While the metaverse hype in late 2021 soared, the truth is that if you were a gamer, there was no metaverse. Instead, the “metaverse” was a series of distinct platforms with separate economies vying for player attention. The Genesis Curry Flow changed all that by being the first wearable a player could own and take across metaverse platforms. With no traditional media support, we persuaded the gaming platforms to get behind our vision and promote us to their communities. The result changed the metaverse irrevocably and honored one of the world’s greatest athletes who was permanently changing basketball for good.

In December 2021, Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors was closing in on the world record for 3-point shots. Our client, Under Armour, planned to launch a highly anticipated sneaker in celebration of this incredible accomplishment, but unfortunately, global supply chain problems meant the shoe would not reach the market in time. It also meant there would be very little budget available to celebrate such an important moment. While the world watched in awe as Steph “changed the basketball game for good,” what could we do without a traditional product or budget to live up to the moment and get Under Armour back into the cultural conversation it had lost to its competitors Adidas and Nike?

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.

Just as Steph was changing the game of basketball for good, we changed the metaverse for good by launching the Genesis Curry Flow, the first wearable that players can take with them as they move across platforms. By doing this, we became the first true metaverse wearable, an accomplishment that could live up to the importance of this moment.

We launched 2,974 unique NFTs (the number reflects the world record) 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 (an up-and-coming NFT basketball game). 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 produce 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 launch asset was a “loot box,” which gamers recognize as the sign of something exciting to come. This was distributed throughout the gaming partner social channels to drive speculation and was followed by a video of our “Shoe Locker” teasing the interoperability and a 30-second video featuring Steph wearing the shoe. The video captured the core idea by revolving on an axis from one “world” to the next, keeping the sneaker and player central to each world.

Each sneaker variant came with specific utility linked to Steph’s game, adding value for the holder. The NFTs were built on Polygon, a carbon-neutral blockchain, and sold in USD from a Curry Brand website with an embedded link to OpenSea, the primary NFT trading platform, where holders could immediately buy and sell the NFTs. By selling in USD, our drop was the entry for Curry fans into cryptocurrency and the metaverse.

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, and the rarest sneakers traded for $55,000 at the height of the drop.

Our campaign was No. 1 on Polygon for over a week, earning over 1.3 billion impressions with $0 spent on 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, converting sports fans to crypto enthusiasts along the way.