Yuga Labs to talk brand building at Ad Age’s Web3 Summit

A two-day virtual event, Ad Age’s Web3 Summit will be a meeting of the minds of experts from the metaverse and marketing worlds. Together, panelists will explore how the burgeoning virtual space, with all of its crypto-adjacent tools, can serve brands and agencies, and vice versa. The May 9 agenda will look at the long-term use cases of Web3, while the May 10 program will focus on the space’s current opportunities for marketers.

Yuga Labs is as close to a quintessential Web3 brand as one can find. The startup emerged in 2021 around Bored Ape Yacht Club but soon expanded to include other NFT collections, such as Bored Ape Kennel Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club. In two years, Yuga has developed a metaverse world called Otherside, while continuing to grow its market share of valuable Web3 IP. The company in 2022 acquired the rights to NFT collections CryptoPunks and Meebits.

Yuga has also helped traditional brands enter the Web3 space. The company partnered with Adidas for the sportswear brand’s first NFT launch in 2021; Adidas has since become a major player in the metaverse, with a plot of virtual land and consistent rollouts of digital assets. This month, Yuga teamed with Gucci for a series of physical products themed around Otherside.

As chief creative officer at Yuga, Figge oversees creative development. He came to Yuga last November when the company acquired NFT platform Wenew, which Figge co-founded and served as chief executive. At the time, he was also a creative director at video design studio Possible, which he co-founded as well.

In addition to Yuga, Ad Age’s Web3 Summit will feature Coca-Cola in a one-on-one keynote on the intersection of AI and metaverse technologies. Other confirmed speakers to appear throughout the event include executives from Roblox, Puma, Pepsi, Paramount, Reddit, Doodles, Consensys, Ready Player Me and more.