When Brands Let Go: Releasing Brand IP to Unleash Creativity.
A few weeks ago, Ali, aka Aalasady, asked me if he could use my Clone for a video he was planning to do.
Before we get to the video, let’s step back a second. Clone X is a NFT project by RTFKT and contains 20.000 different Clones. Nike acquired RTFKT in November 2021, and RTFKT did something very untypical for a brand.
They basically released their IP to users to play around with it. Each Clone holder was able to log in to the RTFKT site and download the 3D files of their Clone. This allows everyone to do whatever they want with the files – if they are able to use a 3D software like Blender or Maya.
Usually, every brand owner fears that users could do bad things with their IP and would fight legal battles to prevent that. Within the RTFKT ecosystem, there is a big community called RTFKT creators. They help each other when it comes to 3D design, and out of this community, really amazing designs were created.
Ali did a 5 Minute long video, including 200 Clones 🤯. He wrote it took him just 15 days (and nights) to get this done. With a budget of 0$! To me, this is just mind-blowing!
I can’t imagine how he started this project and worked on all these details!
This can happen if you allow your “customers” to play around with your IP. And now imagine RTFKT creators would get a few more resources and what they could build from that!
Oh, you can see my Clone 00:46. 🍿🎬📽️