The market value doubled in one year, knocking out Azuki: How long can Pudgy Pengunis remain popular?

According to data from @waleswoosh, the market value of Pudgy Pengunis has been growing rapidly since December last year and has doubled so far. This year, it has become a blockbuster, surpassing industry leaders such as BAKC, Doodles, Clone X and Meebits, and becoming a new star in market value. Coincidentally, Azuki, which is at the top of the list, is in trouble due to the Azuki Elemetals incident, and its market value continues to decline. This undoubtedly provides Pudgy Pengunis with an opportunity to overtake.

While Azuki lost community consensus due to emergencies, Pudgy Pengunis received more mentions and attention because of its insistence on "working on IP in a down-to-earth manner". This undoubtedly tells us that the stability and authenticity of a brand is the key to its recognition by the market and consumers. For example, on May 19, Pudgy Penguins launched the physical doll "Pudgy Toys", which quickly became the sales champion on Amazon Mall, beating well-known brands such as Barbie, Lego and Pokémon.

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Pudgy Pengunis placed an order for sale on the trading platform

So why has Pudgy Pengunis achieved such tremendous growth in such a short period of time? What’s the secret to success behind it? We will discuss them one by one next.

Community members set a trap for evil, and Pudgy Penguins almost fell apart

Pudgy Penguins is not as smooth sailing as BAYC.

As the market value of Pudgy Pengunis continued to rise and product sales reached new highs, in early January 2022, a sudden storm broke this harmonious situation. 9x9x9 posted a long tweet on social media, accusing the founding team of Pudgy Penguins of intending to "take the money and run away." He claimed that the founding team tried to sell the project to him at a low price of 888 ETH, but in fact what was sold was just an "empty shell" and they planned to leave with all the income.

As soon as this news came out, community dissatisfaction with the founding team of Pudgy Penguins quickly accumulated, and mass incidents quickly broke out. Angry community members voted on Discord to "remove" founder @ColeThereum. At the same time, the floor price of Pudgy Penguins also plummeted to a record low of 0.519 ETH.

In such a crisis moment, it was Luca Netz who finally bought the project from the founding team of Pudgy Penguins at a price of 750 ETH and became the new CEO. His arrival brought new vitality and hope to this troubled project.

After taking Pudgy Penguins under his wing, Luca Netz quickly demonstrated his leadership and planning skills. From the project's brand positioning to future development planning, from the required talent recruitment to the organization of community activities, he made comprehensive and clear arrangements. He not only became the "savior" in the hearts of community members, but also made Pudgy Penguins stand up again with new vitality and brilliance.

All these developments demonstrate Luca Netz's leadership and strategic vision, and also lay a solid foundation for the future development of Pudgy Penguins. Under his leadership, Pudgy Penguins is expected to continue to maintain its growth momentum, achieve greater market breakthroughs and increase brand value.

After the new owner took over, Pudgy Penguins regained its vitality by taking multiple measures

From the moment we took over Fat Penguin, under the leadership of Luca Netz, the Fat Penguin project gradually stabilized and began to explore new development directions and strategies. So Luca began to actively participate in the development and planning of IP derivatives.

![The market value doubled in one year, knocking out Azuki: How long can Pudgy Pengunis remain popular? ) VmROOWJ4bFJZbzJ2QjF4UkFrTHVLUjAzc2FkXzE2OTU2MzYyNTI6MTY5NTYzOTg1Ml9WNA)

Luca Netz's portrait

Not only did he deal with matters related to IP licensing and product planning, but more importantly, he actively established a deep emotional bond with users. In this regard, Luca is divided into the following three points to achieve:

1. Good at using social media and excellent meme communication skills

Fat Penguin’s activity and popularity on social media is evident. In addition to having over 100,000 followers on Twitter, the team has put a lot of effort and attention into web2's platform.

Especially on Instagram, Fat Penguin has as many as 360,000 followers. By constantly updating cute little penguin content every day, it has attracted a lot of attention and comments. Some of the short animations posted even received 400,000 likes. Such a high degree of interaction makes it easy for Fat Penguin to establish close connections and emotional bonds with a large number of young user groups.

2. Short and quick content first, and use influence to monetize authorizations

Luca expressed his deep agreement with the evaluation of a Twitter post describing "Fat Penguin" as the doge of the NFT world. He thoughtfully considers this similarity, which is mainly reflected in the meme orientation. His goal is to spread these memes widely. For example, he chose Giphy. The advantage of this platform is that it has been integrated into many large web2 platforms, especially Twitter. Memes are everywhere, and the power of user UGC can easily promote IP to every corner of the Internet.

In his view, the main role of social media is to serve as the top layer of the conversion funnel, allowing more people to become familiar with and love the brand. For example, in the United States, the highest proportion of users using Giphy is between the ages of 18 and 29, reaching 37%. If these young people, especially those in web3 circles, were now receiving gifs with penguin images from friends and family, they would immediately realize that this project is being actively promoted.

Luca believes that the Gif meme strategy particularly appeals to this age group and can increase their affection for the project and potentially convert them into Penguin supporters and advocates.

However, in the end, social media mainly serves brand communication rather than a direct monetization channel. At present, these exposure and interaction data, especially the active interaction of young people, are powerful bargaining chips for the team to negotiate with licensees and content production studios. This is similar to the launch strategy of domestic trendy IPs. First, let everyone have a good impression of the brand and characters through some cute images and quick content, instead of investing heavily in the production of long-term content from the beginning and relying on animated series with stories. content to extend the life of the character and realize long-term monetization of IP.

3. The success and commercial value of the brand are shared with NFT holders

Luca firmly believes that the web3 project should make full use of one of the unique advantages of NFT - attracting the attention of 5,000-10,000 people and making them die-hard supporters of the brand. During preliminary research on major NFT head projects, he found that BAYC’s approach was the best. By allowing early holders to receive generous returns, BAYC has successfully built the foundation of trust in the community, prompting community members to spontaneously become advocates and promoters of the project. Although 5,000 people is not a small number, if you have 5,000 powerful communicators, it is not out of reach to build a business worth hundreds of millions. People will support you because it is closely tied to their interest in holding the NFT.

Therefore, looking back on the business development of Fat Penguin, no matter what form the IP eventually grows into: whether it is a game, a TV show, or a physical toy, the key is to be able to continuously feed back the value accumulated in the business to NFT to ensure the continued growth of the core community.

Conclusion: Whether NFT can be perfectly integrated with the traditional entertainment industry, projects such as Pudgy Penguins need to work hard

After exploring a variety of IP operation and licensing models, Fat Penguin successfully pushed the NFT narrative into the web2 world. However, this shift has not been without controversy. Some people question: Does the fat penguin only exist as a toy?

In response to this issue, Luca Netz gave his opinion in an interview with the media. He said that Fat Penguin regards physical toys as a "Trojan horse" for the web3 ecosystem and NFT. He believes that NFT income is unsustainable and cannot truly grow. The purpose of launching physical toys is to make the company's operations more sustainable. Through physical toys, they hope to create an intellectual property that transcends the current ecosystem.

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Concept poster for Pudgy Penguins

Luca Netz’s strategy shows that he knows how to achieve long-term development and growth of brands and businesses through physical products. This will not only bring more stable and sustained income to Fat Penguin, but also help further expand its market influence and brand awareness.

This strategy of Fat Penguin is a bold attempt and innovation that closely connects the virtual world with the real world, demonstrating the infinite possibilities between NFT and physical products. Through physical toys, Fat Penguin can not only attract a wider consumer group, but also provide a new development direction and perspective for NFT projects. The success of this strategy will provide valuable experience and reference for other NFT projects and brands, and will further promote the integration and interaction between NFT and the physical world.

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