The rise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in fashion and luxury

Master's Thesis from the year 2022 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 7/8, Bocconi University (Department of Management and Technology), course: M.Sc. International Management, language: English, abstract: The concept of the metaverse and non-fungible tokens has become ubiquitous, and fashion and luxury companies are faced with the need to define a thorough strategy to tackle its business impact. Despite some brands acting at the forefront of NFT adoption, the utility of the infant technology remains unclear. By conducting a 2x2 factorial design experiment, this research creates insights into guidelines for NFT strategies for fashion and luxury companies. First, the high importance of connecting NFT offers with experiences is confirmed. Second, a coherence of values between NFT technology and the luxury industry was illustrated. Finally, the experiment suggested a high difference in perceived utility of real-world asset NFTs and digital asset NFTs for mainstream brands, while the difference could not be proven in the case of luxury companies. In conclusion, the NFT strategy matrix was developed, which introduces four dimensions of brand loyals, brand collectors, fad enthusiasts and fad curious differentiated by their brand loyalty and desired NFT utility. This framework aims to provide a tool for fashion and luxury companies to cater their holistic NFT offering to different customer groups. In general, it is advisable to move from digital asset NFTs toward real-world asset NFTs in order to engage consumers with rare experiences in a virtual or physical setting and deploy the technology as an experiential marketing tool.