Token and a year’s worth of Burgers: Applebee’s sells first NFT art as part of its “Metaverse Mondays” Series

While the abstract, technicolor burger, created by New York artist Amber Vittoria, is purely virtual, the year’s supply of burgers that come with it could not be more real.

On Monday of this month, the casual-dining chain premiered and sold the first of a new line of NFTs. This item, selling for $25, also came with an Applebee’s gift card worth $1,300. That would be enough to buy a year’s worth of burgers (or significantly less if you don’t feel like cooking.)

Capitalizing on the recent announcement pertaining to Meta’s (formerly Facebook) Metaverse, the extremely ambitious plan to overhaul the digital world, the company will be offering a newly minted NFT every Monday of this December as part of its larger “Metaverse Monday’s” media campaign. In this way, NFT’s could be both a method of brand creation as well as an advanced form of I.P protection.

Applebee’s first NFT, by artist Amber Vittoria, sold Monday. (Image courtesy of Applebee’s.)

According to Applebee’s CMO Joel Yashinsky, “We are all about ‘Eatin’ Good In The Neighborhood,’ and our ability to connect the real world with the virtual world through our great tasting Handcrafted Burgers was an innovative idea we wanted to seize.” On the performance of the campaign, he stated that “Our first #MetaverseMonday was a success, and we look forward to continuing to engage our fans with real world food and virtual world NFTs that reflect our delicious food throughout this month!”

While Applebee’s is an early bird when it comes to the adoption of emerging technology in their marketing campaigns, they’re far from the only ones. Domino’s and Taco Bell have both minted their own NFTs and star chef Tom Colicchio has already announced his own line of pizza-themed tokens to be released soon.

Story sourced from Restaurant Business