The sky is no longer the limit Nike, which has started 2022 with a rise in its shares that promise to reach new historical peaks thanks to its expansion plans in the metaverse.
Analysts have assured that the initiative will pave the way for a new era in the company’s history, which will have the digital world as its north.
“The brand commands a dominant share of the market, which we expect to grow materially from here, as it increases its digital footprint, maintains robust new product innovation and continues strong investments underpinning key growth drivers.” said analyst Robert Drbul of the financial firm Guggenheim.
Experts closely follow the development of Nike’s digital strategy and its expansion into the metaverse, a digital universe where people can experience a life parallel to their existence in the real world.
Nike has made clear its intentions to explore the possibilities in the metaverso and in the Web 3.0, with the creation of video games, a metaverse studio and digital sports shoes called CrytoKicks.
In December, Nike announced the acquisition of RTFKT, a digital design studio that produces sports shoes and other collectible clothing that can be used on different digital platforms. This strategic acquisition will allow Nike to create its own production line of digital clothing items without the need to hire external collaborators.
Another of the goals of the sports giant is to promote the development of RTFKT, which in 2021 had received a valuation of 33 million dollars in a financing round led by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The idea is that RTFKT has the financial strength to explore the possibilities presented by the metaverse.
“This purchase is another step in accelerating Nike’s digital transformation and enables us to serve athletes and creators at the intersection of sport, creativity, gaming and culture,” said NIKE President and CEO, John Donahoe.
“Our plan is to invest in the RTFKT brand, help and grow its innovative and creative community, and extend Nike’s capabilities and digital presence,” added Donahoe.
New brands for new realities
RTFKT was founded by Benoit Pagotto, Chris Le and Steven Vasilev in January 2020 with the goal of redefining the boundaries of physical and digital value. It focuses its function on blockchain authentication and augmented reality to create products and Tokens no fungibles (NFT, for its acronym in English).
NFTs are digital assets that cannot be consumed or replaced. They are registered by means of a smart contract that assigns them a unique number, which provides the security to their owner that there will be no possible replicas.
This registry contains the data of the owner and the creator, which allows the copyright to be preserved equally.
By creating sneakers and other collectibles for the metaverse, RTFKT wants to introduce the scarcity culture of street fashion and limited editions to the digital world.
RTFKT showed their worth in 2021 when they teamed up with the artist FEWOCiOUS and sold over 600 pairs of sneakers on NFT in just 6 minutes, generating over $3.1 million at the time.
It doesn’t sound like much of an achievement now, but a year ago the rest of us were just beginning to hear about the existence of NFTs for the first time and were amazed when the Canadian artist Grimes he sold pieces of digital art embedded in his compositions for around $6 million.
Some critics still have their doubts about the real value of these virtual items because they are currently on sale or have recently been sold for less than the original price.
the virtual catwalk
The commercialization of the metaverse is still in its infancy and only came to light when Facebook announced his intention to redirect his efforts to create this new parallel world and decided to change his name to Meta. The concept still causes skepticism in many important figures in the world of innovation such as Elon Musk has dismissed the idea.
But Nike has definitely jumped on the metaverse train and has already authorized the use of its logos and slogans on digital clothing. He also launched his own Nikeland inside the online game Roblox, where players can buy branded products for their avatars.
And together with Nike, a significant group of brands have decided to try their luck in the world of digital creations, such as Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga, which already have video games that complement their presentations on real catwalks.
the german giant Adidas has not lagged behind. Purchased the commercial rights to Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT #8774 in September 2021 and in December announced the alliance of BAYC, with Gmoney and the creators of Punks Comics. That deal to trade NFTs netted him some $23 million in profits and has become the second most-traded collection to date in the virtual transaction market. OpenSea.
the dutch firm The Manufacturer, It already has a team specialized in animated, hyper-realistic 3D virtual fashion design and has partnered with Adidas to hold a competition between virtual fashion creators.
Zara, the most international of the Spanish group Inditex, has also taken its first steps by presenting a collection led by Korean experts in virtual reality Ader Error.
Fuentes: Business Insider, Dezeen, The Verge
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