Madison Avenue is over, and the Metaverse is in. The pandemic was the nail in the coffin for physical retail experiences.” That’s a bold statement from Amanda Cassatt, but if anyone can speak authoritatively on this subject, it IS Amanda. It’s no surprise that she was named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 class of 2016 – at the age of 24.
She may be young in years but not in experience. This web3 evangelist brought Ethereum to market as the Chief Marketing Officer of ConsenSys, playing an important role in what would become the largest and most robust blockchain ecosystem.
Amanda is the Founder and CEO of Serotonin and co-founder and President of Mojito. Known as a master marketer and web3 entrepreneur, Amanda has helped bring the leading blockchain companies to market and advises global institutions on how to adopt NFTs and decentralized technology. She regularly speaks at events and on panels around the world, including TechCrunch Disrupt, the World Economic Forum, SXSW, NFT.NYC, Web Summit ETHDenver, Metaverso, and more.
When Amanda talks up the blockchain’s potential and its empowerment, you BELIEVE her. “Blockchain is a tool of freedom in a fight against authoritarianism. It is a new substrate for creation: artistic, economic, financial, and technological innovation.”
The Metaverse, she remarks, is the next iteration of the internet that combines two key concepts: virtual worlds and an open economy. The Metaverse is an emerging economy and an opportunity for every industry to monetize its unique products and services in virtual environments. Amanda underlines that: “The Metaverse is changing the future of work, how we learn, earn a living, and connect with each other.”
As web3 and the Metaverse grows, Amanda says it offers limitless potential for mass adoption. As the CEO of Serotonin, Amanda drives the firm’s web3 marketing arm and product studio, collaborating web3 companies across DeFi, NFTs, L1s, and the metaverse, in addition to blue-chip brands making the leap into web3. At Mojito, Amanda helps companies bring valuable IP into digital spaces, unlocking new business verticals in ‘d-commerce’ through NFTs and web3; Mojito is the NFT commerce suite of choice for Sotheby’s, CAA, and major international brands.
Amanda is passionate about onboarding web2 brands to web3, in addition to collaborating with web3 founders to build startups that will drive mainstream adoption. She remarks: “Marc Andreessen once said that ‘software will eat the Internet.’ And it has come true. Crypto and web3 are software eating finance, and anything that operates at a high enough level becomes financialized.”
She goes further: “Traditional marketers don’t realize that web3 has collapsed the categories of company, investor, and user into a single category. This category is called ‘community.’ Because of the new incentive structure, marketing to a community is vastly different from a simple user’s.”
Amanda finds that this is much more efficient for business because the secret to web3 marketing is implementing self-marketing systems. As a marketer, the marketing materials and inputs create greater reach. It is because marketers are essentially dropping an incentive system into a group of people (the community) that will reward brands and companies with loyalty and advocacy that’s more impactful than has ever been seen in traditional marketing.
NFTs make a piece of digital content ownable. By taking a piece of content on the internet, beating the double spend problem and establishing ownership, a creator, company, or brand can potentially add infinite amounts of value to the economy: the only resource constraints are not physical but the natural scarcity of limited time and creativity.
She explains: “What you’re doing when you move from the physical world to the digital world is removing the limitations of gravity and land and supply chain, and you’re going into a world of unlimited creativity that is only bounded by what humans create.”
This has significant effects on companies and users in the Metaverse. “For companies, you can think of the Metaverse as a mall. In the 1990s, when the mall was the spot to hang out with your friends, it wasn’t just for commercial transactions. It was a place for eating and socializing. And from a brand perspective, the Metaverse is the new mall. Madison Avenue is over, and the metaverse is in.”
Regarding the future, Amanda believes that the Metaverse will redesign the e-commerce experience. It means that Metaverse retail stores can restore the benefits of IRL shopping experiences with the convenience of online shopping. Creativity knows no bounds: there are many business opportunities to redefine what the commerce and checkout experience will look like. It is because, Amanda remarks, the Metaverse “will be populated by a heterogeneous mix of existing companies and brands and new web3-native companies. There’s a way in which companies – like Sotheby’s – can be successful as long as they enter into the space with a north star and web3 strategy that augments and strengthens the existing web3 community.”
One of the ways Amanda has seen big brands, sports teams and celebrities transfer their influence from the physical world to digital environments is by exploring NFT technology to recreate their most valuable assets as unique digital goods. “The worlds of social media, entertainment, work/school and commerce are colliding to create what many call the beginnings of the ‘Metaverse.’ Some of the world’s leading investors, thinkers, brands, and tech companies are betting on the idea that the things people invest in – our homes, cars, art, clothes, and experiences – will have a dual existence in both physical and virtual environments.”
For Amanda, this is an exciting moment in the world’s digital transformation. The NFT craze is just the tip of the iceberg for what will be a significant opportunity for every industry to monetize its unique products and services in virtual environments.
AMANDA CASSATT’S METAVERSE & WEB3 TIPS AND RESOURCES:
For everything there is to know about web3 marketing, look out for Amanda Cassatt’s web3 marketing book coming out in Spring 2023.
Website: serotonin.co | mojito.xyz
