Qulture Founder Quynh Mai On How Brands Can Maximize Impact On Web3

Web3 is the next generation of the internet, built on blockchain technology. Already it offers an attractive platform for brands by allowing them to build more direct, meaningful, and lasting relationships with their customers. It also offers new and innovative ways to connect, including NFTs, decentralized applications (dApps), and games. To those concerned about the privacy and security of their data, Web3 offers a more transparent and protected environment.

Nike, for example, is one of the most active brands in the Web3 space. It has created a series of digital sneakers called CryptoKicks. Supermodel Kate Moss has joined the metaverse, making virtual appearances and collaborating with jewelry brand Messika.

Quynh Mai is the founder & CEO of Qulture, an award-winning digital agency that moves brands into Web3 and other emerging digital spaces, including TikTok and social shopping. Her company has worked with some of the world’s top brands, including Nike, Sephora, H&M, Google, Marc Jacobs, Ferrari, and Girls Who Code, helping them adapt to changing technology and stay relevant.

As Qulture’s leader, Mai has steered the company to win two Clio awards, three Hermes Creative Awards, a Webby Award Honoree, and recognition as one of Campaign’s “40 over 40 Digital Innovators.” She has been a keynote speaker twice at Fashion Tech Forum and Melbourne Fashion Week, a panel host for Advertising Week for four consecutive years, and has contributed opinion pieces to The Business of Fashion and WWD.

Here are Mai’s top 5 tips for how brands can engage Web3:

1. Collaborate with a native Web3 brand such as Women Rise NFT collective. Find ways to add value to their holders and learn from those trailblazers.
2. Find existing communities in Web3 — Decentraland, for example — and create virtual experiences for them that resonate. Absolut did this when it created Absolut.Land for Coachella fans.
3. Create, market and drop a branded NFT collection and learn how to create the CRM loyalty program of the future.
4. Build a virtual room, home or studio space and host an event there.
5. Take a Web 2.5 approach and build an experience or launch virtual apparel in a game like Roblox, Sandbox or Fortnite.

In an exclusive interview with me, Mai said that from a young age she knew she had a creative soul. Yet she felt frustrated that she “couldn’t paint, play an instrument, dance, or perform.” After college, she focused her artistic desires by working for creative people like photographer Annie Leibovitz. Still, she felt like she was “living on the fringe of being an artist.”

By her 30s, Mai discovered how conceptual thinking and problem solving within artistic endeavors could also be incredibly creative and productive. She decided to start her own firm, executing new ideas in digital form.

“I used the tech mindset of ‘test and learn’ to find my way,” Mai says. “I looked at data and metrics and saw them as a way to gauge audience response. Eventually at Qulture, we honed in on how to successfully impact culture with our work – and I find it thrilling and deeply rewarding.”

These days, even though entrepreneurship can be lonely and comes with weighty responsibilities, Mai is grateful for her career. Running Qulture is meaningful to her because it allows her to contribute to others, helping them innovate and grow their businesses. On a personal level, she gains tremendous inspiration from her husband and two teenage boys. “I take great pride in modeling what a strong, secure, independent woman looks like,” she says.

Mai’s advice to people looking to align their career with their life purpose is to decide what is most important to you, and then follow the career path that will allow you to maximize your time, resources and well-being. She also emphasizes that work is not the only path to purpose. “If we are lucky, it can be. But purpose also can be family, community, or service, with work simply the thing that powers that.”