Tunl - Personalized Loyalty Programs Powered by NFTs

Non-fungible tokens or NFTs have been around for quite a few years but they broke into the mainstream only in recent times. In 2021, NFT trading volume reached $17.6 billion and Collins Dictionary included and declared ‘NFT’ as the word of the year. As per a report from Verified Market Research (VMR), the NFT market size is supposed to swell to $231 billion by 2030. The projected annual compounded growth rate is 33.7% as per the report for the next eight years! Due to their uniqueness, verifiable scarcity and rising demand, NFTs have become part of the digital economy and attracted numerous investors, traders and artists. Yes, NFTs are really revolutionizing consumerism today and the profound impact is visible in several industries. The scope of NFTs is not limited to digital art only as we are already seeing the adoption of non-fungible music and video tokens. The decentralized future of arts, gaming and many more things are becoming possible in Web3 due to NFTs. Communities are also getting formed around NFT projects and the concept of ‘membership pass’ is being redefined. Popular and conventional brands have started to show interest in this digital phenomenon as NFTs can be used to change customer loyalty and brand awareness. Tunl is an upcoming project that is working on a strategy to supercharge brands with help of NFTs.

“A brand is not a business. But a brand is a business enabler. A good brand magnetizes customers, incentivizes sales and encourages loyalty.” - Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

Before the 1990s, brands focused on creating brand awareness through outdoor, print media and television advertisements. Internet evolved in the 1990s and brands started to create static websites. Then came the interactive sites and social media opened up a new medium of advertisement. The internet continued to mature. The Web3 movement transformed the online community building practice. The new generation of web tools played the role of catalysts to bring more belongingness for anybody and everybody. NFTs found acceptance in the decentralized web version and defined a new ownership pattern. These also started to find a place in the brand strategy. Coca-Cola forayed into NFTs last year and the NFT auction on Opensea fetched a whopping price. Pepsi also did not become late to enter the game and launched Pepsi Mic Drop which was based on the brand’s pop culture theme. Adidas’s partnership with the popular NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club astonished the world recently. The project was selected by Adidas as they wanted to tap the hype and existing vibrant community. Metaverse has really given corporations a great opportunity to take forward the popularity and iconicity of their brands. But is it easy to manage? Not really!

Tunl was founded early this year to solve this problem. LJ Northington, the CEO of Tunl, started to work on the project with help of a small team having experience in blockchain-based ecosystems and running digital projects. Tunl was created to offer NFT-powered loyalty programs to the brands. The beta program is going to be launched next month but currently, they are offering demos to interested brands. Tunl will help the brands to optimise Personalization, Gamification, Customer Lifetime Value and Customer Retention. There is going to be a Tunl Shopify app which will enable the customers to buy from Tunl integrated brands. When a customer buys from the app, he/she will receive an NFT that will act as a loyalty card. The loyalty card’s existence is easily verifiable on the blockchain, so the brands can conveniently reward the customer with additional benefits, discounts and offers. The Shopify app will act as the interface between the brands and the customer. Due to the openness of blockchain, the customer’s shopping history will be accessible by the brands. It will help them to customize offers or benefits to the customers. So, what happens to the privacy of the customer? The identity of the users will be kept secret using zero-knowledge proofs.

A glimpse of what may come

Another attractive thing is that the customer will get a digital version of the product as an NFT airdrop as he/she buys a physical product from the shopping platform. The brands can take the help of the designers to design that NFT or they can simply upload a picture of their product to the platform to generate an NFT. These NFTs can be traded in the secondary market. The digital representations of physical products can fetch good value in the market and we have already seen that many times. The shopping platform can be used by the brands to launch campaigns, product reviews or conduct surveys. The target customer base can be well-defined and transparent on a blockchain-based platform. With the help of NFTs, the game plan can reach the next level. Tunl will not handle the checkout process, unlike other Web2 shopping platforms. The brands will decide how they want to receive the payment! Bringing the Web2 customers to Web3 is never easy. So, Tunl will provide different options to the customers to log into their platform. The crypto natives will be able to use their existing wallets like Metamask. Non-crypto users will be able to log into the platform using their social media accounts or emails to obtain a smooth user experience. The wallet address for such users will be generated by Tunl automatically. Are you wondering about the revenue model of Tunl? The brands will pay a subscription fee to access all features.

Tunl has already created a nice buzz due to its innovative offering. The project recently received a grant from Polygon Village Ecosystem. Brands can definitely get involved with crypto-native NFT projects for promotion purposes but often that takes the focus away from the products. Tunl should become successful in garnering attention from the brands as it helps to build around the products. It also ensures the trust of the customers and continuous interaction. The flexibility of the platform provides various options to the brands. For example - a brand can issue soulbound NFTs. These NFTs will be non-transferrable in nature and represent the credentials and affiliations of the customers. The NFTs can also have a holding period and in that case, the customers will be eligible to sell them only after a stipulated time period. Tunl looks like a solid project but it needs to onboard some prominent brands for fast adoption. The project is already communicating with a lot of corporate entities to finalise deals. E-commerce trends have continuously changed in the past and most probably metaverse can bring the desired update to it. So, Tunl will get an unlimited scope to improvise. Shopping in a 3D digital universe, gamification of customer journey and experience – everything is possible!  Let us see how things turn up. So, far there is a roar!

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