Considering NFT Branding Strategies from the Cool Cats New Avatar System

The NFT blue-chip project Cool Cats recently announced its brand new avatar system Cool Cats Avatar System, aiming to engage more users in its ecosystem, paving the way for future physical events, point activities, and ecosystem services. This is an important step for Cool Cats in managing a large user ecosystem and entertainment brand.

Cool Cats Background

Introduction

Cool Cats is a well-known NFT project launched on Ethereum by Clayton Mellina and Gary Mellina in July 2021, offering 10K cat avatar-style NFTs. It quickly gained market attention soon after its release, with individual prices exceeding 16 ETH and a market capitalization reaching nearly two billion US dollars.

Key developments of Cool Cats in the past:

• Launched Cool Cats in July 2021, quickly gaining popularity within a month.

• Introduced Cool Pets NFT series in January 2022, followed by the pet-raising game Cooltopia, to expand the ecosystem's user base.

• Released Shadow Wolves NFT series in December 2022.

• Started the Cool Score mechanism in January 2023, a rating and reward system aimed at rewarding active community members based on factors like the number of NFTs held and activity frequency, with higher scores leading to more rewards.

• In February 2023, the team airdropped Fractures to Cool Cat and Cool Pet holders, utilizing dynamic NFT technology for participants to engage in bi-weekly story developments, earn community points and rewards, recorded on NFTs evolving with the story, transitioning into membership NFTs later, preparing for the next character PFP.

• In July 2023, the MapleStory Universe Web3 game announced a collaboration with Cool Cats for future game content.

• In September 2023, Cool Cats announced a collaboration with Macy's, presenting a "Cool Cats" balloon at the 97th Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade scheduled for November 23rd.

Cool Cats Strategic Direction

As seen above, the Cool Cats team has shifted its focus in recent years to diverse cross-industry collaboration projects instead of traditional marketing activities. From continuous NFT releases to brand event management, Cool Cats has engaged in a series of partnership relationships to expand its audience reach.

The team's strategic shift aims to allow more users to engage with and participate in the Cool Cats ecosystem, moving away from being just a small circle of NFT holders. The true goal of Cool Cats is to create an entertainment brand for the general public. Therefore, whether it's the Fractures journey story or the Cool Score rating system, even non-holders can participate. The avatar system introduced this time is specifically prepared for future community activities and products.

Cool Cats Avatar System Introduction

Although the Cool Cats NFT series was originally a collection of profile picture (PFP) avatars, the team created a new avatar NFT system to allow more people to join. This new system has unlimited supply, open to everyone for minting, customizable, with the ability to freely change appearances and integrate with social media accounts, aiming to be the user's

This avatar system issues NFTs to all users. It lowers the barrier for new users to participate, allowing them to experience the fun of virtual avatars and various interactions within the Cool Cats community. This serves as a first step in introducing NFTs and the metaverse concept.

Minting page: https://coolcats.com/avatar

Cool Cats Avatar System operates on the Polygon ecosystem, with avatars and accessory NFTs native to Polygon.

Personalized Avatars

The avatar system offers a variety of objects, including clothing, accessories, props, and backgrounds, for users to personalize and choose from. Each item is an NFT with different appearances and rarity, usable or tradable on Polygon.

On the Cool Cats Avatar System website, users can freely mix and match these items, with changes updated in real-time on the blockchain and synchronized to linked social media avatars to maintain a consistent virtual identity.

More content will be released in the future, with diverse ways to obtain items, including official public sales, obtaining accessories NFTs through game achievements or special missions, or participating in specific event-exclusive rewards.

The initial official item release is in packs, themed for Halloween, released on October 19th at a price of 0.013 ETH per pack, containing four random items.

Identity Binding Mechanism

While items can be changed at any time, avatar NFTs are soul-bound NFTs, meaning they cannot be transferred to other wallets, aiming to facilitate a wider audience joining:

• Soul-bound NFTs help users recognize the uniqueness of their identity and reduce speculative nature in the NFT market.

• Combining avatar NFTs with soul-bound NFTs ensures users can confidently operate without the risk of accidental sales, enhancing user experience and reducing potential issues.

The Cool Cats Avatar System can also bind to X account on Twitter, allowing immediate synchronization of avatar changes with X's profile picture.

O2O Experiment

Cool Cats is also exploring online-to-offline integration (O2O), not limited to the NFT and crypto fields, attempting to link physical offline goods with virtual avatar creation. For example, in Macy's products, serial numbers that can redeem avatar accessories are included, allowing more users outside the crypto circle to experience interactive elements of the crypto world.

In the future, the team plans to introduce more channels to obtain avatar content, such as through offline events, interacting with participants to obtain event serial numbers for accessory NFTs exchange.

Impact on Existing NFTs

To avoid similarities between this new avatar system and the existing NFT series, which could jeopardize holders' interests, the team has made visual distinctions in the images. The images of the new avatar system are displayed front-facing, while the original Cool Cats images show the avatars in a side view, distinguishing and preserving the rights of existing NFT holders.

Furthermore, original Cool Cats NFT holders can apply for exclusive avatar accessories, including limited edition shoes and tops, as a reward and appreciation for long-term supporters Snapshot as of 10/16 has ended.

Brand Repositioning for a Wider Consumer Base

The repositioning of the Cool Cats brand truly reflects its new strategic direction, anticipating the next wave of consumer adoption in the future. By opening up to more users, Cool Cats aims to target mainstream audiences, reshaping the brand to expand beyond Web3, collaborating with the entertainment and leisure industry to become mainstream.

The team stated that through the avatar system, Cool Cats can strengthen the social attributes and interactions within its ecosystem, lowering barriers to allow more users to join in the future. By freely designing virtual identities, the system meets the personalized needs of existing NFT holders and provides attractiveness for new user participation.