Web3 also denotes the advent of Marketing3

A lot has been written about Web3 and how it will impact various facets of our lives. Today, let us dive deeper into how it will impact the world of marketing. But before we jump into the exciting changes that the marketers must brace for, let me try to establish the fundamentals of Web3 in the simplest way.

Internet was invented in 1970s and we should think of this breakthrough like the invention of Wheel. This wheel turned into a chariot with the advent of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s.?This era is marked by the browser which enabled everyone to access the information – a massive leap for the mankind but far from the first automobile. The early Internet or Web1 was characterized by static pages and offline magazines published online as-is. Then came Web2 which was defined by rise of social media. This period was marked by growing use of mobile phones. People made 1-on-1 and 1-to-many connections easily and new influencers rose across the world like the Bollywood stars from Maasai tribe in Tanzania ! Continuing with our analogy, Web2 denotes rise of cars. And incidentally, it also denotes the rise of Big Tech – the large companies that control the vast proportion of Internet traffic. The world is connected better today but this centralized version does not maximize value for its users. Herein arises the idea of decentralization and Web3 – which was precipitated by rise of cryptographic and distributed ledger technologies (DLT) like blockchain and innovative applications like digital currencies (think Bitcoin) and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). In our analogy, this is like billions of people who are connected to the Internet driving their own fast cars! Over the next five years, these developments hold the potential to change the way we live.

Now to the question that we set out to answer. How will Web3 change marketing and how should marketers plan their careers. Here are some of the important ways marketers must prepare for this new era of Marketing3:

• New avenues for branding – Web3 opens up a whole new world of opportunities to promote a brand. Companies are using Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) to engage with Gen Z digitally. Examples range from the NBA’s digitally licensed Top Shots collectables for Basketball fans to the opportunity for new collaborations like the recently announced Adidas X Gucci partnership.
• Ownership of content – Unlike today’s platforms, Web3 allows creators to own their content. For instance, owning an NFT through an image, video, or a sound clip, conveys all the rights to its owner associated with the NFT. In case of the NFT being bought or sold, the benefits go the owner of the NFT. Therefore, for marketers, it will mean many new channels to reach their audience rather than a few social media platforms that they currently use.
• Value accretion – Decentralized ownership also means the creators get paid for their content. Think of like being paid for every selfie you post on Instagram or the article you publish on LinkedIn! Marketing teams will be working one-on-one with multiple creators, paying them to share their data. We see early examples of this trend in Web2 with businesses Substack, Patreon, and Cameo. Web3 will help them grow exponentially.
• New forms of communities – Entities like Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) are emerging. These are membership owned communities, enforced on a blockchain, with no central leadership. Imagine how Upwork and Fiverr of the Web2 world can eventually lead to trust and consensus based DAOs in the Web3 world. It’s a fascinating thought experiment.
• Influencers – This is an area of big impact, and the Influencer marketing in Web3 is said to be a game-changer. Marketers must prepare for a world with many more influencers and higher accountability. Blockchain technologies will make it easier for an influencer’s influence to be tracked and for them to have a regular stream of income through royalties. The short video application, Chingari, an Indian competitor to TikTok, is among the first platform to merge influencer marketing with Web3 by introducing a native token, GARI, which is based on the blockchain technology. In a decentralized social media platform like Deso, the value of an influencer goes up or down with every message they publish.
• Privacy and Security – Many blockchains are permissionless which means they are open, public, borderless, neutral, and censorship resistant. This is a great feature, but it also creates completely new privacy and security challenges for marketers. They will need to define clear rules for their own communities.

Marketing used to be very different before the Internet, when most of their audience used just a few channels of communication and marketers had reliable ways of reaching them. But disintermediation is one of the key traits of innovation and that is what the Internet did by fragmenting the channels. Now Web3 will again disrupt the current order and represents a brave new world for marketers to step into. As we have always done, let us comprehend and embrace these changes enthusiastically.

In the coming weeks, we will also talk about the new marketing roles that will become important in the future and how marketers must get ready for them. And did I talk about Metaverse yet? That is also a whole new conversation for a different article. Thrilling times await marketers!