In December 2021, Stephen Curry was closing in on the world record for 3-point shots. Under Armour planned to launch a highly anticipated sneaker in celebration of this incredible accomplishment, but unfortunately, the global supply chain problems meant the shoe would not reach the market in time. While the world watched in awe as Stephen “changed the game for good,” Under Armour did not have a traditional product or the budget to live up to this moment to get back into the cultural conversation it had lost to its competitors Adidas and Nike in recent years.

Our task was to do something that lived up to the stature of this moment and drove the brand back into a leadership role in culture. In the process, we created an entirely new revenue stream for the brand.

Just as Stephen Curry was changing the game of basketball for good, we changed the metaverse for good by launching the Genesis Curry Flow as the first wearable a player can take with them as they move and play from one gaming platform to another. We sold the NFTs for $333, meaning buyers had to use cash to purchase their digital shoe rather than cryptocurrency — creating an opportunity for new adopters to join the metaverse.

We launched 2,974 unique NFTs in five discrete rarities, each one coming with a “shoe locker” where we designed the Genesis Curry Flow into the unique languages of the leading metaverse platforms of Decentraland, The Sandbox, Gala Games and RKL. The locker connected directly to the platforms, meaning that for the first time, the game player could enter the distinct worlds with the same unique sneaker, changing the game and the metaverse for good.

It’s one thing to have an insight about the gaming world or even a great idea about “changing the metaverse for good,” but when you have $0 to market your idea, that presents a different challenge. With no traditional media and no influencers to hype up our drop, we instead developed another strategic first by turning gaming platforms into media. Gaming platforms don’t do commercials or much of what might be seen as traditional marketing, but they have large, loyal gamer audiences on Twitter and Discord engaged in conversation about games. We created high-quality video assets, essentially teasers, for our drop and invited the platforms to get as excited as we were about achieving the first true landmark of metaverse interoperability by sharing with their audiences. The strategy worked beyond our wildest dreams.

Our 2,974 NFTs are 3D high-fidelity video assets in five distinct rarities, each focusing on a unique aspect of Stephen’s game. The NFTs were built on the carbon-neutral Polygon blockchain and sold directly via USD to interested buyers from a Curry Brand website we created, with an embedded link to OpenSea, the primary NFT trading platform, where holders could immediately buy and sell the NFTs. Each variant of the sneaker, airdropped to our locker, came with its own specific utility, adding to the value of the holder. It glowed in Decentraland, a custom basketball court was built for gameplay in The Sandbox, and the sneaker earned a gala token in Gala Games. These factors propelled the sneakers to massive desirability, reaching value never seen before for an Under Armour product, with the rarest sneakers trading on the secondary market for upward of $55,000 at the height of the drop.

At the time of the drop, over 25 million people had visited our site. When the drop went live, 4.5 million tried to buy the digital sneaker, ensuring the shoes sold out in minutes. All proceeds from the initial sale went to Under Armour’s charities, resulting in $1 million raised for Access to Sports. Secondary sales followed and continue to rise, with over $17 million in volume, contributing greater funds for the charities, paying for the cost of the entire marketing campaign more than twice over and setting a new standard for how to generate a true metaverse product.

Our campaign was No. 1 on Polygon for over a week, earning over 1.3 billion impressions with $0 paid media and an overall 98% positive sentiment. The campaign was also picked up by over 30 media outlets, including Time, WSJ, Hypebeast and CoinDesk, proving this truly was a cross-platform campaign.