Would you like fries with that? Fast food chains serve NFTs

The past few months have seen an explosive adoption of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as crypto artists, gaming enthusiasts, musicians, celebrities and now fast food chains deploy the technology in a variety of ways.

Fast food giants such as McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell are turning to NFTs because of their ability to enable gamified promotions and the distribution of their products and services.

Here’s a look at the emerging adoption of NFT in the fast food industry.

Taco Bell

Taco Bell is a popular fast food brand in the United States for its Mexican-style products. In a March 2021 marketing campaign, Taco Bell spear a new NFT collection emerging as the first among fast food chains to feature collectible tokens.

The Taco Bell NFT (Taco Art) includes artistic illustrations of its fast food offerings, with some buyers paying more than 10 Ether (ETH) for a Taco Bell NFT. According to tweets of the restaurant chain, the profits generated by the sale were donated to charity.

Burger King

Not the type to be left behind, Burger King announcement its entry into the NFT space with the release of a range of digital collectibles as part of a marketing campaign called “Keep It Real Meals”.

Each Burger King customer will be able to scan the QR code that came with their meal to receive one of three collectible game coins. Once a player receives all three, they will receive a fourth token which could be the reward of a digital collectible, a year of burgers, or a call with one of the campaign’s famous spokespersons.

Mcdonalds

Despite China’s ban on almost everything crypto-related, McDonald’s Chinese branch will release a set of 188 NFTs to its employees and customers as part of a celebration of the franchise’s 31st anniversary.

NFTs consist of three-dimensional artistic designs of McDonald’s new headquarters in China in a project called “Big Mac Rubik’s Cube”, and they were built in partnership with digital asset creation agency Cocafe.

Pizza Hut

The Canadian subsidiary of Pizza Hut, a fast food chain renowned for its all-you-can-eat pizza buffet, published an NFT project called “1 Byte Favorites,” which are digital NFT images of pizza slices.

In a March 17 announcement, the company said it would post NFT images of a slice of pizza every two weeks. Each NFT slice and image would come with a different recipe, and interested buyers will have access to NFTs on Rarible.

Pizza Hut Canada’s Marketing Director Daniel Meymen said the NFT campaign was “an opportunity to give fans another way to get their hands on their favorite Pizza Hut recipes, even if it’s virtual.”

The new marketing support for major brands

Like every other popular trend online, marketers have jumped on the NFT bandwagon to get a piece of the pie and grab people’s attention using new technology.

Fast food and other consumer goods brands are quickly discovering that selling their products with the NFT badge and other collectible digital jargon as part of their campaign is a winning strategy.

Even in cases where collectibles are not limited or scarce, the masses have continued to purchase NFTs at exorbitant prices. The jury is still out on whether this is the future of brand marketing or just the hype that will soon die out.