Episode 62: Delight Your Customer with Transformational Brand Engagement Strategies Ft. Matias Marquez
Welcome to the first episode of SEASON TWO!
Host, Ashley Smith speaks to Matias Marquez in-studio from their mutual hometown of Vancouver, Canada.
GUEST:
Matias Marquez is the CEO of ethos, a company that is on a mission is to elevate engagement for brands and their customers with digital assets.
Matias is an active advisor and investor in technology companies as well as a PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs Ambassador. He founded Buyatab in 2009, led it to become a global leader in digital gift giving and sold it to Atlanta-based FLEETCOR Technologies. (NYSE: FLT). Throughout his career, Matias has received many awards for his entrepreneurial success, including a BC Business Top 30 Under 30 in 2016; winner of the 2016 EY Entrepreneur of The Year award; Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2017; and a Forty Under 40 recipient in 2018.
“What’s more impactful is we need to get this technology in the hands of people and delight them.”
THE EPISODE:
Matias provides an overview of digital assets (NFTs) and how they can drive meaningful engagement for consumer brands. He shares case studies, professional anecdotes, and a vision for how web3 technology can bring unique benefits to the customer while driving revenue for companies by pursuing a creative, new approach to old school value propositions. Matias emphasizes that this area of innovation should not be about market speculation, but instead about delighting a company's loyal community. Most importantly, it should be incredibly simple and easy for the customer to use. In fact, he argues that web3 and blockchain technology will only reach mass adoption if and when the end-user doesn't have to know they are interacting with "on chain" technologies. When the sceptics are delighted, the technology will have found its place.
LINKS + RESOURCES
|
LINKS + RESOURCES |
EPISODE LINKS & RESOURCES:
“Crossing the Chasm” (book by Geoffrey A. Moore) - Find on Amazon
Apple Pay + MetaMask news…
Financial Post - press release
Decrypt - more info
From The Blockchain episode with Amber Vittoria (artist mentioned by Ashley):
- Audio
- YouTube
-
INTRO TEASER
Guest, Matias Marquez:We're trying to help consumer brands learn more about their customers and communicate with them and engage with them. You know, in five years, ten years, 20 years, 100 years. Consumer brands will exist. Consumer brands will want to know about their customers and they'll want to directly engage, communicate with them. And what's changing is the media. 30 years ago, they mailed out fliers because they wanted to communicate and get a message out to their customers and catalogs and that type of thing.And then the Internet comes along and they start doing websites and then social media comes along and they start doing the social media posts and then they start doing social media ads. So what's obvious here is, like these consumer brands love their customers. They want to know more about them. They want to meet them where they are and they want to engage with them. And the world is changing. We are going more digital. We're trying to help them achieve what they've always been wanting to do, but with digital assets. So whether this technology changes quickly, which I think it will. I don't think what's not going to change is that these consumer brands want to engage with their customers, want to learn more about them and digital assets because they're on the blockchain and because you can embed all these really great benefits to them are going to be such a great way for them to do that.
EPISODE STANDARD INTRO
Host, Ashley Smith:Welcome to Season Two of From the Blockchain, where we speak to today's most innovative entrepreneurs and thought leaders to unpack the true potential of smart contract technology, web3 and the digital frontier. I'm your host Ashley Smith from Fame Lady Squad, and I'm thrilled to have you join today's top tier community of forward thinking trailblazers. We're here to foster a culture of ideas, sharing, creativity and innovation that transcends industries, revolutionizes business, and drives meaningful conversation. If you're ready to forge a path to becoming a thought leader in your industry or organization, think of this podcast as your compass. Don't forget to subscribe. Share it. Be part of our amazing community. Oh, and please note that this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered financial or investment advice. All righty, everybody, enjoy the show.
WELCOME
Ashley:I am so excited to be here at season two from the blockchain with somebody locally and in-person in my neighborhood, Vancouver Matias Marquez, who is the CEO of ethos. Someone that I had the pleasure of meeting last year at a Web3 event. I'm so pumped to see the community really start to come together in the Vancouver region in terms of technology. VR Web3. Mathias, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.
Matias:
Thanks for having me. The studio is awesome.
Ashley:
I'm super excited to be here. It's very nice. I even put on a blazer today, so this is a little bit of an improvement to my beanies or toques (depending where you come from), and not doing my hair. So we're leveling up in season two and this is a perfect way to get it rolling.
So first of all, why don't we talk a little bit about who you are, what ethos is, and then we'll dive a little deeper into your background.
GUEST BACKGROUND
Matias:Awesome. Thanks for having me, Ashley. Excited to be on. What can I tell you about me? So my name's Matias and I guess I can start with 13 years ago I started a company and that company was called Buyatab, and that company was focused on helping consumer brands adopt what was new technology at the time. And that new technology at that time was digital gift cards. So we built a really cool company around helping consumer brands adopt digital gift cards, and by the end, we ended up selling it to the large incumbent, large public company based in Atlanta. But by the end, we had customers the size of Wal-Mart, Whole Foods and the Four Seasons and Tim Hortons and others, and just really developed a passion around helping consumer brands adopt new technology for the purposes of them driving customer engagement. And I got to see firsthand how these brands have such an impactful reach to their customer base and they can really delight them and using new technology do that's a really, really fun thing to do. So that's a big passion. And fast forward to today and that part of my life has kind of come and gone, and fast forward to today.
What ethos is - it’s us helping consumer brands adopt blockchain technology and specifically digital assets and NFTs for the purposes of customer engagement. It connects to their customers and it's emerging. It's a burgeoning technology. There's a lot of education that's needed, but there's a real and I'm sure you're a believer, but there's a lot of great things about this technology that can translate to really great experiences for customers, and it just requires brands to get there. And we're having a lot of fun, you know, getting there.
Ashley:
Well, first of all, I want to say kudos to you for developing this and even for the work you had done previously. I understand that you're like a multiple award winner, 30 or 30, 40, under 40, honored multiple times entrepreneur of the year. And so you've been recognized for the work you're doing. And I would actually say that when I first heard the company you had previously built, how early it really was for that type of technology and business development side of things. I'm just surprised - that feels like Facebook had just come out basically, and folks were only newly becoming prepared to even use some of this technology.
Matias:
It's funny, when I started my last company, we were trying to convince consumer brands that they should sell their gift cards digitally. That today sounds like an obvious, straightforward thing, and you go, of course, they're going to sell their gift cards digitally. But the reality was this they thought it was like people thought that was crazy. I have friends tell me, “that's never going to work. No one's going to do this”. And, you know, fast forward, we turn out to everybody, you know, to people, people, you know, we tried we proved that we were correct in that. Yes. This was a technology that could be impactful and could be used. So we went through that. And now, as you know, where we are today, you know, there's a lot of skeptics around blockchain and NFTs and digital assets and all that kind of stuff. But it reminds me of that time… as you know, it almost feels like back then it was tougher to convince people that digital gift cards were going to be a thing. Then convincing people today that digital assets and NFTs can be a thing for customer engagement. So yeah, in many ways I've been through it before and that experience has really helped me at least during this time, which, you know, it's just, it's just par for the course, I think.
Ashley:
And so I have to wonder, you know, one of the questions that I get, and almost objections that I get when I talk to people about my excitement around Web3 is why is blockchain needed to execute on this idea? Like, why do you need a decentralized ledger to participate in this way? So, without necessarily getting into the nitty gritty of the tech, why do you feel that this sort of technology will help enable some of your objectives?
Matias:
It's a really good question and it's a really important question. And I think if we don't answer it well, you know, we're not going to get this technology advanced and adopted. Right. So I'll give you a quick answer. So when the Internet first came out, the big thing there was that you could have a server and someone else could buy a server and the servers could talk to each other. Yeah, that was like the funding mate, the foundation of the internet, and that created all these wonderful use cases with blockchain. Why it's so impactful is because it's a shared ledger. It's a shared database that you can look at. I can look at you can write to I can write to you and I can verify what you're writing to. And that sounds very simple. And it is right. But the fact that you can have a database or a ledger that can be shared among anybody and is visible to anybody, is that transformational point like servers being able to communicate with each other? So, you know, I'm not saying, you know, closed databases won't exist anymore, but the idea of one big shared one is a great addition to the digital kind of ecosystem we're all used to.
Ashley:
So is there an example that you can provide given that context, that might speak to our audience, especially if this is the first time they've really thought about this concept?
Matias:
Yeah, I think that if you own a designer handbag or you own an expensive pair of shoes or you own a car or you own something that you really are passionate about, you'd like to know that that's authentic, right? And being able to look into it, like being able to point to something that's publicly available and people trust and say, this is registered there. Like when you buy a house here in Vancouver, it gets registered at the Land Title’s Office. That's important, right? You know, as products and physical assets are becoming more and more important to everybody and being able to point to a registration somewhere, I think that's important on its own. I think the ability to then verify that is important. I think the ability to transfer it and for it to change, because if you remove blockchain from that, then you're having these private databases that you can't even show and point to, limiting the use cases. Does that make sense?
Ashley:
Yeah, it does. So let's bring it to ethos. Maybe give us some examples of the type of work that you're doing with clients.
Matias:
Yeah. With ethos, we're having a lot of fun educating consumer brands and helping them drive engagement with their customers using digital assets. So what a digital asset is, it's an NFT, it's a digital you know, it's a digital representation of IP that they have. We register on the blockchain and that's what makes it an NFT and then we add benefits to it, right? So what's really cool is that you could be a brand issuing a digital asset. So a very great digital representation of some IP you have - which a lot of brands have like tremendous banks of IP. And they haven't really used it before. So imagine if Coca-Cola used like, they've done this with coke bottles and like they just have such, like the Santa Clause, they have all this great IP. So a brand can take their IP digitally represented in a very unique collectible way. That's really great. And they can add really great benefits to it. And the combination of those two things can really delight customers. But just to double click on the benefits, the benefits can be wide ranging. And we're really innovating here to make sure that these brands can add tons of great benefits. But some examples of benefits can include things like, free shipping on your next purchase can be like a promo code to get a discount on a product. But more importantly, they can include things like a video of the product being made. It can include things like an interview from the designer of who made that product. You can also include things like, and we call this gated commerce where because you're holding that digital asset, you can get access to purchase something from the brand that you otherwise weren't able to purchase. So imagine being able to buy a pair of shoes or sunglasses and a colorway that's only available to a select number of people. And those like those latter options are really interesting because they're non-monetary. So if you're a brand and you're digging it, you're using your existing IP, you're offering content, you're offering access to purchase things. These things are not costing you money to augment the experience you're giving your customer. But the customer's perceived value is high on these things. So what we're doing and what's really exciting about is we're giving brands a vehicle to excite their customers in a digital way and then offer really great benefits that can be monetary and non-monetary, but it's the non-monetary ones that I think are the real game changer because, you know, if you're a brand, you don't want to discount your we want to give away, you want to just make the experience better. And that's what these digital assets can do.
Ashley:
Yeah, since it's top of mind, I will mention, you know, listeners of the show know that I'm a holder of friends and a fan of Gary Vaynerchuk, but today they're launching access to this Reebok shoe partnership thing that they're doing with their brand. And only holders get early access, and they get a special gift in this case. But it is - you go through a token gated process and you get that and you're spending the same amount of money as anyone else, but you're getting in there early and you know you're going to get your size, the availability is going to be there. And so, you know, I obviously haven't gone through the process just yet, haven't seen the deliverable. But I think it's a really neat concept and I do feel a little VIP right now.
Matias:
And you're feeling VIP and you're buying something at full price. And you're feeling rewarded. And I think that that's such a great way. If you're a consumer brand today and you want to drive engagement and you want to offer your customers, and that's going to delight them. This is a way better way of doing it than to like just 50 bucks off the shoe. And that's not what you want. You want the feeling you're getting now and you're happy to pay full price more.
Ashley:
I mean, a discount is nice sometimes. And to be fair, there are some select people who will get discounts. I'm just not one of the lucky ones.
I would love to know your experience with ethos as you're talking to some of these potential clients - like brand clients. Are they coming to you? Are you going to them? Are they wanting to learn more? Like, what does the conversation look like between you and them right now in 2023, especially amidst all of the craziness that has come with crypto and NFTs over the last couple of years?
Matias:
Actually, there's a lot there. So I would say our discussions with consumer brands kind of run the spectrum. Yeah. So you have brands that are like, you know, they have people that work at these consumer brands, some that are excited about this technology and are like reaching out to us and we're having really great conversations with them And that would be on one side of the spectrum. And the other side of the spectrum, you have people who have no idea what this technology is. Have seen really bad headlines and want to stay far away from it. Right. So obviously, on the former side, it's like, hey, come talk to us. Let's pilot something. Let's work with you. On the the latter side of the spectrum, it's like, hey, we just need to help educate you. Because the reality is that, yes, there's been bad actors. Yes, there's been some bad headlines. But that's more on the speculative side. That's more on the like crypto token side. What we're trying to talk about here is like driving great customer engagement and the technology is really not that important. It's just kind of like it's similar to like, yes, it's also on AWS. Yes. We also use this as an email server. Yes. Like and yes, blockchain is a part of it. But it's been unfortunate actually, because I know a lot of people that are building really great applications and doing really great work in this space. And the craziness of last year and the bad actors have made it unnecessarily more difficult for the good actors. And it would have been better actually if this technology was less known about and there were those bad actors that didn't exist.
Ashley:
And I think there is an ease of use issue, that we're slowly starting to see being overcome. But AI I mean, I'm just reiterating the same thing that everyone else is saying, but AI hit the mainstream big time over the last year. And part of it was because consumers themselves could get their hands on it and see what they could do with it and solve problems for themselves in their work, perhaps. And so in the Web3 world, it feels like there's still barriers, or you need folks to help facilitate the use of the technology. And so it does seem like we're going to need to get to that point where you're no longer needing to explain all of the things, the crypto wallets. You know, I've now been dabbling, quote unquote, in Web3 since early 2021. And I talk more about my interest being in blockchain technology, smart contracts, web3 and people still say, “Oh, you're doing that Bitcoin thing”. And so we do need to get past that. But I'd love to know your thoughts on making it easier just for mass adoption and for the everyday user.
Matias:
I mean, our mission is to make this technology simpler, easier, more humanize it and help consumer brands drive engagement with their customers. That's literally our mission is to, like, make it easy and to help these consumer brands drive engagement. So the making it easy, it's a really important piece of it. And I actually worry about this industry a little bit that it's currently really being built by people that love this technology and are very good users of it. And there needs to be a paradigm shift, we're very focused on that paradigm shift. Like, you know, we think that crypto wallets are an advanced setting, right? Like for someone to receive a digital asset. Type in your email. Engage with the digital asset, get its benefits. And if you are one of the 1% or point 1% that knows what a crypto wallet is and has one. Sure, go into the event settings and connect it and you can take your ownership of that digital asset. But we have to make it super, super easy. And a lot of the innovation that we're doing is around making it super easy for customers and for users. Because if we don't make this technology easier for people, it's never going to get widely adopted.
There's a book called “Crossing the Chasm”. It's great. It's a tech book, and it's about adoption. You should totally read it. I think the guy's name is Geoffrey Moore that wrote it. He talks about this chasm. So on the left side… So, you know, the traditional adoption curve or like early adopters and innovators on the left, and then you have like the late majority on the right. Yeah. And he's got like a gap and it's near the beginning and it's like the 12 to 15% mark. And what he's saying is that to get the left side of the chasm on board is not that difficult because they'll try new things, they'll download things, they'll save, you know, crazy seed phrases. They'll do things that other people won't do. And then there's this gap, and then there's the right side. And that right side are people like my mom, people like my aunt, people like my wife who are like, just never going to do that stuff right then. Like, if it doesn't make it easier for their life, it doesn't give them a benefit. And it's not extremely simple and they're not going to that right size, not going to not going to happen. So what the book talks about is like, how do you cross the chasm? How do you start off with people in an industry that will try things, will do the work, try the product, versus everybody else? And I think in this industry, the chasm is actually a really important piece because we're not… it doesn't matter how much people talk about technology and how much people love the technology. If it isn't super, super simple for people who are really busy, we're not going to get mass adoption. So that's what we're focused on. We're focused on making it really, really easy. A couple examples include when the brands we work with issue an NFT or a digital asset - literally, the consumer just typed in their email - boom. Now they have access to it. If they want to store it somewhere, they can store it in their crypto wallet. That's not even what these brands are excited about. We've done integration to Apple Wallet, where the user can just click store in their Apple Wallet and just buy it there. So, I could talk about making this technology easier and more accessible all day long. I actually think it's a huge part of it.
Ashley:
I'm excited. I'm excited to see these sorts of integrations with Apple Pay. I know Metamask had just announced something related to that. I'm not fluent in the news updates, so I won't speak to it. I'll maybe put a link in the show notes. But yeah, I mean, just to speak to this, I haven't bought a lot in way of crypto or NFTs over the last little while, (although maybe now would have been the time to do it). But I did purchase an NFT yesterday from an artist named Amber Vittoria, who's done a lot in this space, and I just admire her so much. She's actually been on the show. I saw that she was collaborating with this new platform. And, you know, I did - I gave him all my info. I think a lot of the “crypto bro’s” are afraid of that part, giving away their email or phone number or whatever. I'm not. I'm one of these other people. I'm in this other group. But I set myself up, I got a text message and it said, “Choose which piece of art you like”. And the one I liked was associated with sunshine emoji. So all I did was text back a sunshine emoji and it automatically charged my credit card $10. And that was it. And it's not speculative. I just want to support the artist. And there it was in the wallet that they had created for me, not associated with my crypto wallet, although I could put it there if I like to. And it was really fun. It was a fun experience. I was excited to show my support. So these are the types of innovations, I guess, that are happening and I'm excited to see folks like you building on it. I would love to know, are there any specific case studies either through clients you've worked with or that you've seen in the public realm that have gotten you very excited about the future and what can be done?
Matias:
Yeah. Yeah. So a couple of things and let me just comment on your previous point. So yeah, that really easy process. Wasn't it nice? It was nice, right?
Ashley:
It was nice. Yeah. I was actually excited to use my credit card, too, to be honest.
Matias:
Right? And you're somebody who can appreciate the whole decentralization, and the “hey, I don't want people to… I want some anonymity”. Like, me too - I like those things. But when you compare it to that process, it's nice though, right?
Ashley:
Yeah. And I'm just buying it like again, this is taking things away from that speculative, day trading environment, and it doesn't mean that that won't exist in this middle realm as well somehow. But, there's just more important ways that we can use this technology.
Matias:
And I think that you're demonstrating something that we really believe in. And there was actually a PWC report that was issued a couple weeks ago or maybe a couple months ago now, and they had a really interesting stat in there. So it was something like 85% or 82% of people are willing to give up some personal information in exchange for convenience. Right? And I think that's true for all of us. Like, if you can make my life easier, I'm happy for you to know a little bit about me, if that's my billing information. Sure. Right? And I think it's those types of perspectives that we have to really hold in mind to take this technology past that chasm, or else this is only going to be for the people that really believe in and love the technology - which that core people are awesome. But it's like this entire industry gets better if more people adopt it more broadly. So that's just one point I want to make. I think that's a really - if you are willing to trade information knowing that you know how to buy different crypto tokens, you have your own crypto wallets and if even you like that experience better, then what does that tell you?
Ashley:
Yeah, there's, there's room for it.
Matias:
Yeah. And then you talked about kind of like examples that we've seen. So we've been fortunate that we've been in the space for a little bit now and we've been working with great brands and we've got to like experienced firsthand. You know, we're working with this cool brand. And they came to us and they said, Hey, we want to issue these digital assets at an event we're hosting. Right? And at that event, I think their original plan was to have people helping set up crypto wallets. Right? And then they met us and they liked what we were doing better because - imagine being at an event like imagine actually being at an event and then having a drink in your hand and they'd be like, Hey, cool, they're going to be like this, like NFT that I get. But what do I have to do? I'm going to go over here. I'm going to, like, get this crypto wallet and write down the seed phrase. I like, like, imagine holding a drink, trying to hold the conversation.
Ashley:
Yeah, right. And then we came along and just hoping you have the cell reception or wifi or signal to you even do it.
Matias:
Yeah, but even that's not the issue. The issue is I'm going to go stand over here, and I'm going to take this, like, crazy, arduous process to set up a crypto wallet and then what am I going to do? Whereas we came along and said, Hey, what if you just put a QR code in the user camera to scan it, which everyone can do now, and then they just type in their email address. And at that time we had like I think there was like five steps you had to do to claim it. And their feedback to us was, Hey, this was awesome and they loved it, but can you make it easier? So we've actually moved, now it's a one step claim process. So it's funny, although we've been tilted to make this technology really easy, the real examples we've been working with have actually pushed us even more in that direction. So I get really excited because when, you know, when we hear from consumer brands and we hear from customers what they want, that's way more important than what we want. And even, you know, I thought the process before our change there was easy and we heard it needs to be even easier. And I kind of felt like saying to them all, your previous process is going to be even more arduous. But that's not the point. The point is, I hear you - we think it's easy and you're telling us that needs to be even easier? So I think it's obvious that's the direction that technology has to go in. And whenever I see other companies pushing in that direction, I get really excited because I know that's the path I think we all have to be on.
Ashley:
Yeah. I keep thinking about the world of communication, social media, community building, and more in the quote unquote traditional sense. Not so much the NFT community building that we saw over the last couple of years. But this move towards brands being able to have direct contact or connection with their fans and their consumers and how in many ways, social media, of course, has enabled a two way conversation. But at the same time, I think there's a lot of people and organizations who feel a little bit… restricted is not the right word… but if that social media platform goes down or its user base changes, then you've built something up that you can't necessarily carry forward and build on into the future. And so I don't want to talk smack about “X” or Twitter, but that's an example where I think there's a lot of questions right now around “will Twitter matter in five years?”, and what if you've built a lot of your consumer conversation there? So I do believe that there's something here with the Web3 tech that's going to allow - and I'm sure some of the versions of this we haven't seen yet - but allow companies and brands to have more control over their connection with their community. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Matias:
Lots. I mean, I think this underscores how important blockchain is… the blockchain is a database that is not controlled by one entity. So if one group is not kind of playing well, now there's actually like a theoretical way to like not lose what you've done, right? So it's what if X or or Instagram, or whoever was built on a blockchain, the real benefit would be that, you know, if they weren't playing nice, you'd have a better chance of taking your audience, taking your groups with you, and not losing the work that you've done. And there's a bigger point there. I think a shared database makes a lot of sense for reasons like that. And I think that the world's efficient. I think that as we all become more digital and even more dependent on digital things, I think we will veer to the better option. And the better option is obviously a more shared database that isn't controlled by one entity, versus what we're used to. And I think that's an example.
Ashley:
And I think the social media platforms, whether it's the ones we know today or ones that are being developed today or tomorrow, I think we're going to start seeing some of this technology being used. So I'm excited to see whatever that looks like. Speaking of the future, I would love to know, like obviously you don't have a crystal ball, but do you have any thoughts on how you expect to see, for example, even your business, ethos, evolving over the next five years? Five years feels like a long ways away when we're talking about technology like this.
Matias:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and we see like, it's like a step function, right? You see fast innovation and then the kind of things seem like they slow down for a bit, and then we see fast innovation again. So who knows where we'll be in five years? But, you know, I'm reminded of like. You know, for our business. Right. I think there's a great Jeff Bezos interview, by the way, where he gets asked a question and they asked him. I'm going to butcher this, I think. But they ask him this question… he's like on stage and they go, “Hey, Jeff - what's the future going to be like? You seem to have your pulse on this stuff. What's going to be different in ten years?” And he ends up answering the question, but he first says, I think what he said was, “I think what's more important is actually not answering the question of what's going to change… it's what’s going to stay the same?” And in their case, he said, it's easier to build a business around things that aren't going to change than things that are going to change, and for their business at Amazon, he said the things that aren't going to change, that they can build the business around is consumers want low prices and consumers want things quickly, and ends up famously saying, he can't imagine a world where ten years from then someone's going to call him and say, “Hey, Jeff, we love Amazon, but the prices were too low”, right? Or, “Hey, I love Amazon, but the package showed up too quickly”. So for me, that was the example for for Jeff Bezos and Amazon. For us, I think there's a similarity there in the sense that, we're trying to help consumer brands learn more about their customers and communicate with them and engage with them. And I don't think that changes. I don't think, you know, in five years, ten years, 20 years, 100 years… consumer brands will exist, consumer brands will want to know about their customers and they'll want to directly engage and communicate with them. And what's changing is the medium, right? You know, 30 years ago, they mailed out fliers because they wanted to communicate and get a message out to their customers and catalogs and that type of thing. And then the Internet comes along and they start doing websites and then social media comes along and they start doing you know, social media posts and then they start doing social media ads. So what's obvious here is these consumer brands love their customers. They want to know more about them. They want to meet them where they are and they want to engage with them. And the world is changing. We are going more digital and we're trying to help them achieve what they've always been wanting to do, but with digital assets. So whether this technology changes quickly, which I think it will, what's not going to change is that these consumer brands want to engage with their customers, want to learn more about them and digital assets because they're on the blockchain and because you can embed all these really great benefits to them are going to be such a great way for them to do that.
Ashley:
Mm hmm. So do you have any resources that you like to look to when you're trying to help, inform or educate, whether it's your customers or your friends - where do you get your resources from so that you're staying on top of where things are going, what are the opportunities looking like? I think it's hard. Like there's so much happening. AI obviously is a big part of this now too. And if there's anything on AI you care to speak to, if it touches your business at all… happy to hear about that as well.
Matias:
Yeah. So, what resources? I'll answer the question in two different ways. One, there's a ton of great resources - there's your podcast. We have a podcast, we have content that we put out. There's groups you can join. If you want to learn about this technology, there's vast resources for you to learn. We can put some in the show notes and that type of thing. But I actually think what's more impactful is we need to get this technology in the hands of people and delight them. And, you know, you take the biggest skeptic of this technology. Doesn't matter what they read, it doesn't matter. You're never going to guide them to listen to the entire podcast or listen to Gary Vee, or whatever, because they're a hardcore skeptic. But when that skeptic receives something that they don't even realize is on the blockchain, it just makes their life better… That's how you flip them, right? So imagine, the biggest skeptic receiving a digital asset from their favorite brand that gives them the access to purchase a product and having to wait in line and be able to get, like a discount or be able to like learn more about the product that skeptic's going to receive that digital asset. Really enjoy it and then later be like, wait a minute, was that that thing I didn't like? So what we have to do is like, yes, provide tons of resources and we do that and you're doing that and there's lots of great resources out there. But I think more importantly, what we have to do is get this technology in the hands of people who are not in love with this technology and show them how great it can be. And I think if we can do that, that's going to be more impactful than any type of a resource or document.
Ashley:
Okay. So I have a maybe slightly more difficult question around risk. And the reason I bring it up is because I've been chatting with some folks in my network who, you know, they're executives at organizations or senior level executives or board members thinking about the strategic direction of an organization. And I think what I'm hearing feedback related to the show even is like, okay, it's great to hear like these are the opportunities, these are the possibilities. But what risk if someone's wanting to start implementing this type of technology to enhance their either client or customer or membership engagement or whatever it is, are the things they should be thinking about actively to make sure that they've created safe guardrails as they're entering the new tech. Because I think a lot of the problems people have is they don't have folks on their teams who understand the tech. So what would you recommend to those people?
Matias:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot there, I'd say. I mean, my background, my history was like we were helping brands adopt like, actually a financial instrument, right? And there was a lot of compliance and a lot of regulation and a lot of fraud-related risks and all that kind of stuff. So, I mean, especially large consumer brands - they're quite good, they have infotech departments and they have like approved vendors and they have processes that vendors have to go through. So I would say, like if you're somebody who if you're a large consumer brand, you know, and these consumers do a good job of this, but they should be focused on, who is the part that's gonna help me do this? And are they at a level my other vendors? I think that's important because, you know, we just signed up a client actually that was with another provider that went out of business. Right. So what you want is you want someone you can trust and an entity that's going to be around, right? So but like I said, consumer brands and this is not a I think it's specific to this industry. You make sure you're working with a vendor that you trust and that’s going to be around and has the right kind of values in line with yours. And outside of that, I mean, there's a lot of risk mitigation strategies that they should play into, but it kind of summarized like start small, start with the idea of how can we do this in a way that's going to delight customers? And I think if you do it that way, you know, the other piece is going to fall into place, like, don't do this because of the technology. Do it because what the technology can do. And if you start small and you start with a group of your customers or you start with a certain segment and you're just offering rewards and you're delighting them, it's pretty low risk, right? Like if your favorite consumer brand gave you a digital asset for free and it came with some benefits, like how much risk is that consumer brand really taking?
Ashley:
And this is where it gets a little stickier - is if they start diving more into the crypto wallet stuff, and self-custody stuff which the company may very well be quite removed from then they're just like playing around a space that they need as we all have to learn about. And so I wonder how much… is it necessary for companies and brands who are playing in this space in the way that you're suggesting in an appropriate, ease-in kind of way, do they need to educate their their customers or no?
Matias:
I mean, like. It's a funny question. Right. And I think it's a question that you only really get in this industry, like in any other industry. Would you ask like, should we be educating our customers, what Amazon Web services are? Right. It's like it's like. Of course not. Are there data protection? Yeah. I mean, like there are important guardrails and need to be in place. Like if you're in Europe, you need to follow the PR right now. If you're in California, the CPA's are important in terms of, you know, data privacy. If you're taking credit cards, you want to be, make sure that wherever those credit cards are being taken that there's like PCI compliant and these types of things. But those things are relevant in all your other aspects of your online kind of world for consumer brands today too. So I would say that if a consumer brand has really great intentions like, hey, I want to delight customers, I want to give them benefits, I want to help them engage with us, which is what they're thinking. Like, you know, consumer brands really care about their customers and then they also apply the same degree of scrutiny on the vendors that are helping them here as they do in other areas. They're going to be fine, right? It's just when they look at this as some innovative new technology and they don't consider this vendor like the other ones, but if they just treat them like they're other vendors, I mean, you know, like, think of like h.R. Data, I think of like, you know, their financial data, like they are scrutinizing their vendors and there's lots of risk there too. And in this space, as long as they have to follow the same processes which, which, which, which is what they do, they're going to be okay.
Ashley:
Any thoughts on not necessarily about risk, but any thoughts on small businesses, as you mentioned, who may not have as large of teams who want to dabble, who think, you know what I could see making use of this. I just don't know how to go about it. What should they be thinking about?
Matias:
We see this and Gary Vee talks a lot about this. When an emerging new kind of technology or channel emerges, there's an arbitrage. Right? Like if you get in early, you can get a disproportionate number of eyeballs. You can get disproportionate attention. So if you're an earlier company, I think it's really smart to jump on that now because you can make headlines. You can excite customers and you can benefit from what I call it a halo effect, where if, you know, if everyone's going to receive a digital asset at some point, like, like we know this, this is where it's going. But if the first digital asset I can see somebody gets is because of a brand X, then brand X is going to benefit from bringing that innovation to that customer. So you see, you get kind of like a tech halo, you know, associated with you. So if you're like, I don't know if you make hats and you're like, it's growing and everything else and you do a digital asset excites your customers and that customer's first digital assets from you. I forget that. Right. So, so, so. And then you might get some media. You also get the excitement of them receiving it. So I would say if you're an early stage company, work with vendors that seem credible that you would trust that going to are going to be around and are looking at it the same way you're looking at it But I would move sooner because, you know, the larger brands are already moving and you know, it's going to be like, you know, take dogs are probably a good example, right? If you were on Tock as a consumer brand five years ago, you had kind of an edge. And now everyone's there. Right. So I would say if you're in an earlier stage, kind of like a more emerging brand. I would move sooner.
Ashley:
And I think the big takeaway for me over the last while, but in this conversation, is treating it as a value-add process versus something that anyone could see as being speculative. I think that so many folks have seen brands put things out where people are buying these tokens and then they're just speculating on what the value might be and what the brand might eventually do. And I think some have actually done a good job, and I give some of them credit for blazing trails and giving things a try. But I think when you treat it more as something that's native to your ethos, your company, what you're doing and how you can just, you know, provide value as that you might be doing in other ways already. It's really, really interesting to me. So I'm excited to see more of this taking place. I'm excited to see examples. I don't know if there's ways for other brands to somehow watch what brands are doing. I mean, we all know about Starbucks. I feel like everyone knows about Starbucks and their Odyssey program, at least if they're paying attention to the space. But otherwise, I'm not sure the layperson knows how to look at sort of case studies of this.
Matias:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, obviously, like, I can plug our website and, you know, ethosnft.com and like we have examples and like content that we put out. But I do want to loop back to Starbucks for just a second. Like, I actually think what Starbucks is doing is really great for the space because they're taking the approach of delighting, exciting customers and giving them benefits. And it's an addition to their loyalty program that's really based around non-monetary benefits on top of the stars. Right. And the really interesting thing that Starbucks is doing is that they don't even use the terminology blockchain or nfts or anything like that. Only we know and we talk about it all the time. Exactly. So that's an example of that really good use case where individuals will start getting exposed to that program and they'll like it. And then when they like it and they realize that it's connected to the blockchain or on Polygon or whatever, they will have a different view of what a digital asset can be. So kudos to Starbucks. I think they're doing a great job with that. And Nike is doing a good job that way, too, with their outreach program. You asked, like, if you're a consumer brand, where can you, like, kind of like regularly be updated on this? We have a little community that we've created called Huddle, and we send out a weekly newsletter every Tuesday and we highlight every notable consumer brand that's doing activation and we put it in a weekly newsletter So there are resources out there to keep track. But you know, I will say this, that the most exciting consumer brands are all like in this space, you know, trying things, learning about it, maybe piloting behind the scenes. But yeah, it is an impactful technology that, I mean, I really don't think is going away.
Ashley:
I sort of mentioned AI earlier, and then we breezed through it. Is there anything… do you see an intersection with AI? With the type of work that you're doing or no?
Matias:
There's so much to talk about there. So yeah, I think AI’s in a similar position that Web3 was like last year and the year before. Lots of hype around AI. I love where AI helps people. And like my mom called me the other day and she was… she wasn't crying, but she said she was crying and she's like, because I found this ChatGPT thing and she goes, It's changed my life. She goes, I've struggled so much with emails and now I can just because for her work she has to send emails and she's a nurse. So she goes, Now I just tell Chat GPT what I want to write in and write this beautiful email for me. And I said, Mom, I don't know who's happier, you or me, because I might be crying, because if you weren't asking to be, you'd be asking me again. Yeah, right. So my point is, like, I think there's a lot of great stuff, but I think you can really help and make people more productive. I also think that it may be overhyped right now. And what's funny I think, is that a lot of the overhyped people that were in Web3 have literally moved over to A.I. So I think in the I kind of like realm, there's a lot of good technology and a lot of great use cases like Web three I think that it's got layered on top of it right now, a group of a bunch of people that are probably there just because it's exciting, you know, frothiness. Frothiness. But but, but the benefits of the folks in our industry is that they moved and they went to the next hot thing, which is A.I. And what's left are people like you and me and others that are really focused on making the best of this technology. And I actually think that's a really good thing. So so I think in summary, I think is real. I think there's lots of great benefits. It's probably overhyped and it's probably overhyped by the same people that were previously overhyping. Web3.
Ashley:
Right. Gotcha. That's a good point. I haven't heard anyone put it that way, so I'm going to take note of that before we end and before I reiterate how people can find you and mention your newsletter, for example, is there anything we haven't talked about today that you'd love to share with the audience?
Matias:
No. I mean, there's lots we haven't talked about. I do think that like the Internet, when the Internet first started, like what was popular, like dark chats and blogs and those things like there's some good things and so and some really awesome things and those things still exist. I think with Web3 and blockchain, I think we're seeing something similar where there's don't look at this technology as the use case, the one use case you're familiar with if you've heard of Bitcoin and you think that's blockchain, that's one use case. And I don't think it goes away, but I think there's going to be additional use cases that get really exciting. And I think that's a very similar kind of analogy to what the Internet was. Yeah. So, I think that there's going to be tons of great examples, like art's going to be fantastic. I think that brands are going to be in a great place to use these digital assets to drive really great experience for their customers. I think that like, you know, real estate, which if you're very, you know, familiar with, I think blockchains will play a big role there. And I think the individual kind of like lanes are actually more disconnected than people think. And the idea of it all just being tied to Bitcoin is something that we really have to get people to understand. That's just not the case. Yeah.
Ashley:
Yeah, I appreciate that. And I'm probably going to soundbite that and send it to my naysayers. I was going to say my parents, but my parents have actually been awesome and they're avid listeners and root me on. They're not technologists, but they like seeing what their daughter thinks.
So if people are interested in learning more about you and/or ethos, what should they be checking out? I'll make sure to link it in the show notes.
Matias:
So me, LinkedIn, Twitter and when it comes to the company ethos, our website ethosnft.com, our LinkedIn, our Twitter, we're super active, we're always putting content out. And then we also have this really cool community that we've built for, for brand leaders. And what comes out of that is a great newsletter every Tuesday and it's called Huddle (“huddl3”). It's huddl3.org. So sign up for huddle and get that newsletter because it's what brands are doing every Tuesday.
Ashley:
Well, I really appreciate your time. It's flown by. I'm very happy that we had the opportunity to meet here in person. I hope maybe even in, you know, some point down the line we can reconnect, see where things are going. But it's wonderful. It's wonderful to be here in Vancouver.
STANDARD OUTRO
Ashley:Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of From the Blockchain. I really hope you enjoyed the show. If you have any ideas about future episodes, including themes or potential guests, please check for a link in the show notes. Happy to hear from you. Also, if you're interested in being a potential sponsor for From The Blockchain, I'd love to hear from you as well. Check for a special link just for you in the show notes. All right, everybody, again, thanks for being here. Love the show. Love being with you. Please remember to subscribe, review and share with your friends. Until next week - have a great one!
