The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is one of the most successful NFT projects. The most expensive NFT from the collection was sold for a whopping $3.59million (769 ETH) thus far. Owners of the BAYC NFTs include big names such as Eminem, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Curry, Snoop Dogg, KSI, Lil Baby, and Post Malone.
If you haven’t heard of BAYC or NFT, don’t worry. Here’s aTL;DR:
The benefits to owning a BAYC NFT
BAYC is not only a trading card collection with visually appealing ape cartoons.
You may be wondering; who’s behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club?
The team behind the BAYC remains anonymous and goes with their pseudonymous names — Gargamel, Gordon Goner, Emperor Tomato, and No Sass. They have since started Yuga Labs, an actual Web 3.0 company.
Forming the Big Idea
In the beginning of 2021, the BAYC team observed how CryptoPunk and Hashmasks became a sort of cultural currency. They also examined the “crypto Twitter” community that was beginning to flourish then and brainstormed to combine the collectible art with community membership.
They started creating the BAYC concept, with 10,000 apes, each having different “properties” such as varying fur types, clothing, etc.
The apes have a backstory — they are ennui-afflicted crypto billionaires hanging in a swampy yacht club in the year 2031. This is part of the brand’s worldbuilding into something more than eye-pleasing art pieces.
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Why is the Bored Ape Yacht Club so popular?
I am not ashamed to confess that I do not own any of the ape NFTs, and I assume that most of us do not since they are incredibly sacred. However, what I admire about BAYC is how they could build a brand and popularity arguably out of thin air. Therefore, I was curious to examine what made them so successful that they became a brand beyond NFTs.
I will be using Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point to explain the phenomenon. In The Tipping Point, Gladwell argued that there are three key factors for every influential trend:
While we will not follow the framework by its exact granular details, we can broadly use these three factors to examine BAYC’s success.
The Law of the Few
In 2008, Kevin Kelly wrote that content creators only need 1,000 true fans to make a living in her essay. BAYC has 10,000. They are the owners of the original Bored Apes. The lucky ones who got in early, or ‘aping in’. During pre-sale, the creators were worried as the momentum was slow. But over four days, the community started flooding the gates to ‘ape in’, through the power of the community and scarcity as some fans snatch more than one Ape each.
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The BAYC owners ensure that the yacht sails and does not sink. If we use Gladwell’s framework, the 10,000 are connectors, mavens, and salesman — all three. They utilize their network of connections to spread the word, share knowledge and insights with others, and promote the value of owning the Bored Ape.
Much of what fuels the community-based activity is the commercial usage rights the NFT owners have. A famous example is that one Bored Ape owner set up a Twitter account for his Ape, creating a backstory and turning him into Jenkins, a valet that works for the Yacht Club. It spiraled out into an extended project, like a side story to a fantasy world, with its own NFT project.
The Bored Apes also got mainstream attention with its celebrity owners, which we named at the beginning of the post.
If we look at when BAYC peaked on Google Trends, it was around August to September 2021, when Stephen Curry spent $180,000 on a Bored Ape NFT, a set of 101 Bored Ape NFTs sold for $24.4 million at the Sotheby’s. The celebrity ownership and high value signaled to the broader world, beyond crypto & NFT fans, that BAYC needs to be taken seriously.
Stickiness
The Bored Apes designs are iconic. While each Ape has its unique traits that set them apart, they follow a core set of shapes that define their look as a Bored Ape. The variations also create neverending discoverability that feeds the curious minds and engages them. By sharing new varieties that surprise the community, Yuga Labs injects fresh ideas into the community to rejuvenate it.
BAYC’s setting and theme from the worldbuilding efforts are highly consistent, helping it build a strong brand identity. From the color palette to the edgy design style to the choice of lo-fi music, the creative choices all come together to make BAYC such a cool brand. BAYC has all that a strong brand has — a unique logo, fantastic brand personality, and a mascot (or 10,000?). It doesn’t have a slogan, but honestly, not every brand needs one. BAYC never deviates from the cool branding it is. They know who their audiences are. Whether it’s the Mutant Apes or Bored Ape Kennel Club, BAYC stays true to the brand’s cool vibes, creating a universe that can extend out of the digital space.
The Power of Context
BAYC did not start its own platform in isolation. They leveraged existing crypto communities on Twitter in the very beginning. They were also introduced when ETH was breaking out around $3,000. After the demonstrated success of other NFT projects, BAYC adds another layer by creating an enhanced multilayered project. BAYC started at the right time (April 2021) and the right place (Twitter).
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The future of the Bored Ape Yacht Club
BAYC is now a lifestyle brand. From Oct 31 through Nov 6 2021, the team ran its first-ever annual Ape Fest, including an in-person gallery party, yacht party, warehouse party, exclusive merchandise pop-up, and charity dinner in New York. In addition, there have been community get-togethers in Hong Kong and the UK, demonstrating BAYC’s global cultural influence. The iconic Bored Ape was featured on Rolling Stone magazine, driving its cultural currency value up the roof. They partnered with adidas for the iconic brand’s first NFT project and are even developing their own mobile game.
The Bored Ape is now:
Goner claimed that Yuga Labs “want to be a Web 3.0 lifestyle company,” and they are not stopping. The impact of BAYC is going above crypto and NFT and beyond the owners of the original Bored Ape. Everyone can soon experience and be part of the brand experience of BAYC, while not being inside the club, which makes being part of the club even more desirable and valuable. This is their strategy to build a long-lasting brand, not a hype.
BAYC has built a playbook for how a successful NFT project or brand looks, inspiring other creators to follow suit. We see NFT projects such asFancy Bears MetaverseandAzukisharing the same branding and community approach.
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BAYC has built a brand without advertising, search marketing, or extensive social media promotion. What they did was to harness the power of the community by bringing people together and making a brand that is a badge of honor and pass for everyone part of the exclusive community. They are the coolest NFT project for many. One that non-members or believers can only envy or hate.
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