Weekly World News NFTs

2021 will go down as the year of the NFT. While it might also be the year of the NFT bubble, the technology behind NFTs is expected to last and will likely touch our lives in unexpected ways. Brands are smart to explore NFTs from a marketing and a business perspective in these early days.

I was fortunate to collaborate with the iconic tabloid, Weekly World News—the home of Bat Boy—to create their first NFT project. With the publication’s vast content and character library (110,000+ stories and over 300 characters), digital collectibles are a good fit for WWN. We viewed this project as a learning experience in preparation for more significant NFT launches planned for 2022.

While Weekly World News has legendary covers that have appeared in movies and been photographed with presidents, we decided to go out with three new NFT-only, 1 of 1 covers featuring topical crypto/NFT related headlines. As a bonus, we also offered one classic cover featuring Bat Boy, and all NFTs came bundled with a physical copy of WWN's “Greatest Covers” limited edition print issue.

I co-wrote story headlines with WWN editor-in-chief Greg D’Alessandro and designed the covers and photo composites. We also developed a marketing/publicity plan to push the word out on their social channels and the media at large.

The three special edition NFT covers.

The covers were also available as a set.

Social media ad.

Example of tweet highlighting one of the cover's secondary stories with a link to the auction on OpenSea. These were tweeted out over the course of the auction. Images below were among the stories featured.

Additional images used in tweets.

Since black & white images dominate Weekly World New's social media channels, we used some color ads to catch the viewer's eye while staying on brand.