Latest Top Shot Marketing & New Collector Growth
How Dapper Labs' marketing has stumbled out of the blocks
As account valuations have declined and enthusiasm has wavered over the last few months, there has been a consistent bright spot of optimism for Top Shot’s future: “Just wait for them to turn the marketing on”. Top Shot skyrocketed in popularity in the early stages of 2021 fueled by passionate, organic word-of-mouth network effects. Since then, as the playoffs tipped off, we started to see the first instances of Dapper Labs starting up the marketing flywheel. So how have these efforts performed? Let’s dig into the data and find out.
New User Growth
As the play-in games were underway this past weekend, Dapper Labs rolled out multiple marketing efforts:
Organic promotions
Influencer Marketing
First on the list, Top Shot collectors had the ability to tweet out a highlight from the play-in games with the hashtag #NBATopShotThis and receive a smooth $16 in their Dapper wallet. Secondly, we started seeing social media influencers tweet about their experience collecting Top Shot Moments, offering a buy-one-get-one promotion worth up to $50 via their unique referral code. Dapper Labs’ choice of influencers was interesting to say the least, but we’ll set that aside for another section later in the article.
So how has this impacted Top Shot user growth? To answer this question, we can find the day that each and every Top Shot collector made their first purchase in the marketplace and plot this over time.
That’s certainly not what I expected. We can see the massive spike that occurred in mid-March as collectors scrambled to hit the Moment requirements for the Rare All-Star Game pack drop. Since then, things have been relatively flat, and even tapered off over the past two weeks. While it’s only been a handful of days since the initial marketing efforts, this is a bit concerning. Equipped with a buy-one-get-one offer worth up to $50 in the marketplace, there is zero noticeable jump in the number of new purchasers in the marketplace. While it’s easy to get excited that Top Shot has started making concerted marketing efforts, it feels a bit like a false start on the first play of the Super Bowl.
While we can’t easily quantify it, this chart highlights the value of word-of-mouth marketing. During the massive bull run in late February, we can see the exponential rise of new purchasers. Collectors were excited by the platform, and were obviously telling all their friends and family. Despite being equipped with a similar “can’t-lose” scenario with a buy-one-get-one promotion in the marketplace, we don’t see nearly the same growth in new purchasers.
A Word on Influencer Marketing
I was excited for Top Shot to start the marketing flywheel, however this is certainly not what I had in mind:
After seeing this video for the first time, I was genuinely embarrassed to be associated with Top Shot. Before I go on, if you haven’t seen this bit of influencer marketing, stop everything that you’re doing and give it a watch.
Right off the jump, the video highlights how a LeBron James Moment sold for over $200k, and alludes to the fact that I, too, could be the proud owner of one of these Moments. The entire value proposition comes off as a get-rich-quick scheme, and frankly feels as though I’m being pitched to join a multi-level marketing scheme. This isn’t how I describe Top Shot to my friends, and it’s likely not the way you do either. Even while celebrating their one-millionth Top Shot user, it’s not how CEO Roham Gharegozlou describes transactions on the platform, “The headlines are always, you know, ‘LeBron sells for $200,000 or $300,000, but the reality is, out of the four and a half-ish million transactions on the marketplace in the past few months, over 3 million have been less than $50.”
With official partnerships with the NBA, its current and some past players, I expected so much more from TopShot than to promote the product through an influencer most well-known for dunking a chicken tender in a Coca-Cola. As the icing on the cake, I came across what appears to be her Top Shot account, as it has the same @alexag username, and has identified as a New York Knicks fan. For someone promoting Top Shot, you’d likely expect them to have a decent collection of Moments, yet this account is completely empty despite being created in February.
A Brighter Future
I’m optimistic that this past weekend’s marketing efforts are simply a misstep, and that Dapper Labs will be able to tap into the millions of NBA fans worldwide. I mean, how cool would it be to have Mike Breen bring us the NBA Top Shot sponsored, “Moment of the Game”? Here’s to hoping 🍻
That’s all for this week! As always, I hope you enjoyed this article. Want to support the newsletter? The best way you can help out is by sharing it with a friend.
Disclaimer: None of the above constitutes professional and/or financial advice. All opinions expressed on Minted Moment are from the personal research and experience of author, and are intended for educational purposes only.
Hey Taylor, I'm sure you have a ton of compelling topics to touch on this platform but is there a chance you could follow this post up in the future so we can see trends etc. Thanks for all the content you put out; it's consistently :fire: and super well visualized.
Wow that advertisment was nothing but cringe. Hopefully it's more effective with demographics different from me, because that stuff was a total turn off.