to transfer these benefits to other users and maybe, at some point, creating a kind of digital economy where you know you can transfer these benefits and you can also participate in the benefits of other companies because you own the digital collectibles of specific companies that are partnered with whichever other company. And this, I think, is very interesting and it's going to be coming to life, as you said, you know, as more companies and more businesses get into this, and well, visa here is helping the transition, but the more companies that get on it, the more value, the more value will come out of this, and well well, here's, here's where it gets really interesting, I think you know.

Speaker 3: 16:00

Let's just play out this concept of Web 3 loyalty with a little bit more detail. So we know that Disney is getting ready to launch collectibles, digital collectibles, and we know that Star Wars is part of that franchise or is one of the participating franchises. So what does it look like when Visa and Disney collaborate to bring loyalty, collectability and this intellectual property together? And I'll give you an example, and we're gonna go down this route of gamification too, because I think it's a really interesting avenue that these technologies will enable in the future.

Speaker 3: 16:38

So let's say that you're a parent and you have a 10-year-old kid who loves Star Wars, and Star Wars 27, or whatever movie we're up to, comes out in the theater and because you're a Visa customer, you use a Visa card, you have a Visa loyalty wallet and when you make that purchase of the movie ticket, you get some sort of points for that, or you get a digital collectible for the movie for that, and then you go to the movie with your kid and so you have a great time, and afterward you're able to transfer that collectible to your kid because, remember, these are possessible and the transferable, so you own this reward. It belongs to you and it's a digital collectible. It was a partnership between Disney and Visa and because you took your kid to the movie, you got this collectible. You transfer it to them and you send it to their Disney wallet, which is safe for kids to use, and now your kid goes into Roblox and enters a Star Wars playground, where they use that collectible to grant them entry into this playground and have an exclusive experience which could be, who knows, maybe a virtual baby.

Speaker 3: 17:51

Yoda comes out and talks to them. You can just imagine how we start interconnecting these experiences so that now, not only is it a rewarding experience from a transactional point of view because I'm sure there's a discount or something involved but you're also getting this tangible benefit of being able to enhance your kid's experience after this bonding moment at a movie. I mean, tell me that's not gonna create brand loyalty for a customer when they start getting these perks and benefits that go above and beyond anything they've ever experienced before.

Speaker 2: 18:22

Yeah, I mean it gets much cooler. Yeah, and I love that story. I'm just too old for that. I'd probably have to go with my kids now. It's not so much fun. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.

Speaker 1: 18:39

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Speaker 2: 19:14

But yeah, okay, talking about kids, let's get to the next topic, which we have already highlighted a little bit, which is around cookies. So we've talked about cookies in the past and we actually have a session with an expert around cookies in one of our podcasts. But I wanted to highlight this article from another expert in this case I think his name was Matthew Iles and he was posting this article at BlogWorks and he was talking about this. He was talking about NFTs becoming the new cookies and he said in recent years, brands in Web3 have focused mainly on building Web3 loyalty programs, which are an incredibly effective way for brands to find more dynamic ways I think you were talking about this to engage and retain consumers. But here's the kicker Web3 loyalty programs are about more than just loyalty and they are just the tip of the iceberg in many ways. Close quote. And then he introduces the idea of, yeah, nft becoming cookies. So we can highlight a few of the other sentences that he serves. But what are your initial thoughts on this?

Speaker 3: 20:33

Yeah, I mean, I've been bullish about this narrative NFTs as cookies for quite some time. I think that it's a spot on perspective. I think that, if anything, the One of the things that the industry has done that just like NFTs. It's a terrible word. Nobody understands it. It's three letters. What does it mean? Has no relevance to most people.

Speaker 3: 20:59

This idea that we have something called a wallet, I think, is really constrained thinking, because when you talk about somebody's wallet, most people go straight to financial or identifier information, and it just a wallet is typically something that you guard carefully, right? You guard it from a pick pocket. You make sure that you know where it is at all times. It's something you check before you leave the house or you get on the airplane, and so I think it's put a lot of fear or paranoia around this concept of your blockchain assets by calling it a wallet, but really what it is, it's a profile, and what I foresee with this cookie situation is that in the future, consumers will have a way to manage a profile, which today we're calling a wallet, but within that profile, they'll have many different dimensions of their profile, and so when I go to a website and I decide that I want to give a brand some of my data in exchange for some sort of incentive. It's not going to be here's my whole wallet, do whatever you want with it.

Speaker 3: 22:05

I'm going to be able to open up my profile and I'm going to say, okay, you can learn about my interests and my purchase history and the other places that I shop, and a brand will be able to use that to customize recommendations, to create a better experience, to give me discounts, the same way that brands are using that data today. But the difference is that, to the first story, here it's connected consent. This is a way for me as a consumer to opt in, the same way that we opt in to getting things in our email inbox. We have laws around the requirements to opt in because marketers got so aggressive with sending email that we didn't want. The same thing is going to happen with NFTs and with cookies. So Web 3 is going to be this new way to connect to consumers. It's a new channel. I mean, there are no two ways about it and I think smart marketers are looking at this as a brand new channel to start engaging with customers in a way that the customer can have a say and really wants to be connected with.

Speaker 2: 23:06

Yeah, and let me quote Matthew Isles here again from his article, because there are a couple of things that he says. I'm going to go directly to the future that he foresees. He says, quote in the Web 3 Power Future of Loyalty, brands will augment their CRM and CDPs approach by integrating the dynamic Web 3 infrastructure and data flows I've mentioned through the article. Ultimately, this means that brands gain an entirely new toolkit for gathering, connecting and owning consumer data in a new, future proof way, which, at its core, is what will drive the future of advertising. Close quote.

Speaker 2: 23:49

So, yeah, I mean he's highlighting what you're saying and I like his points about augmenting CRMs and CDP because, well, at the end of the day, a lot of companies are looking at these numbers, right, and at this data when they are making decisions about the future of their advertising, and I think that we're still very early in this regard. But as more opportunities or more ways to actually track what's happening with these data collectibles or these Web 3 technologies when it comes to tracking activities and what's happening actually in there, I think this is going to highlight some of the value that this technology brings. And, yeah, maybe this is one area that hasn't been as explored and, of course, is way behind the analytics that we have today from Web 2, right.

Speaker 3: 24:48

Yeah, there's certainly a lot of room for growth with this technology and the way that it's used. I think there are. We're starting to see now Web 3 CRMs and platforms that connect Web 2 data to Web 3 data and they're entirely based on this premise that you have a customer coming to your site or to your experience and they have some sort of Web 3 wallet and history and by asking them to connect, we're getting that again that connected consent to be able to use those assets to customize an experience. So this is one area we're like in version 0.5 of Web 3 analytics. This is before we had Google Analytics, the early analytics companies on the internet. That's the phase that we're at with Web 3 analytics and I think this has a lot of room for growth.

Speaker 2: 25:40

I'm talking about benefits that users can obtain from Web 3 that they cannot get as easily from Web 2. Let me talk a bit about this other piece of news from Ubisoft in this case that launched an NFT and generated millions. After the free mint that launched this NFT, and the specific part I want to highlight here is that there was a presale of this NFT, and then this NFT, which minted out in less than 20 minutes, went out to trade at very high figures. But again, the specific part I want to highlight here is that Ubisoft launched this NFT but they didn't launch it just out in the world for everybody, but they launched it just out of the world for everybody created a limited presale for select funds. And these select funds I am not sure what they, what they did to show that there were select funds.

Speaker 2: 26:44

But if this wasn't the case in this time, what we've seen in other cases is that to show that you are actually a true fund, you have to hold a data collectible from the past from this company. So in this case, it could very well be the case that they had a data collectible and this data collectible allowed them to allow them into the presale for this new NFT and again, I don't know if this was the case in this time, but I'm sure in the future it will be. I'm not sure in this case, because Ubisoft has been in and out of the NFT arena, so I'm not sure, but we've seen this in other cases and the point I want to make is that, well, if by being part of this community and being able to show that by holding this data collectible, then you are allowed into some presales that could be worth your while, let's say, in the future, then well, this already brings you value from being part of that community.

Speaker 3: 27:45

Yeah, absolutely. You know. You're right, ubisoft has been in and out. They're continuing to stay the course, though, with NFTs. So a couple of years ago they tried to launch NFTs inside of the Ghost Recon game and they got a bunch of backlash and ended up kind of backpedaling their approach. But they're back again and so obviously they see the opportunity and are thinking about the future of gaming.

Speaker 3: 28:09

When it comes to Web 3 and NFT ownership, I think to your point about using these NFTs as a way to recognize fandom. You know, zeroing in on your best fans and giving them access first, or even exclusive access, to a digital collectible, something that can be used inside of a game or something that gets you access to the next experience. That really is. It's going to be an interesting new type of engagement with your fan base, with your audience, with your customers. It is. If you think back to social media and you think about the way that we've recognized social media attention, it's through things like follows and likes and shares, and it all stems from the idea that if you can capture someone's attention and you can motivate them to interact with a piece of content, whether they're showing their network that they like something or they're sharing it with their network. These are all ways for you to identify your top fans. These are ways for you to start creating some separation in your customer base so that you know who your best customers, most loyal customers, most passionate fans are versus people who might be less interested.

Speaker 3: 29:25

And I think that this is going to be an entirely new way for marketers to start thinking about how do we find our fans in our audience, in our universe of customers. And, you know, in the Ubisoft example, opening up a pre-sale or a limited free mint window window for select fans is a great way to find out of my customers who's the most dedicated, who are the most excited about what we're doing and the fact that they're now holding that collectible. You know, bringing it back to connected consent. The next time that person comes to a game or comes to a website or comes to a virtual experience, connects their wallet and shows that, hey, I've been a fan and I've been a fan since the very beginning. I was there first. What a brilliant way to be able to find that person and create an experience for that person where you recognize that loyalty and that early dedication to your business or your cause, yeah, and to make this easier.

Speaker 2: 30:24

I'm closing today's news coverage. We need to talk about OpenC, introducing wallet creation. Well, free wallet creation using email, that's it. So now, now we've gone to the time, or to the place where, just using your email, you can create a wallet and this wallet can hold data collectibles. Of course, openc being OpenC, they still talk about NFTs, but well Again, nfts, data collectibles, it's the same. And using your OpenC, you can now create a wallet with just an email address. So, basically, if you have an email address, then you can have a wallet, and if you have a wallet work through wallet then you can have these data collectibles. If you have them, then you can access all these other experiences offered by these other companies or the same company that is bringing you the NFT in the first place.

Speaker 3: 31:17

I don't know, everything is connected, don't you think Everything is connected? And this is. You know, this is the cherry on top that I see with all of these developments, because user experience with Web 3 to date has not been great. In fact, in some cases it's been terrible. It's been a hard experience to interact with some of these Web 3 experiences. And so, looking at OpenC, you know one of the largest at times, the largest NFT marketplace out there and certainly the oldest and probably most recognized coming forward and putting email sign up into their product in a way that still maintains the benefit of Web 3.

Speaker 3: 31:57

So this, this wallet, it's called self-custodied. That's the term. It means that the user still has control of that wallet, they still control the assets in it, but they're using their email address and to me it just makes sense, right? We want to meet people where they are when we're introducing new technology. When the iPhone came out, they didn't create a new way to dial a number right. They didn't rearrange the keys on the keypad, they didn't, you know, create some bizarre new interaction that I had to do to make a phone call. They just gave me a screen that I could tap on and made it a much more connected experience.

Speaker 3: 32:32

And that's what. That's what adding an email to this experience is doing. It's saying you know what? We recognize that the average person knows how to sign up using an email address, so let's, let's go with that. And then, on top of that, they know how to buy things with a credit card and a debit card, so why not support that? You know there's there's no, there's no limit or rule saying that you can't own a blockchain asset that was paid for in a non-blockchain way. That would just be silly. And so this is a great, I think, just evolution of our space, where we're starting to open sees not the only one starting to see. Now people can now sign up with email, or they can sign up with SMS, or they can connect their Google or their Apple wallet and create a wallet that they can use within an experience. These are the kinds of small iterations that we need to see in the user experience to make this a truly valuable and connected experience for consumers 2024 is coming strong, I'd say we're off to a great start, yeah, great start.

Speaker 2: 33:36

So looking forward to see what else is coming up in the coming weeks. For now, good to see you. Unless you have anything else to share, we can close it here. Maybe.

Speaker 3: 33:46

Yeah, it's good to see you too. See you in the next one.

Speaker 1: 33:52

Thanks for listening to Marketing Needs, web 3. If you enjoyed today's episode, please like and subscribe in your favorite podcast app.