Navigating the future of CC0 & Community IP brand management

Thank you Moonbirds and BAYC for the inspiration 💡

Recently, the decision to make the Moonbirds collection CC0 has been the catalyst to open public dialogue regarding CC0 and community-owned IP generally.

Simultaneously, Snoop Dog continues to collaborate with BAYC, Nouns are multiplying, and projects like Doodles and Deadfellaz are getting representation in large talent management organizations and significant valuations.

CC0 brands are built by culture, and it is clear this is more than a trend. However, it is early days, there might be an assumption by project leaders that simply existing in culture and building awareness creates long-term value.

What is CC0?

CC0 (creative commons – no rights reserves) NFT is a form of copyright that enables the creator to allow their NFTs to be owned by others. CC0 means that anyone can use the NFT for commercial purposes in numerous ways without the need to give attribution to the original artist, team, or creator. ( source - Cyber Scrilla

Why are project leaders excited about CC0?

The current belief regarding the strengths of a CC0-driven IP strategy is - community ownership equals awareness and product market fit. This belief is based purely on the fact that visibility creates value. Community members can use their IP in many places. Even BAYC - which isn’t CC0, is popping up across different verticals.

Looking through a brand management lens - do the current BAYC IP-driven verticals, and brand collaborators look congruent? Whiskey and Old Navy? Tag Heuer and M&M’s? Who are they appealing to specifically outside of the NFT holders? Do these IP use cases send a unified signal?

You could argue consumers are often fluid in their preferences - engaging with brands at all levels of price and quality. Some brands can stretch from mass to luxury - typically known as Galaxy brands, and very few have succeeded (Levi’s sells $50 501’s at Macy’s and also $250 Made and Crafted 501’s at Farfetch). Can BAYC be one of those brands?

Are the BAYC team happy with this set of partnerships and concepts representing a brand? How can they leverage CC0 benefits and build an impactful, consistent brand? Should they follow brand first principles in new culturally driven formats?

What are the critical components of a brand in a traditional organization?

To understand how a CC0 brand might be managed and scaled, it is helpful to compare possible mental models against classic brand management models.

A brand is partly made up of a name, logo, and identity. The name is how the project is identified, and the logo is the graphical representation of the name. The identity encompasses all elements that make up the brand, including the colors, fonts, and style. These are what we call brand assets. There are also the psychological aspects of a brand; its values, mission, promises, and vision - this all begins with the DNA or brand essence.

The brand management framework typically includes guidelines for brand usage. These guidelines should specify what the brand world is and how it should be represented. The goal is to ensure that the brand is used consistently and appropriately so there is recognition and memorability.

Brand management organizations such as Unilever and P&G are famous for their brand-building strategies. They understand their customers, what resonates and how to speak to them with a carefully crafted messaging framework to become the preferred brand. In fashion, brand management is slightly different, but values, personality, adjacencies and a pricing architecture are essential - all of these attributes are used to position the brand and products relative to its competitors and the market. What signals are being communicated with BAYC as a wine brand and M&M’s?

It is early days, but the characteristics of brand management in CC0 projects (and shared IP models ) aren’t visible in live examples. One can assume that is because all exposure = good exposure. Exposure is great - until it isn’t. Standing for everything is like standing for nothing. Ubiquitous visibility = dilution and kills any type of cache an “exclusive” brand might experience in the early stages. This could also be a governance gap where community votes are not applied to brand usage and strategy.

What model could work for CC0-focused brands to create brand equity?

Let’s compare mental models for traditional brand management and CC0 brand management -

Traditional Brand Management Framework -

A traditional brand framework starts with the brand, the core IP in a brand-driven business. What does that brand promise, how does it behave, and what are the core principles of the brand in the market it operates?

A team of experts manage the brand, and all brand (and product) decisions are congruent. Product design delivers against the brand promise and supports brand values. The product should also resonate with the target customer. All of these things are symbiotic and take time and ongoing stewardship.

The go-to-market strategy can vary, but the classic growth levers are advertising (awareness), distribution (availability), and physical experiences. Physical experiences can be coupled with distribution or have a separate presence.

General operating principles (Traditional model ) -

1. Alignment: The brand should be aligned with the project goals to deliver a clear and consistent message.

2. Consistency: The branding should be consistent across all consumer touch points to create a unified and recognizable message.

3. Control: The owner controls the brand so that it can be used in specific ways.

4. Awareness and Demand: The brand is marketed by the owner to build saliency and desirability with consumers.

CC0 Brand Considerations

A CC0 brand requires a new dimension to brand management. Suddenly, you have a community at the heart of the brand, and your go-to-market strategy is layered - with more nuance and less control. Web3 is the catalyst for this change, along with a shift to content-driven brand distribution, which is becoming more powerful for new brands than traditional advertising. CC0 brands are building in culture and commercial universes simultaneously while navigating ecosystems with shared standards versus centralized standards. This is often referred to as Coopetition, a common strategic consideration in hardware and software industries.

A brand management framework for CC0 projects in Web3 needs to take into account the unique attributes of a CC0 project. These include frictionless use, collaboration, and community-based decision-making. The brand IP should be open to anyone who wishes to use it, and collaboration should be encouraged among all community members. The community should make decisions about the brand, and the proliferation of the brand’s IP allows for increased brand awareness and potential strength as the brand can be used by anyone in the community almost anywhere.

Also, the project’s brand and style grow and evolve in partnership with those growing it. This, in essence, is a new HYBRID brand management model. In web3, the community drives, engages, discusses and influences the brand's direction vs a singular entity - it has collective stewardship.

There are several considerations when managing a CC0 brand -

1. Varied application of the IP: may be aligned with the project goals but often is interpreted by an individual NFT holder. The BAYC community could have voted for M&Ms or wine 🤷‍♀️.

2. Inconsistency: The branding does not remain consistent (in visual or message) across channels which can dilute a brand's core identity.

3. No singular control: The community controls the brand, and it can be used in various ways - simultaneously (and sometimes contradictory).

4. Web3 Awareness 1ST: The brand builds visibility through its community first, and they create awareness outside the community. True WOM marketing. The community and the Crypto Twitterverse can only take a brand so far, so what comes next?

We need to look at a Hybrid brand management framework redefined for modern brands originating from communities and decentralised ecosystems.

CC0 Brand Management Framework -

The brand management framework should include detailed guidelines for what the brand stands for and how to use the brand. These guidelines should specify how the brand can be applied in multiple contexts and how it should and should not be represented. The goal is to ensure that the brand is used consistently and appropriately, regardless of “owner” or the number of owners.

The brand management framework should also establish procedures for managing and protecting the brand - its stewardship in the absence of a brand owner, taking steps to prevent measures that could dilute the brand.

Finally, a brand management framework should always remember, unlike a traditional brand, the fluidity is a reflection of both the vision of the founder and the collective community. A Web3 Brand has both leaders and followers. A Web3 brand “senses & adapts,” enabling the discovery of new ideas through its community.

Web 3 Framework

• Open access and use of the brand by the community

• Brand awareness and increased perceived value through value accretive licensing deals or strategic partnerships

• Accessibility by consumers or shareholders

• Defined brand identity

• Protect the brand equity, manage the brand experience; ongoing governance and voting

  • Regular review of the strategic expression - Mission, Vision, Values, Community Pillars

  • Regular review of the tactical expression - brand assets, standards, logos, colors, application - apply to newsletters, presentations, and podcasts.

  • Always enable ways to review, engage and adapt - creative, brand guidelines, future community brand check-ins.

Leveraging Web3 Technology

So far, we have been focused on frameworks and governance. More recent Web3 brands have tokenomic strategies that incentivise NFT holders to retain their NFT and encourage more engagement in the community. There are more novel opportunities to leverage the financialization of CC0 projects to build brand equity:

1. Incentivise project members to use the brand in agreed categories

2. Incentivize non-project holders to collaborate with the community versus using the IP without community awareness

As time passes, the mental models will change. Web3 moves fast. As I write this, BAYC announced new recording artist partnerships that feel more suitable for the brand and their surmised target audience. Doodles closed a mega round of funding, and Goblins launched a sub-brand that took over Twitter.

Thank you for reading our first collaborative article. We will continue to observe CC0 as it evolves, which might appear again in future articles 🎯.

Jen & Lisa

Founders, Probably Something