The company is intending to use these technologies to establish a strong foothold in the emerging metaverse.
In a corporate blog post, Brady Brewer, Chief Marketing Officer, and Adam Brotman, Advisor, Starbucks Corp., described how the coffee chain intends to create a digital “third place” for customers to find a sense of community between home and work. Starbucks has long referred to its brick-and-mortar stores as a physical third place for customers.
However, with the growth of the metaverse – a sophisticated digital world where consumers will use augmented and virtual reality technology to digitally engage with each other and their surroundings, with crossovers into the physical world – Starbucks says it wants to create a new, global digital community.
Starbucks plans to begin its foray into the metaverse with what are popularly known as Web 3.0 technologies: NFT (non-fungible token) and blockchain. Following is a brief overview of the retailer’s plans for each technology area.
NFTs – Starbucks plans to create a series of branded NFT collections, the ownership of which will initiate Starbucks digital community membership, and allow for access to exclusive experiences and perks. The themes of these collections will be based on new and existing Starbucks artistic content, as well as through collaborations with other artists and brands.
Blockchain – According to Starbucks, its approach to blockchain technology, which serves as a real-time, single ledger verifying all transactions conducted on the blockchain network, is ultimately likely to be multi-chain or chain agnostic. However, the retailer plans to start its metaverse activity with NFT collections backed by blockchains and sustainable infrastructure.
