How Big Brands Can Benefit from NFTs. Interview with Lisa Teh, Mooning

Transcript

Nick Abrahams:
Okay. Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the latest episode of the podcast Web3: From Mystery to Mainstream, where we try to show what normal organizations are doing as far as embracing Web3. The likes of crypto, NFTs and the metaverse. And today, I’m very excited to welcome someone who is right at the cutting edge of taking Web2 companies into the Web3 world. And so, I’ve got with me Lisa Teh. Lisa, welcome to the show.

Lisa Teh:
Thank you so much for having me, Nick. I’m super excited to be here. I hope you’ve set aside like 10 hours for our chat.

Nick Abrahams:
Lisa, I get a sense that you are super excited any time of day. You wake up in the morning, the shutters go up and it’s like, “All right, it’s time to go.”

Lisa Teh:
It’s definitely pretty much that. I think when you enjoy and you love what you do, it really energizes you. Because we were talking just before the recording, and I started my career in tax, and I wasn’t excited to get out of bed then. I can tell you that now.

Nick Abrahams:
Hang on. We can’t give it away because there’s an amazing career trajectory here, which I wanted to unwrap. But maybe I just give you a little intro first and then people can understand a bit more about the Lisa Teh story. So, you’re a remarkable and successful entrepreneur. So, you found the CODI Agency, which is digital marketing agency. You’re the co-founder of li Nick, which is a business listings platform. And you made the 40 under 40 Most Influential Asian Australians. Congratulations on that.

Nick Abrahams:
But what we’re really going to focus on today that you are the co-founder of Mooning, a new Web3 marketing agency. And so, we’ll talk a little bit more about Mooning later on. And I feel like Benny Hill and the double entendre is terrible. So, we’ll move on. Just a little bit of your background, because it is remarkable and it’s somewhat non-traditional, you might say.

Lisa Teh:
Yeah. So, actually, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a librarian. So obviously…

Nick Abrahams:
Who doesn’t? Who doesn’t? Was it the Dewey decimal system?

Lisa Teh:
Oh, I loved it. Loved it. I actually just loved books and I still love them today. I just consume them in a different format. So, I’m on the audiobook train. But I just fell in love with consuming content from a young age. And I just found that being in the library and being around books could just transport you to a whole new world. And so, I just fell in love with reading. And so I thought, “Oh my God, I could spend my life surrounded by books.” I wanted to be a librarian, and then I moved on quickly from that. I realized I’d just be stuck indoors all day.

Lisa Teh:
And then I ended up wanting to be a fashion designer. And my parents are pretty conservative. Pretty conservative to be honest. So, they said, “Look, I don’t know if you’re going to be able to get a full-time job in that. So, why don’t you just go for something quite conservative with your degree?” So, then, I studied com law.

Nick Abrahams:
For fashion. Right.

Lisa Teh:
I fully thought law would be super easy.

Nick Abrahams:
Fashion designer, commerce lawyer. I see how that linked up. I’m sure your parents saw the linkage.

Lisa Teh:
Yeah. And then I love Law and Order. I love crime shows, and I thought, “Oh my God, law’s going to be really exciting.” And then somehow, I ended up in tax law.

Nick Abrahams:
Fashion designer, tax lawyer.

Lisa Teh:
Yeah. So, I ended up becoming a tax lawyer, surprisingly. I don’t know how. And so, I ended up at KPMG. That was my first job. And then I moved to [inaudible 00:03:48], and then I moved to the tax office, and then along the away-

Nick Abrahams:
How did you fit in at the tax office? I mean, were they like, “Uh-huh (affirmative). We’re not sure what’s the going on here.”

Lisa Teh:
Yes. I’d say. Like, “Who is this person?” So, I almost led a bit of a double life because along the way I discovered digital. So, I started a fashion beauty and lifestyle website in about 2011. And that allowed me to become immersed in the world of fashion, beauty, and lifestyle and digital and social media. So, I would go to my normal nine to five job, and then I’d literally go into my car, get changed in my car and then go to fashion week. I felt like I was living this really double lifestyle.

Lisa Teh:
But something that was really interesting about, I guess we’ll call it Web2, is that it really made it easy for just everyday people like me to share content. So, I could pick up my phone and share an outfit that I was wearing on Instagram, or I could publish a blog post on a latest collection that I’ve read. So, it was quite interesting being almost at the dawn of that era, which is why, for me, I’m super excited about web3, because I’ve seen the evolution of social media in web2 and the instruction of influencers and the ability to share content. And then now I’m looking at web3 going, “That’s going to be taken to a whole new level.” So, along the way, I did that. Then I transitioned from tax to [inaudible 00:05:13] to work in their marketing team. And then about five years ago, I started my first agency CODI, and then BlisNick Abrahams happened along the way. I actually wrote a couple of books. I’m propping up my…

Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, we go. Let’s see those books. Oh, you’re propping up.

Lisa Teh:
I’m propping up my laptop. This is real behind the scenes stuff. I actually wrote two books. One on Australian fashion.

Nick Abrahams:
Oh, my gosh.

Lisa Teh:
And Australian beauty. Yep.

Nick Abrahams:
Fantastic. So, Australian fashion and Australian beauty. So, viewers, you should buy those.

Lisa Teh:
Check those out.

Nick Abrahams:
And if nothing else, they’re very good for propping up your screen.

Lisa Teh:
Oh God, I know. Such a bad way of promoting them.

Nick Abrahams:
Hang on. Where are those? [inaudible 00:05:52]

Lisa Teh:
Yeah. Here’s some I prepared earlier. And then fell in love with digital. And so, my business partner, Nick, and I launched [inaudible 00:06:00] pretty much the start of this year because I could see an NFTs, and I was looking at them and avoiding going into them to be honest. I’d seen some of my favorite marketing people like Gary V talk about them. And I just thought, “Ugh, I’m very much an all or nothing personality. So, if I go into NFTs and web3, I’m all in.” And then about six months ago, I’m like, “You need to just suck it up and then just go all in.” So, I listened to about 40 podcasts that week on NFTs and I’m like, “Okay, I’m obsessed.” So, I’m well and truly like you, down the rabbit hole. I love your content, by the way, on LinkedIn. I really enjoy LinkedIn as a source for web3 content. So, go and follow Nick. There you go. Shameless plug for you, as well.

Nick Abrahams:
Well, thank you. That’s fantastic. Well, I really appreciate that. Tell us a little bit about Mooning. Oh, guess firstly, the name, because obviously the name does leap out, and then what does Mooning do? And how are your parents feeling about you operating a business called… Where are we at with those conservative? What happened to our tax lawyer daughter?

Lisa Teh:
They’re still trying to grasp “the Facebook.” So, I haven’t even told about NFTs or anything like that because I think it would just probably blow their mind. But the name. Surprisingly, we got the .com, which is bizarre, but I guess no one wants a website called Mooning. Interestingly, Instagram won’t let me link mooning because I think it thinks it’s a porn site. So, I’m like, “Great.” So, I can’t link Mooning directly on our Instagram page, which is irritating.

Lisa Teh:
So, in crypto speak, if a project’s going to the moon, it means it’s doing really well, accelerating really quickly. And I thought, “Ah, it’s actually quite a positive term in that crypto space.” And then I said to Nick, because we’ve got quite a cheeky, I guess, tone of voice and brand anyway, just from our personal brands. Because when we started posting on LinkedIn, probably around 2019, I just never liked business content. I felt like it was always quite dry. I think back to textbooks and everything’s just so technical. So, I thought, to cut through the noise, I wanted to just be a bit more real and like myself.

Lisa Teh:
And coming from a corporate background, I was actually quite nervous to be posted on LinkedIn because I almost felt a bit confined by a corporate brand. So, when I went out and I had my own business, I’m like, “Oh, actually I can just do whatever I want because I’m not going to get in trouble because I’m not reporting to anyone.” So, then I thought, “I’m just going to be myself and be a bit cheeky, be a bit more fun and hope that there will be some people out there that resonate with that.” And so, I thought, when it came to pick your name for Mooning, I thought, “Let’s just go for it. Something that people remember.” And nobody forgets it, which is good.

Nick Abrahams:
No one will forget Mooning. I think that’s for sure. And so, Mooning, it’s an agency and it’s purpose built to help companies move from web2 to web3?

Lisa Teh:
Yes. So, in terms of CODI Agency, that’s my first agency, and we focus probably more on web2. So, I would say that’s your more traditional platforms, like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok and LinkedIn. And then, we do influencers. Whereas Mooning’s built specifically to focus on web3. So, our main services would be Discord and Twitter management, which is, I would say, more of the web3 type platforms. They’re not web3 native platforms, but they’re definitely the ones where you’re going to find the crypto native audiences.

Lisa Teh:
And then, if we do influencers, it’s going to be more crypto native influencers. And then we’ll help brands with NFT activations, help them educate their teams on what web3 actually is, and how you move from a web2 company to a web3 company. And then we can help brands enter the metaverse as well. So, there’s just a whole lot of stuff. And honestly, I’m so excited. Look, agencies are fast paced at the best of times, but when you add on web3, it’s literally like light speed. So, it’s just crazy. So, I’m loving every minute of it.

Nick Abrahams:
And it just seems like there’s a massive market opportunity there right at the moment, as we are right at the Dawn of web3, so great timing. Maybe let’s talk a little bit about brands going into Web 3.0. Maybe could you give us… It’s a tricky topic, I guess, for a lot of people to understand, but could you just give us some examples? Are there some brands out there you’ve seen do Web 3.0 well? What does that look like?

Lisa Teh:
Yeah. So I guess one thing to probably we understand is the evolution, because I think a lot of people are still like, “What’s Web 3.0?” And I talk to people all the time. They’re literally like, “I don’t understand.” So, I always try and explain it, taking a step back. To understand Web 3.0, you need to understand Web 1.0 And Web 2.0. So, you look at Web 1.0 And that’s the first iteration of the internet. So, we call it the, I guess, the read form of the internet because it was quite hard to share content unless you are a coder and so that’s the hello world, that’s dial up for anyone who’s as old as I am. Oh my God, the struggles of dial up. I remember illegally downloading a song and I’d be like, “Oh my God, it’s going to take 20 minutes to download. This is amazing. I’m so excited.” And now if something doesn’t load in one second, I’m like, “This is really annoying. It’s so slow.”

Nick Abrahams:
We become a little impatient. Yeah.

Lisa Teh:
So impatient. So, Web 1.0 is really that first form of the internet kind of read only because you are more just consuming content. And it was created for the military to share content at scale, but there was no thought around security because it was just such a new concept. Then you move on to Web 2.0, which we see that as read-write form of the internet. So it’s almost like that evolution of all the introduction of social media and it made it significantly easier for people to share content. So, the interesting thing about that is you started to see a lot of power being given to certain companies like Instagram and Facebook because they would offer services for free and then they would make money by utilizing our data. So, quite a few players had a lot of power in Web 2.0, which is, I don’t know, necessarily, it’s probably not a good thing, but they have provided a service which has allowed the consumer, the everyday consumer, to share content.

Lisa Teh:
And what that gave rise to is influences and what that means, as well, is that influences not only were where the everyday person was able to build a following, but then they actually got paid by brands to share content or to promote the brands. And prior to that, it’d only be celebrities who would get endorsement deals. So, look at social media and Web 2.0 As being predominantly a brand sharing content. So, say a brand might do a post and then their community might engage with the post and then the brand would engage back with the community. There was very little engagement between community members though. So, I would say what is really popular from a social media perspective in Web 2.0 was really just brand sharing content and sometimes engaging with their community.

Lisa Teh:
So if you move to Web 3.0, what we’re finding Web 3.0 is that there’s so much is happening to decentralize ownership, so you don’t have these players now who are controlling your audience or controlling the reach of your content. You can go straight to your, I guess, your consumers and that removes that middleman of say Instagram or Facebook or TikTok. So you can release NFTs, for example, and just go directly out and sell directly to your customers. So, the other interesting thing I’m seeing about Web 3.0 is that there’s a real shift in what is deemed content for social media purposes. I’m seeing a shift away from social media to community media, so that’s almost like my thesis for social media in Web 3.0.

Lisa Teh:
So rather than content as we know it traditionally, which is pushing out, doing a post on social, what I’m seeing is that’s almost secondary and what’s actually content in Web 3.0 on social media is engagement with the community, so brands talking more in conversation with their community and community members talking directly to each other. So that’s why I actually believe that platforms like Twitter and Discord have become the sort of unofficial Web 3.0 platforms because they facilitate conversation more between community members and between the brands. This is actually very important because if you think about it, there’s a lot of things happening in the space where you’ve got brands releasing NFTs. So not only is it new for the brands, but a lot of their consumers have no idea what NFT even is. So there needs to be that level of support and handholding by the brands and that just isn’t possible on a platform like Instagram, because what are you going to do? Have consumers just jump onto the latest Instagram post and go, “Hey, I’m having problems mentioning my NFT. Hey, the website’s crashed. What’s going on?”

Lisa Teh:
It just doesn’t facilitate and lend itself to that. So that’s why you’re looking at platforms like Discord, for example, where people are able to go in and brands can segregate different channels and actually deal directly with the consumers and the community and answer questions. But the interesting thing is you’ve got your advocates for the brands who are jumping in and helping the community members and they’re almost like ambassadors for the brands, but they’re just unofficial people who just love it. They’ll welcome people into the community. They ended up answering people’s questions. And so it actually takes the support burden off the brands to actually engage with the community because the community ends up just engaging with each other and the brand becomes almost like the facilitator to unite these people and create a space where they can talk about things that they’re all passionate about. That’s a very long answer, sorry.

Nick Abrahams:
Lucky this isn’t a radio interview, Lisa. We can use eight seconds of that. [crosstalk 00:15:42] We’re going to use all of that because this is a podcast, so we don’t have to worry.

Lisa Teh:
Well, I was saying 10 hours. I could easily talk for 10 hours.

Nick Abrahams:
Get the editors on the line. So, Discord, I think Discord has been one of the amazing sort of growth stories of the last six to 12 months. I’m not sure people are necessarily super across it. It sort of seems to have more of a crypto native, I guess, sort of following. But who is on Discord? And what should big brands be doing on Discord?

Lisa Teh:
Very good question. I personally am just going to start by saying I hate Discord. I honestly find it to be the most unuser friendly social media platform in the world. It’s so hard to use. So broadly, it’s used a lot by gamers. So I guess just to take a step back, it’s probably a mix between Reddit and Twitter and so it’s almost like a chat forum. So there’s every day, believe it or not, there’s four billion messages sent on Discord-

Nick Abrahams:
As big as that.

Lisa Teh:
People communicating in India. That’s a lot of lines of chat and then people sending messages. So, it’s huge from that perspective. So really, say if you enter someone’s Discord, you’ve got to get verified and that’s really annoying. And then you can go into different channels. So, you can… Say you’re a brand like Nike, so you might jump onto Nike and you might see there’s a little channel, like a sub-channel, for the latest NFT drop.

Lisa Teh:
You might see there’s a little Nike thing for their basketball fans or one for their running fans. So, you can segregate and use channels really well. So you can almost funnel your audience into an area that you think that they would be interested in, but from a usability perspective, it’s very open. So, there’s a lot of bots that plug into discord to help you manage your channels and they don’t have that functionally built in, but that also means that it’s prone to a lot of hacking. So, there’s actually plenty of hacking that happens, unfortunately, on Discord and a lot of people end up losing their money because hackers have tried to take advantage of new people to Discord and the world of Web 3.0 and so they’ll send them DMs, which have the [inaudible 00:18:05] links in them and some people have had their wallets just completely cleaned out.

Lisa Teh:
So, I would say that, look, I think it’s the best platform at the moment for this type of community media, which I mentioned, but I would say long term, it’s not going to be… I don’t think it’s going to be the community media of choice for Web 3.0, because it’s not user friendly at all. The benefit of platforms like your Instagram and your Facebook is they’re so easy. You can just quickly create a platform or profile, start taking photos and share. So, if you’re going to try and move the mainstream consumer into Web 3.0, that’s hard enough, let alone trying to get them to adopt a new platform that’s not user friendly. I think definitely something will come up to compete against Discord. This is for sure.

Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. And it’s interesting that people talk about NFT drops and I know there’s sort of become this, this sort of tidal wave of interest in oh, I could this. Bored apes or whatever, I could draw that. And it’s this concept of like it’s something to do with the art or something. But the reality is it’s far more about the community and so I think from what you’ve said previously, successful NFT drops really require significant Twitter and Discord strategy. Is that the sort of thing that you help clients with?

Lisa Teh:
Absolutely, because it’s your community. It’s actually where your community will live and then on Discord, for example, you can actually have certain channels that you can lock except only certain NFT or token holders can get access to those channels. So you spoke about NFT people thinking it’s the artwork that’s valuable. It’s not. If you have a look at Bored Apes, I mean just objectively, is that art super cool? I don’t know. Not really because a lot of people can just replicate those, they call them like 10K PFP, like profile picture projects. And so, it’s the utility behind that, or it’s the access it gives you to events or community or merchandises or other benefits. And this is one of the best ways I’ve heard the NFT, like the concept of NFT is described. And that is if you to a gym, you sign up for a gym membership and you get a card. So, you get a plastic card that you swipe in to get access to the gym. So, think of NFT as the plastic card. So, you’re not paying for that piece of plastic, you’re paying for access to use the gym and the equipment, the card almost represents that access and that’s kind of like what the NFTs are. It’s not like the NFT itself is valuable.

Lisa Teh:
It’s the fact that it gives you access to maybe in the case of Bored Apes access to the community, access to exclusive NFT drops or future launches. And, oh my God, Bored Apes is such an interesting case study because that was launched just under a year ago. And I was having a look at the floor price last week. So, the floor price is the lowest price you can buy in for, for a project. And it’s currently sitting at I think $314,000 Australian to buy into this project. And it’s almost become this brand that it means something there’s prestige if you hold it. So, it’s almost like a Chanel bag. If you have a Chanel bag versus just a no-name bag, you pay extra for that premium to show that you are in a community or that you’re part of something or part of this brand and Bored Apes has done an amazing job with that, like building something that’s so in demand and even I look at what they have done since the first drop. So, the first drop didn’t even sell out. Oh, didn’t sell out, but it took ages to sell out.

Nick Abrahams:
Is that right? Oh, wow.

Lisa Teh:
It took ages and it sold for I don’t know, like some really low amount. But then they were really smart because they got a lot of hype when the Apes were actually revealed. And then they said in their roadmap, they were going to release Mutant Apes. So, they released 10,000 Apes in the original drop. Then they released 10,000 Mutant Apes in the second drop, but they also released and they airdropped to the original Bored Ape Yacht holders Serum. So, 10,000 Mutant Serums that would allow you, if you wanted to change your Bored Ape to a Mutant Ape if you utilize this serum. So, keep in mind, this serum was for free, so that the people who had the Bored Ape got that for free. I think recently a serum sold for over $5 million USD. And someone then bought a Bored Ape for over a million USD just so they could mutate the Bored Ape. So, yeah send over $6 million to do that.

Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. I mean that’s a difficult proposition to explain to the board or senior management of a mining or an energy company I think. Maybe I mean it’s been remarkable to watch things like Bored Ape. What should Australia know, maybe what industries have embraced in NFTs?Are there some industries that-

Lisa Teh:
Fashion.

Nick Abrahams:
Okay. Right. Which is been your I guess has tweaked you into it has it.

Lisa Teh:
Definitely. I mean the interesting thing is the everyday consumer is still a little bit skeptical about crypto and NFTs. And that’s probably the biggest block actually to the mainstream audience jumping on for a lot of NFT purchases you need crypto. And so, that put me off actually, and it would probably take a big brand that you really love to pull you in. So, my first NMT that I bought was the Matrix NFT. So, I jumped on and that was like a whole other bloody story for another day. That was a debacle. It took me like a day, the website kept crashing.

Lisa Teh:
So, it took a day and a half and I just scraped in. There was a hundred thousand NFTs and I just scraped in to get them because it was just a disaster the whole drop. But that was the brand that got me into my first NFT. So, I would say fashion have definitely embraced it. So, you look at Nike, they’re fully in Web3, Adidas are fully in Web3, they bought a Bored Ape. They’ve bought land in the sandbox. Balenciaga have done really interesting collaboration with Fortnite. So, they released some items. They call it like I think we talk about phygital, so. Yeah really interesting blend of… Sorry, go.

Nick Abrahams:
No, no, no, no. Yeah, I feel like you need to explain the word phygital because you were the one who convinced me that was a word, which I then used in an interview and I felt very awkward saying that word. I’m like, [crosstalk 00:24:47] double check this. I hope Lisa was right with this phygital word, otherwise I’m going to seem like a complete idiot. But Lisa Teh explain what phygital means.

Lisa Teh:
Okay. So, it sounds like a typo or it sounds like you’re not pronouncing a word right. But it’s really the blend between physical and digital. And we’re seeing a lot of brands really do this. And it’s a great way to actually try and I guess introduce the concept of NFTs to the everyday consumer because people think why am I paying X amount of money for something that I’ll never get, hold in my hands? Especially for consumers like myself, I’m so old school like if I buy something I want to be able to hold it. Whereas what I’m seeing now is that people are shifting from buying things online, to buying online things. So, these things that they’re spending money on will never leave the internet, which is actually quite crazy when you think about it. So, I always use the example of the fact that somebody paid a thousand dollars more for a Gucci bag in the metaverse than the same Gucci bag in real life.

Lisa Teh:
And that’s never going to leave. And you just think, how does that even make any sense at all that you’re never going to even be able to touch this, put anything in there, it’s just going to be walking like your avatar will be decked out in the latest Gucci? So, it gives you the ability definitely to flex at scale if you’re buying things in the metaverse where everyone can see you. So, fashion have been really quick at adopting this and I look at the Balenciaga Fortnite collaboration. So, Fortnite’s one of the biggest games in the world. I think they started in 2017. They’re already bigger than Call of Duty, which is 18 years old. So, I think the Fortnite user base is about 350 million and Fortnite is around 250 million. And so, Balenciaga agar did a collaboration where they dropped NFTs or they dropped clothes in Fortnite that your avatar in Fortnite could wear.

Lisa Teh:
But in the real world, they dropped the same collection. So, you could be dressed the same as your avatar. And they also built in the metaverse a mini version of the Balenciaga store. So, you could go in actually buy it as if you are like in the real world and then they also had these 3D billboards that were showcasing the collaboration in the real world and replications, I don’t even know if that’s a word. Replicas, that’s the word. Replicas of the billboard in the metaverse but then they were also allowing people to share their own content of their avatars dressed up in the outfits on the billboard. So, it was really interactive but it was that weird hybrid crossover where all of a sudden you could be playing a game sitting in the same hoodie as your avatar and you are sitting in the real world.

Lisa Teh:
So, it’s quite an interesting shift from just almost seeing things just digitally or seeing things just physically in the real world to then now having this sort of phygital crossover and that’s going to happen more and more and a lot of other brands have already done it. But it’s going to happen increasingly more and it’s a great way for consumers to really understand and almost grasp the concept of NFTs and the digital I guess, the things that are coming in the digital world.

Nick Abrahams:
And what do you see how happening in Australia with this? How are we comparing to the rest of the world with our take up of NFT?

Lisa Teh:
Oh, okay. So, yeah. Australia is a hard one because I feel really passionately that and we’ve obviously been hit really hard with the pandemic. Like there’s no doubt about that, especially I’m from Melbourne and we’ve been don’t even want to think about how many days we had been in lockdown for. And so, I don’t think Australia should think about how do we bounce back. I really feel like Australia should be going, what opportunity could we grab now to really own something that’s going to put us on the world stage? Because getting back to where we were, isn’t going to do it. And I truly believe that we could own Web3 and we should be pioneering Web3 adoption of Web3 in Australia. And the other day I was talking to the guys from Magic Eden, which is the biggest NFT marketplace on Solana, which it’s one of the big blockchains and they’re just in our backyard. And they created that in our backyard and they’re on track to become the fastest unicorn in history.

Lisa Teh:
Like we should be promoting these companies and talking about the fact that we’ve got Web3 companies on our doorstep and we are leading the way. And so, we are one of the few agencies in the world that’s just dedicated to Web3. And I want to make sure that we do activations that people are talking about at a global level. And it’s really not that hard-to-get attention at the moment, like I’ve been talking to some of our Web2 clients and really buying land is like a free kick from a press perspective.

Nick Abrahams:
Press release.

Lisa Teh:
Exactly, press release. Buying a trademark is now a press release, like if you buy trademarks of Sketchers have done a trademark, McDonald’s, like that’s all just news and they haven’t even done anything. But it indicates that they’re going into Web3. And so, for brands they don’t even need to know what they’re going and doing in the next six to 12 months because things are going to try range so quickly. But they need to just go on our map, it’s like has to be Web3 and don’t wait too long because this is your chance to not only move first in Australia, but be first in the world at things, and that for me is exciting. If you were a marketer or if you were a brand, why would you not want to do that, and why would you not want to actually lead the world in new technology?

Nick Abrahams:
Yep. No, I think that’s right. It’s a remarkable stage where really anything that you do is capable of getting reported and sort of shows you as a forward thinking brand. Even if you look at what the Australian Open did with their incredible key drop and so forth. That was a really proud moment, I think, for Australia, to show that we can lead the way. And then there’s ZED RUN, the horse racing.

Lisa Teh:
Exactly.

Nick Abrahams:
Oh my Lord, that’s amazing, and really taking it up to Axie Infinity, in terms of that play to earn space. So I agree with you entirely. We’ve got a tremendous base here, and it doesn’t feel like it’s permeated quite to the mainstream yet, and it still feels like there’s a lot of cynicism there. But as more folks, like you said. All of those brand names, McDonald’s and so forth, they’re all looking at it. And this is…A lot of people think, “Oh, the metaverse thing will go away,” but now we can actually own things in the digital universe. So I think it’s amazing. I think maybe just to get some… Do you any advice for… I’m sure you got a lot of advice, but…

Lisa Teh:
How long do you have?

Nick Abrahams:
…for companies that might be sitting on their hands? I mean, this is now… If you look at… NFTs have sort of moved from the slightly wacky area of the Board 8, into the… Should be in the marketing department of every company, you would’ve thought. Thinking, “Should we be doing something here?” But how do you move people on? What would you say to them? What’s the process?

Lisa Teh:
A lot of the time it’s going to be education. So, you’re going to really educate, or you are going to need to educate, your current consumer. Because most of them will have no idea what Web3 is, they won’t know how to create a wallet, they won’t have crypto, they won’t know what an NFT is. So, you have a unique opportunity, as a brand, to educate them. And that will come across in your content, mostly on your Web2 content. If you are on Twitter and you’re on Discord, then most likely that audience will have… Well, I guess they’re what we call crypto natives. So, they will have some idea of one NFTs, they’ll probably own crypto as well. So just on a really side note, Puma changed their Twitter handle to Puma.eth, so they’re definitely going to three.

Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, amazing.

Lisa Teh:
And there you go. We’re taking this really seriously, which is amazing. So for those of who you don’t know, dot eth is an ENS address. So it’s an Ethereum name server address. So it’s pretty much saying, “Yeah, we’re going to go into Web3.” Interestingly though, you talk about people just not being sure about crypto. So firstly, I think the fact that crypto.com sponsored the AFL, it’s a pretty big sign. The AFL aren’t risking their brand to attach it to crypto, no matter how much they’re paying them, if it’s all a scam. But also, I look at their market cap for Ethereum, and it’s bigger than the market cap for the biggest bank in the world, which is JP Morgan. So, it’s like, how can that be a scam?

Lisa Teh:
And I’ve actually got the stats here for you, because I actually was quite blown away by this. I remember doing some research, because another service that we do is Web3 training. So we actually go out to companies and educate their teams, whether it’s marketing team or the C-suite team, and say, “This is what it is.” And people always just go like, “What are you talking about? Isn’t this all a scam?” And I’ll say, “Okay, so the market cap for Ethereum is $355 trillion. And the market cap for JP Morgan is $466 billion.”

Nick Abrahams:
Right? Amazing. Well, and JP Morgan just opened in the metaverse. They just opened a little office there. I mean, there’s not too much in it, but they do have a tiger walking around in the lobby. It’s like, “Yeah, maybe that’s just the experience of working with an investment bank.”

Lisa Teh:
Exactly right.

Nick Abrahams:
Beware the tiger.

Lisa Teh:
But you can’t do that in the real world, because someone could get eaten for lunch. You can do that in the metaverse.

Nick Abrahams:
So if you’ve ever wanted to stick a tiger in your lobby, then go and see Lisa. You’ve given us loads to think about that. I always love talking to you, because you always give me some, some fun sort of words and so forth. We’ve had fidgetal, but now we’ve got… So we’re moving from buying things online to buying online things. That’s just fantastic. And then, the opportunity to flex at scale. And I guess for those who don’t don’t necessarily know what it means to flex, I guess that’s what the kids talk about is showing off. But that idea of having… If you’ve got a Board 8, then you are showing the rest of the world that you’ve got a lot of crypto, and you’re a believer, and it’s all good. Thank you very much for your time. Best wishes for you and Nick with mooning the agency. Notice how I put it like that. I think it should be, “mooning the agency.”

Lisa Teh:
Yeah, good little disclaimer there. Because I don’t think anyone wants to see my butt so…

Nick Abrahams:
Well anyway, moving right on. Thank you so much, best wishes, and please, folks, if you do need any help thinking through Web 3 strategy, then please contact Lisa. Also, you should follow Lisa on every platform, because she’s very entertaining and lots of great insight. So, Lisa, thank you very much for joining us today.

Lisa Teh:
Thank you so much, Nick Abrahams. Really appreciate you making the time to have a chat, and I look forward to seeing you hopefully one day in the real life and the metaverse.

Nick Abrahams:
Indeed. That would be perfect. Thanks, Lisa.

Lisa Teh:
Thank you