What's Next: Web3 for Consumer Brands in 2024

Key verticals, key trends, key players: Here is all you need to know on consumer Web3 heading into 2024.

Jan 10, 2024

∙ Paid

Dear Readers,

Welcome to 2024. The dust has settled, infrastructure has matured, and we’re witnessing the convergence of several exciting consumer technologies. This is why, today, we’ll look at what’s next for consumer brands in Web3.

We’ll cover:

The ongoing Web3 transformation
What’s next for key verticals:
- Tokenization & phygitals
- Loyalty
- Community & commerce
- Data & insights
- Infrastructure
The big picture

We’ve got a big year ahead. This will help you meeting 2024 well prepared.

Ready? Let’s jump in.

⏱️ Reading time: 10min

The Ongoing Web3 Transformation

Before we dive into specific trends, let’s zoom out for the bigger picture.

This isn’t about quick bucks, crypto-degenerative gambling or a bunch of overpriced JPEGs.

Web3 is more – much more – than that.

It’s a commerce protocol for the internet, a new era for customer engagement, and a new data layer.

Justin Banon from Boson even describes it as the groundwork for a "computable economy, as all products and services are moving on-chain.

In short: Web3 is a programmable transaction layer for digital and physical goods.

Here’s another way to think about it:

Over the last three years, three distinctive consumer tech verticals have emerged: crypto, Web3, and virtual, immersive words.
Crypto enables programmable, decentralized transaction of value. Web3 does the same, but with goods.
Being blockchain-based, they both hinge on two core principles:
- 1) Digital ownership, scarcity, and transferability of assets and
- 2) a wallet centric interaction model: The wallet becomes the user's main point of interaction.
The third category includes virtual, immersive applications, spurred by new hardware (AR/VR headsets, faster chips), social gaming platforms (Roblox, Fortnite, The Sandbox, etc.) and generative AI. Apple now calls AR “spatial computing”.
These three verticals are converging and enabling new financial, marketing, gaming, social, and industrial applications for businesses.

In short: They transform how consumers and businesses interact and relate, opening new paths for collaboration and communication, blending multiple open and interoperable technology layers.

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What’s next: Web3 for consumer brands in 2024

Throughout the last cycle, we’ve seen four (or five) emerging Web3 consumer verticals:

We’ve also seen case studies from brands that combined multiple verticals with one activation.

Let’s quickly dive into each vertical.

Tokenization & Phygitals

In 2023, brands like Dior, Nike, Louis Vuitton, Lamborghini, Adidas, Puma, and others launched phygitals. They enable brands to: