It turns out that the “pink it and shrink it” marketing technique that mainstream stores frequently use to attract women is fungible. What’s not: social issues, at least that’s the premise of one NFT project.
Why it’s important World of Women (WoW) began as a PFP, or profile photo collection, presenting an NFT collection showing women in a field more famous for ape-punk-dominated worlds powered by memes, sarcasm, and overall punk crassness.
Shannon Snow, who left Meta (Facebook) to join WoW as COO in June, said the project is eschewing the drip of attention-seeking that is typical of NFT initiatives.
“For our community it’s not about attention but about belonging. They believe in the mission,” Snow tells Axios. “WoW is the front door for women into NFTs and we’re continuing to expand that to Web3 and the metaverse.”
Rewind: 10,000 generative pictures made from 200 drawings by co-founder Yam Karkai sold out in a matter of hours at 0.07 ether each during WoW’s first drop in July 2021.
Currently, as NFT market activity slows to a trickle, initiatives like WoW, which has only been around for a year, are attempting to maintain momentum by focusing on issues that should concern everyone, not just women.
The most recent: At a co-hosted event at New York’s Tavern on the Green, Snow and Inna Modja, WoW’s head of philanthropy, discussed climate change and leveraging art to communicate the message.
Karkai was also named as a UN Sustainable Development Goals ally.
Why not take up crypto causes like privacy? “If we don’t have a planet to live on, we can’t have privacy,” Snow said.
The big picture: “WoW has already committed $2 million to social, gender and climate causes around the world,” Snow says.referring to the 5% donated to charities and auctions they organize from the initial collection drop. In March, they released their second album.
The legacy of WoW, its road map, and its community are the three elements that will keep it relevant and “continuing on the mission to create a sense of belonging,” Snow says.
Details: “Legacy” refers to the position WoW has already established in history, including its mainstreaming of women through the NFT collection as well as its record-breaking Christie’s sale in February.
It’s important to note that after the Roe v. Wade ruling, trolls started to appear on WoW’s Discord channels and certain other NFT collections with a large female user base, causing division.
Next steps: Expansion is planned, demonstrating the demands of maintaining a popular NFT collection. There will be live events, as well as physical dolls, fashion lines, and TV and movie projects using WoW’s intellectual property.
“People come up to me saying they found out about NFTs seeing Reese Witherspoon using a WoW as her profile picture,” she says. “Everything we do can introduce women to this new emerging technology.”
Hello Sunshine by Reese Witherspoon is one of the celebrity-owned businesses that has teamed with the company. Another is House of Harlow by Nicole Ritchie, according to Snow.
The bottom line: According to Snow, “We’ve had influential people use and purchase WoWs,” but WoW neither has nor will use influencer marketing. About “authenticity,” that is.
