Starbucks CEO Confirms Arrival to the Metaverse With NFTs This Year

Key Insights:

• Howard Schultz was recently re-appointed as the CEO of Starbucks.
• He stated that soon Starbucks would incorporate NFTs and Metaverse into their marketing strategy.
• The involvement of brands and companies in the virtual world is growing at an unprecedented rate.

Starbucks‘ former CEO, Kevin Johnson, who took the baton from Howard Schultz in 2017, passed it back to him last month. And within a month, Howard Schultz has already revealed what he intends to do for the company going forward.

Starbucks Goes to the Metaverse

At an open forum day before yesterday, Howard shared the plans for Starbucks’ future in front of an audience of 15,000 people.

Of the many announcements, one of them was focused on how the company would be piggybacking on the rising hype and fame of the NFTs and the Metaverse to build a name for their brand in the virtual world.

Discussing what digital innovation has been planned using NFTs, Howard said,

“If you look at the companies, the brands, the celebrities, the influencers that are trying to create a digital NFT platform and business, I can’t find one of them that has the treasure trove of assets that Starbucks has from collectibles to the entire heritage of the company.”

Howard also said that the chain is equipped with the resources and knowledge necessary to establish itself in the virtual ecosystem. While the plans were discussed, no date was given when Starbucks would become a part of this world.

Along with this, Howard shared another important announcement that Starbucks will also be suspending the company’s stock repurchase program and instead investing in Starbucks’ partners and stores. Stating why, the CEO said,

“I am not in business … to make every single decision based on the stock price, or the quarter, or EPS, or adding shareholder value at the expense of our people or our customers.”

Is It Getting Too Much?

The thing with successful technology is that while it takes some time to gain an audience, everyone wants a slice of it once it does. When it comes to NFTs, crypto, and Metaverse, that is precisely what is happening right now. 

Even though the purpose of Metaverse is to create a decentralized world where anyone and everyone can participate, it doesn’t make sense for a coffeehouse to be in it as well.

Fashion, accessories, and music shows can be incorporated into the virtual world, but a cup of coffee cannot. 

In the case of NFTs, on the other hand, whether or not the space is a bubble, it is for sure a viral marketing gimmick that eventually might lose interest if it is saturated with too many collections.