State Farm Ran an AR and NFT Powered Competition to Boost Its Profile
As blockchain technology continues to grow in popularity, the applications for it are expanding. We’ve already seen the tech go from underpinning the cryptocurrency investment bubble to finding a home in everything from supply chains to mattress recycling.
However, technology, like nature, abhors a vacuum and we knew it wasn’t going to be long before we saw the investment "opportunities" of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology evolve into something new.
Into this space arrived non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs, depending on who you ask, are a unique way for the creators of digital art and other content to reclaim ownership of their work and make a good living from selling it on, or the latest exhibit in the court case seeking to prove the adage regarding separating a fool from their money.
NFTs
For the uninitiated, NFTs use blockchain technology’s immutable hash code ledger system to trace and therefore prove ownership of digital information. If ownership of a digital asset can be established, then that packet of data can be sold on.
Non-fungible essentially means the item is unique – one of a kind. A Bitcoin is not unique – you can swap one Bitcoin for another – and is therefore fungible.
Some high-profile NFT sales have included Twitter founder Jack Dempsey selling his first ever tweet – "just setting up my twttr" – for $2.5 million dollars, and music artist Grimes selling almost six million dollars of digital art as NFTs.
What is curious about the NFT phenomenon is that the digital content is often still out there on the internet for anyone to view or even download onto their own device. All an NFT sale does is give the buyer the right to say they own it – and therefore sell it on again – but actually gives them extraordinarily little beyond that. This contrasts to buying a physical asset – such as a painting – which can be hung in your own home where only your household and invited guests get to enjoy it.
State Farm
Digital insurance provider State Farm has found a unique application for NFT technology and has deployed it in a unique competition, designed to raise the profile of the insurance business as a whole.
With blockchain, AR, and NFTs being such trendy topics right now, State Farm is seeking to leverage the social currency of these buzzwords to make customers see it as a modern and tech-savvy brand – rather than a stuffy insurance broker.
The competition was launched at the beginning of the 2021 football season and asked participants to use their smartphone’s AR capabilities to find 500,000 footballs which it had digitally hidden around the country. Once a football had been located it disappeared, meaning each could only be found once.
"Within the first few hours of the game going live, the fan response was incredible," said Head of Marketing at State Farm, Alyson Griffin. "Fans expected us to do something around the matchup in Kansas City, and we wanted to take advantage of that excitement while trying something innovative and different. We thought about how we could get current and future consumers to act with us – posting, engaging, and having fun."
The #TeamStateFarm Football Find had people visit a microsite within its online presence to access the AR platform and redeem their successes against prizes. Rewards included NFTs by award-winning artists, gift cards, and merchandise – including beanies, shirts, and towels – autographed by football stars Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes.
The first level was completed after finding five footballs – at which point the player received a NFT simply for participation – and game play ended after the completion of three levels. However, users could still earn the opportunity for another giveaway by sharing the contest on their social media and encouraging their friends to join in and play as well. If ten friends joined, the user received another chance at winning the top-level giveaways.
"We are thrilled with our first foray into this type of tech marketing and all of the awareness and engagement it brought," continued Griffin. "This is the first time State Farm has created and released NFTs as part of a larger strategy to leverage innovative tech trends to reach consumers. Incorporating NFTs into the prizes was part of a strategy to show up ‘in the wild,’ the places where our audience already is. We will continue to see brands leverage NFTs in unique ways, and we look forward to continuing our work in the innovative marketing space."
Final Thoughts
NFTs are a controversial topic, but it’s encouraging to see them applied in a way designed to bring a bit of fun to the party, instead of being focused on generating profit. Time will tell what the future holds for NFTs, but State Farm has certainly made a solid case for their application in digital marketing.
You can hear State Farm Head of Marketing Alyson Griffin speak at Digital Insurance Summit 2022, taking place in May at the Renaissance Chicago, IL.
Download the agenda today for more information and insights.