The coffee powerhouse, Starbucks plans to venture into web3 and crypto initiatives which include the NFTs reward program. The company promises NFT owners access to exclusive content and other perks to keep them coming for more.
Starbucks brought in Adam Brotman, the architect of its Mobile Order & Pay system and the Starbucks app, to help serve as a special chief advisor on the project.
The web3 initiative is the idea of Howard Schultz, the company’s founder and interim CEO. Schultz made a triumphant return to the company in April 2022.
“We have been working on a very exciting new digital initiative that builds on our existing industry-leading digital platform in innovative new ways all centered around coffee and most importantly, loyalty, that we will reveal at Investor Day,” Schultz said.
According to the company’s founder, he believes the web3 initiatives are part of the firm’s strategy to improve and grow customer engagements.
Schultz outlines, “we believe this new digital web3-enabled initiative will allow us to build on the current Starbucks Rewards engagement model with its powerful spend to earn stars approach while also introducing new methods of emotionally engaging customers, expanding our digital third place community, and offering a broader set of rewards, including one-of-a-kind experiences that you can’t get anywhere else, integrating our digital Starbucks Rewards ecosystem with Starbucks-branded digital collectables as both a reward and a community building element.
“We don’t want to be in a business where our customer base is ageing and we have a less relevant situation with younger people,” Schultz said, before touting that the company has “never been, in our history, more relevant than we are today to Gen Z.”
“To me, that cohort is so powerful, and the attachment rate that we have with them and the loyalty is just building,” Schultz added.
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