Christian Gravias: NFTs will be more disruptive than the Internet and social media

By Jesse Coghlan

February 22, 2022 0

Non-fungible tokens – NFTs – have exploded in both popularity and value over the last year, and their adoption is being taken up very quickly.

Brands and businesses have flocked to offering NFTs and related utility in both real life and the metaverse. For just a small cross-section, NFTs were offered by the Australian Open and its partnership with Decentraland, while other big brands, like Adidas, have also made big money with NFTs.

Brands navigating this space turn to expert help, as creating, deploying, and maintaining a community for their NFT project requires specialised knowledge.

Christian Gravias is the Founder of Collings NFT, a marketing agency that aims to assist brands in understanding and launching their own NFT projects. We spoke to him about his agency, and what kind of businesses are getting involved in non-fungible tokens.

Firstly, there was the question of where the concept for a “NFT marketing agency” even came from.

“This company was originally supposed to be a “traditional” digital marketing agency,” Gravias said.

“However, after discovering and going down the rabbit hole that is NFTs, I developed a passion for this particular space, and it seemed only natural to pivot the digital marketing agency toward specialising with Crypto & NFT clients, opposed to traditional marketing businesses.”

He continued, “Another factor that appealed to me was the potential to be one of the first marketing agencies in the world to specialise in this.”

When asked what project was his favourite, Gravias told CryptoVista about a project called “Collings Universe”, which is what he describes as an entertainment and media company focused on building intellectual property.

“The Collings Universe NFT is a pass that will bridge real-world utility with Web 3, granting access to future NFT projects,” Gravias said.

“Holders will have a right to partner with Collings in the real world and via Web 3, they’ll have exclusive access to both physical and digital opportunities with our brand and NFT collaborators, and much more that will be announced soon.”

“Collings Universe is a culmination of my personal experience investing, learning and understanding the NFT space, I’m excited to bring as much value to our early believers as I possibly can.”

When asked if he has been surprised by any of the businesses interested in working on NFTs, Gravias said so far he hasn’t been, and believes that “almost every industry will be affected by NFTs within the next five or ten years.”

“I am not surprised with any business or industry that has reached out. I envisioned a liquor company reaching out to us as I believe you could do some cool things in that industry, and that happened last week, which was surreal!”

Gravias then shared with us his process and thoughts on adding utility to non-fungible tokens.

“We look to add utility that is going to provide value or access to the holder,” he said. “Every company or personality will have a different type of utility set depending on their brand and product.”

When looking to launch an NFT project with its clients, Collings has a six-step process:

Conceptualisation: Collaboration with clients, under the client’s vision for the project, Collings will brainstorm and come up with a collection theme, then create the art and campaign strategies for the NFT collection.
Launch strategy: Ensuring all plans are ready to go in preparation for the initial drop of the collection.
Social Media & Community Management: “Nailing a drop is more than the artwork,” Gravias says. “We create strategies for every social media platform, organic and paid.”
Blockchain Selection: Once the collection is created, Collings assists in choosing which blockchain to hos the project. Gravias notes there are advantages and disadvantages with various blockchains in regard to NFTs.
Smart contract deployment and minting: Collings then creates the smart contract for the NFT collection and facilitates the minting process for the drop.
Pricing, Sale & Support: Assistance in the logistics aspect of selling the NFT collection and ongoing management to sustain the project over a long period of time.

Non-fungible tokens have a raft of experts claiming that these assets are so speculative and volatile that they should not be purchased, with this type of advice so ample in the space we asked Gravias for his thoughts on this.

“NFTs are very volatile, and I believe that 95 per cent of the NFT’s around now will not be around in the next 5-10 years,” he stated.

“This is partly due to the majority of projects in the space being derivatives of other successful projects, which lack originality and innovation.”

“People must understand that when they invest in NFTs they are essentially investing in businesses. Most of the creators of these NFTs do not know how to run a business.”

“It’s a gold rush at the moment. I am extremely bullish on the power of NFTs in the long term, but I do believe an NFT crash will occur in the short term. Very similar to what happened with crypto in 2017 and 2018.”

“I believe every industry will be affected by NFTs. Every ticket whether it’s a sports event or concert will be an NFT.”

“97 per cent of contracts whether it’s buying a house or a car will be signed via a smart contract.”

“Most intellectual property owners, such as personalities, athletes, celebrities, artists, and brands, will integrate NFTs into their business exactly as they did with websites and social media.”

“I believe Blockchain technology & NFT’s will disrupt the world much more deeply than the Internet & social media has.”

Gravias gave this advice to anyone looking to make their own successful NFT project.

“If you invest in teams with experience and great resumes, and put innovation, and community at the forefront, the project they produce will be something different and unique that will continue to push the space forward.”