Brewing Engagement: How Coffee Unchained and Skyscrapers Are Stirring Up Loyalty Programs

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Marketing Meets Web3, a podcast that helps marketers navigate the news trends, opportunities and insights surrounding Web3. Today's conversation is for information purposes only and does not constitute legal or investment advice.

Speaker 2: 0:24

How are you doing?

Speaker 3: 0:31

I'm doing wellberto. How are you? I'm doing fine. Um, I'm strangely sleepy today, which is weird because I just had coffee. I just had a coffee, I think, like 40 minutes ago. I still feel a bit sleepy. Maybe that one one wasn't caffeinated or as caffeinated as I needed it.

Speaker 3: 0:47

And, talking about coffee, I'm hoping it brings the caffeine, or lack of caffeine, into my veins because, yeah, we need to talk about coffee. Basically, that's the whole point. So we need to talk about Coffee Unchained, which, uh, which is, uh, bringing a membership program based on web3, uh, to coffee lovers, of course. So this um, this coffee culture, which is a, an online coffee centric store, is creating this, um, this coffee unchained membership platform that is going to be bringing rewards based on the Web3 to its users. The goal, of course, is to provide a gamified experience and captivate the minds of the coffee lovers that enjoy coffee at Coffee Culture. All this on top of Web3 and their membership program. So I mean two things that I love about this First, that, as I said before, it's about coffee and, second, that they're jumping straight on memberships and seeing the value of doing this on Web3, which they find it to be more flexible. So, before we get into some of the details. What are your first takes on this?

Speaker 2: 2:11

well, my first take is that I probably need another cup of coffee. But since I don't have, since I don't have one in front of me, I will just agree that we both. If there's anything in the world that you and I do agree on, it's the value of coffee. But yeah, let's dive into coffee culture. So this is a cool one and I think this is an interesting pattern that we're going to see play out over and over again, with businesses who are starting to see Web3 as a new channel really for their marketing efforts, really for their marketing efforts. So, you know, breaking this down a little bit, as we've seen with a bunch of Web3, plays a lot of times the value proposition, the pitch is all about engagement and being a more captivating experience. You know, when you think about the traditional sort of loyalty experience and you walk into a coffee shop, you know I was at a coffee shop this morning and my loyalty experience with that shop even though I love that shop and I know the people there, I've had plenty of conversations with them, we're very friendly, I feel like we have, you know, a good personal relationship but my loyalty experience was basically just tapping my phone on their POS and seeing, you know, a feedback screen that basically says yay, you got points. It has nothing to do with the business, it is not connected to their message, it's not connected to their brand, it doesn't help reinforce any of the things that make them special or unique within the Austin community, and so I think this whole idea of a more engaging, a more gamified experience that goes with a brand is really interesting, and it's cool to see a small business like Coffee Unchained embracing this platform, this new channel, as a way to drive more interesting relationships, deeper customer relationships across their customer base. So, in terms of what they're offering, they mentioned a few things. They talk about exclusive access to things like online home barista courses, so people that are real coffee nerds like myself can pull up their phone and get access to tutorials or videos or, however they're packaging that content up, delve into different facets of Thai coffee brewing techniques, the art of coffee. So, again, like really dialing in to user preferences and, in many ways, creating a much more personalized experience for members of the program than you would get by just walking into a store and tapping your phone at the register.

Speaker 2: 4:39

Um, something else that they're doing that I think is pretty cool here is that they're they're creating tiers. Pretty cool here is that they're creating tiers in their membership, so they have three tiers in the membership and each tier then kind of levels you up and gets you access to new types of perks and different products and different unlockable rewards, which I think is pretty interesting because it's again with that going back to the gamified side of things. It gives people something to strive for, it makes them feel like they're making progress, which is a really important dynamic in all loyalty systems. But it also, I think it's a great feedback mechanism for customers to let them know that, hey, we appreciate you, right, you're doing the right thing and we want to do the right thing for you, and so we're going to give you more rewards or we're going to give you a different level of access. So it's cool to see these membership programs start to play out in the real world with Web3. I think this is going to be a huge opportunity for businesses of all sizes.

Speaker 3: 5:35

Yeah, there's a couple of things that I wanted to highlight from this thing. The first thing you mentioned already, but I think it's a good point for companies that may be thinking about this, and it's about those online home barista courses, or another thing they're offering is delving into the diverse facets of Thai coffee. By the way, I don't know if it's in Thailand or in Vietnam that they have this coffee egg, coffee coffee with an egg. I'm really curious. So if there was something online I mean probably there is, but if there was any way for me to learn how to have that coffee in the way they prepare it, for certain, I would join the membership club, anyway. So they're offering that, they're offering brewing techniques and, in general, they're talking about the art of coffee, and they're offering all of these to the people that sign up for this membership program. And so you were saying, yeah, I mean, it's nice to feel special. It's nice also to create some feeling of a community. It's awesome to build this on or to build this thanks, or using, in this case, well, coffee knowledge.

Speaker 3: 6:47

And the point I want to make is that, well, this is a company that it's always doing coffee, so they know a lot about coffee. So this is something that they can offer. I mean not for free, because of course, it takes time to create that tutorial or create some time to create the knowledge to be shared in a way that can be easily shared with the members, but once you've created this, it's really costless. I mean it doesn't cost you anything. So I'm sure that companies like this one, and a lot of different companies, have something that they know how to do and that their members could value.

Speaker 3: 7:30

In this case, of course, it's about coffee and learning about coffee and learning how to brew coffee in the perfect way. But any company has some knowledge or has something that they need to use in their processes that they could be using as a reward for their members, and their members will love it, because if they love what they're doing or if they like the product that they're buying from this company, be it what it may, they would love to learn more or to be more involved in whatever is creating this product. So I wanted to highlight that because I think that being very smart in making this special in a way that doesn't really cost them much or if anything, and the other point I wanted to make yeah, go.

Speaker 2: 8:16

Nick, sorry, I was just going to say that I think that's a great point. I think that many businesses who attempt to create a loyalty program, they fall into a trap of really not knowing how to deliver meaningful benefits. And you know, at least without having the advice or the guidance of a loyalty strategist or a big firm that's going to charge a lot of money to come up with a loyalty strategy. And you know, when you think about smaller businesses in particular, like a coffee company, they probably don't have an entire division of their marketing team that's thinking about loyalty. They may not even have a very large marketing team, if at all.

Speaker 2: 8:55

And what you're saying I think is really important for smaller businesses and also really advantageous when it comes to Web3, because Web3 gives these small businesses an opportunity to basically look on the quote unquote shelf of things that they have. You know, whether it's content or product or access to upcoming test products or really anything that's behind the scenes of their business that, like you're saying, they're passionate customers would look at that and say, yeah, that's cool, I want to be a part of that, I want to join the community, I want access to that and to your point, for a lot of these businesses, after maybe some initial cost of production which, with today's tools between AI and great iPhones and social media production tools like the cost is really getting pretty low on things like content, and so it just takes a little time and creativity to look around your business and say what do I have, what's interesting, what's special?

Speaker 3: 9:47

special about me and us that I could share with my community and would make an enticing membership reward okay, and that takes me to the second point which I think they're making on this piece of news and they don't really get into the details here because I guess they don't really know how to do it, but they are mentioning that, um, beyond enhancing the user experiences and creating this community for for these coffee lovers, the coffee unchained project aims to establish new revenue streams for the parent company, which is called coffee culture.

Speaker 3: 10:21

So they don't explain what revenue streams, how revenue streams or anything like that, but they do mention that they're getting into this with the goal of not only creating a better community and a better user experience, but also to increase revenue from this project. And well, I guess they're not explaining how, because probably, well, it's not really clear how they can do it, but I can take a guess. Yeah, yeah, well, I would love to hear that. But it's interesting that they're even mentioning it, because we are not seeing many projects mentioning that well, we're doing this for the community, but also maybe we can make some money out of this. But they are stating it on their project. So I think it's interesting. I think it's probably early to know exactly how, but I want to hear your guess. What are you thinking?

Speaker 2: 11:15

So here's my guess, and I would put money on this, but the cool thing about memberships is there are different ways to offer them to your community. You can have a free membership if you're trying to get as many people into the program as possible. You can also have a paid membership, and a paid membership off the bat generates revenue. It might not be a huge source of revenue, but it's incremental revenue, so it's growing your overall customer lifetime value in a way that is net new for your business. You didn't have that revenue before. You didn't have to create a new product. You simply created a community, and you're selling access to that community through a membership, so that's kind of revenue opportunity number one. I think.

Speaker 2: 11:53

The longer tail, though, is the increase in customer sales that come from that membership community. So, as you have people in the community, you could be offering them exclusive products, early access, and even though you might be discounting these things, these are still above and beyond the sales that you would have made with those customers without the membership program, and so this is a great way for businesses to start thinking about. How do I take my best customers, how do I treat them like the VIPs that they are. And then how do we create more business opportunities for, so that we can grow with that, with that customer community? So that's my guess and, uh, I'll put money on that one you know who is um making money out of a membership program?

Speaker 3: 12:39

I'd love to know. The empire state building is offering a membership program. Of course, you know the Empire State. It was one of those big buildings that you have in the US, specifically in New York, and it was one of the first ones. But there's a lot of stories about the Empire State. I am not able to remember all of them now. The other day, I watched a video created by AI about or, yeah, created by AI showing the evolution of New York, and that you could see the Empire State Building being built on that video.

Speaker 3: 13:21

Anyway, it's a landmark and it's creating a membership program that allows locals and travelers to earn points every time they visit the site and by doing so, they are unlocking a few perks. Of course, being it a skyscraper, it operates in tiers and it's got five tiers, which are a lot less than floors, but still has five tiers, and you you get on tier one just by going in there and getting your first ticket to, to, to access the observatory of the of the building, and you can. You can get to the next tiers by basically buying more tickets, and these tiers and these actions unlock points and these points unlock perks and yeah. Anyways, I think it's interesting that a building is getting into this kind of business. I know because a friend of mine just visited New York. There's a lot of marketing around these landmarks in the city and it's probably one of the many offerings that you can find over there in New York. But at least that I know it's the first building that is creating a Web3 membership program. Do you know of any others?

Speaker 2: 14:49

I don't. And this story, this made a splash in the Web3 community. I think a lot of people were excited to see something like this launch. You know so to your point. There is a lot of energy and promotion that goes into landmarks like this, and they're all over the world, right? Every country has their important landmarks, every state within countries have their own important landmarks, every city.

Speaker 2: 15:13

And what's really interesting about this to me? A couple of things. So, number one they're building this sort of gamified experience, right, and when we talk about gamified experience, I think a lot of people their brains might go to like a video game, right. Well, how is that gamified? We're not talking about video games here. What we're talking about are ways to make our experiences feel a little bit more game-like, and you can do that in a lot of different ways. You can add things like challenges, you can introduce ideas, like points, but it makes things just a little bit more interesting, a little bit more fun. It introduces challenge or competition and it's cool to see, you know, a historical landmark like this really embracing the next phase of the web with a Web3 program and then building gamification on top of that. So I think this is a really interesting project that will probably play out over time in numerous ways.

Speaker 2: 16:04

Uh, if you, if you play this forward a little bit you know buildings are, when we, when we think about the metaverse, you know, most people probably instantly think of the things in the metaverse, and virtual buildings are a really interesting thing to put into metaverses. And so, whether we're trying to recreate a city landscape within a metaverse or we're creating an entirely new city that doesn't exist and maybe is a conglomerate of all these different landmarks all over the world, it's interesting to think about how your real world experiences could start translating to some sort of benefit or unlock in a virtual experience. So let's say that I go to New York and I go to Chicago and I go to LA and I visit all of these US landmarks and I use my membership pass and I collect points, and now I'm a level six architecture enthusiast. And then let's say that architecture land opens, which is a brand new metaverse featuring all of the beautiful architecture of the world. And suddenly, because I'm a level six architecture explorer, I get front of the line access, or I get behind the scenes access to a virtual tour.

Speaker 2: 17:14

So it sounds a little bit out there now, but I think these things are really going to start to unfold as virtual environments like Roblox, like you know's happening with vr and ar, across meta and apple vision, we're going to start seeing these experiences from in real life to virtual really come together in interesting ways. And web 3 is a great way to connect the dots and, hey, if you happen to have a membership and you're collecting all of those experiences, I think you're going to be a winner in the metaverse you know, I've been there.

Speaker 3: 17:46

I, I was in new york and I did the empire state tour and when I did so, I probably got a ticket, and this was a paper ticket and uh, yeah, so I don't know where that paper ticket is. And this has a point, because in the news that was covering this membership program launched by the Empire State, they were mentioning something that I want to cite in here. So they said, and I quote there is nothing that screams I belong in New York City, quite like membership to one of the most famous and important cultural institutions across the city. Close quote so what is my membership thingy?

Speaker 3: 18:35

So I lost that ticket and if it had been a Web3 ticket, an NFT, that would be my wallet and I could probably still I still I don't get something from from that trip, uh, and I could, I could be showing that to you now, like, hey see, I have a ticket, uh, but I have no ticket because, uh, yeah, it was paper-based and I think I probably lost it maybe half an hour after the tour.

Speaker 3: 19:02

So so, yeah, it's um, it's uh, it's a pity I I would probably not get this uh retroactively, uh, but but it's a good, I think it's a good uh innovation that new people or or the people that are coming now to the empire state that they will have this, this ticket, forever or until they lose their wallets and um, and this, this will not only be interesting for them because, well, they could, they could show anybody I, I am, I belong in new york city because I have this ticket. But I am guessing that if you have this ticket to for accessing the empire state, then I don't know if you go to this other landmark in New York you can probably get a discount because you have this NFT from the Empire State and that's with you all the time, whereas, yeah, if you have to play this with paper tickets, it gets very messy and you're probably going to be losing the majority of them after a half an hour of visiting these landmarks. Yeah, so I think that's a good upgrade.

Speaker 2: 20:11

Well, and if you're trying to market your business and you have some sort of service or product that complements an Empire State Building tour, I mean that's a perfect segment to target right. If people have these tickets in their wallets or they're members of this program, it's an immediate signal to any business that, hey, those people enjoy architecture or landmarks or New York City sites or heights. Yeah, there's so many ways that the businesses and marketers can use that signal as a way to create offers for new customers. So I think this is actually going to be a great acquisition opportunity as marketers start thinking about how do we target people and new and relevant ways, more relevant than they can even do today with things like social media yeah, definitely, I can already see that.

Speaker 3: 21:00

So I see that you. You have a ticket for the empire state, so you probably love heights. So what about paragliding? Exactly, yeah it's a great example not from the empire state, hopefully, but yeah, yeah, no, that's a very good point and I think. Well, we've talked about the cookie-free world of advertising and, yeah, I think this is an interesting development that we will see more of. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.

Speaker 1: 21:45

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Speaker 3: 22:10

But I want to go to the next piece of news, if only because I want to hear you explain this, because this is a collaboration, I'd say, between godaddy and ethereum, and it's and its goal is to bridge the gap between domain names and crypto wallets. So crypto wallets are those things in which you hold your nfts from visiting the empire state or having coffee at the coffee and chain and domain names are, well, domain names, urls of the websites that you love to visit. So there's a collaboration between these two and a collaboration between these two and um. This apparently brings a lot of um flexibility and user friendliness to using web3. But yeah, beyond that, I think I will I would love to hear you explain exactly what's going on in here yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:11

So I think to understand this one we got to get a little bit technical, but trust me I'll stay out of the weeds. So if we think about the history of domain names, in the beginning of the Internet we just had IP addresses, right. An IP address is just like the mailbox number for your computer on the Internet. It's how you find another computer on the Internet, and so if you wanted to connect computer A to computer B, computer A had to know what computer B's IP address was, and these are typically 12 digits. They're groups of three numbers separated by a dot, so 168.123.123.123. You can imagine how that's not very friendly as a user experience, and so very quickly something called the domain name service was created, and the domain name service is basically a giant database that's replicated across domain name domain name service providers around the world and that basically links an IP address that long string of numbers to a domain name. So instead of going to 192.123.123.123, you go to googlecom and because of DNS, it knows to translate your request from googlecom to the IP address on the other side. Okay, so that's Web History 101. That's how we got to domain names. We have a similar situation happening with web three. So in web three, you have a wallet address or your ETH address within your wallet, and your ETH address is a long string of characters that literally nobody could remember, right they're? They're pretty impossible to memorize, um, unless you like, a special kind of torture, and so, from a user experience perspective, we find ourselves in the same boat.

Speaker 2: 25:02

Well, thankfully, there's a company called Ethereum Name Service, so ENS and DNS. Ethereum Name Service is doing the same thing by basically allowing people to create a friendly name, like Albertoeth, and linking that to your crypto wallet address. And so if I want to send you money now, instead of sending it to your crypto wallet address, I just send it to Albertoeth and you're going to receive the crypto. Okay, so now we have these two systems we have DNS and we have ENS, and they're both designed to make finding things on the internet much easier. Well, what's cool about this relationship between GoDaddy and ENS is they're basically linking these two systems so that everything can be referenced by a single domain name.

Speaker 2: 25:46

So, if you want to go to a website, you go wwwalbertocom in a browser and we find you. If I want to send you money, a browser and we find you. If I want to send you money crypto. I can send crypto to albertocom and thanks to this integration between GoDaddy and ENS, the crypto will be routed from that domain name to the right wallet address that's linked through this partnership, and so it makes the usage of crypto much more straightforward for the everyday consumer. And you know just. The nature of this partnership to me screams mainstream, because GoDaddy is such a household name when it comes to domain names, especially for small businesses, that this is really, to me, this is a great signal for the industry that you know people who are engaging with mainstream audiences as part of their business are thinking about web three as the next phase. So very bullish on this one and um.

Speaker 3: 26:43

So, just just so I um understand it correctly, or not, not even me. But uh, let's, let's imagine I am a coffee shop similar to to this coffee culture business that we mentioned at the beginning, but the one with a I don't know like a brick and mortar coffee shop with a website. People can order from website. Uh, maybe you know, order coffee or pre-order coffee, so they get coffee, and maybe something else if they do it online, I don't know whatever. Um, I don't have a coffee shop, so I haven't been thinking of businesses that could be all lines of businesses. But but you see my point.

Speaker 2: 27:19

So if I am this kind of um profile, how could I benefit from from this development, if I, yeah, if I wanted to what this is going to make it possible to do is for a small business to basically put a sign out at the register and say want to pay in crypto? Great, send your money to businessnamecom. And behind the scenes, that crypto is going to be routed to the right wallet address that's connected to that business, and so it's really just a shortcut for people who have crypto and want to use crypto. It's a way for them to engage with the business without having to know the business's wallet address or anything about the behind the scenes. They just send crypto to the domain name and they're good to go yeah, you see, that makes a lot more sense sometimes you have to.

Speaker 3: 28:11

Let me try to explain things a few times, but we get there no, I mean what you said at the beginning, I mean it's what you said at the end, but uh, but yeah, but the second version, totally more digestible, and um, and something I could really, I could really work with, uh, but okay, so we've covered. We've covered a coffee company getting into membership programs and um, and offering something that they, that they have in spades, which is knowledge about coffee as the basis for the membership program. We have another membership program, this one by Empire State, and in this case they're not offering so much stuff, so much something that they have in spades, but I think they're offering perks, like I don't know, like discounts on mags about the Empire State or on t-shirts and stuff like that, but still something that they have on offer, even if it's not the case, or similar to the case, of their coffee, although they could be also, I guess, giving access to the history of the Empire State in more detail. That could be an interesting perk that they could offer, costless for them.

Speaker 3: 29:20

And finally, we go to the ENS crypto thingy. That I will not be summarizing again because you did a very good job with that example. But yeah, I think it's interesting to see these developments and I don't know about you, but I'm feeling that Web3, well, it wasn't dead, of course, but memberships on Web3 are, if not, maybe making a comeback because, as I said, they didn't really leave. I am starting to see more of a buzz around it. I don't know if that's your feeling as well.

Speaker 2: 29:58

A hundred percent. And you know, because all technology is cyclical. You know, whenever you have an emerging technology, you're going to see these sort of boom bust cycles, and so crypto and now Web3 have been through a bunch of these cycles like seven or eight at this point and Web3 is going through its first couple of major cycles, and so every time we have kind of a dip. You know, the last year and a half have been a bear market. People have been quieter about Web3. Brands have been less ready to engage and it's coming back again.

Speaker 2: 30:30

You know Reddit, I just noticed, is doing a revamp to their Web3 project and starting to expose some really interesting parts of the blockchain side. Disney is launching their collectibles program. So all of these brands are thinking again about how do we stay connected to the next phase of Web3, because they see that we're going into another cycle, a step change in development, where we get to the next level, if you will, of adoption, of text stability, of use cases, where people say, oh, actually Web3 is really good for things like memberships. So I'm with you. I think you know this is a positive sign and all three of these stories have me very, very bullish on where we're going with Web3.

Speaker 3: 31:16

Nice. So, with that said, I'm sure we will have more stuff to cover next time. So good to see you and thanks for being here.

Speaker 2: 31:25

Likewise. Talk to you soon.

Speaker 1: 31:32

Thanks for listening to Marketing Meets Web3. If you enjoyed today's episode, please like and subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You.