What the Web3?

In this episode of the Web3 Marketing Association Podcast, hosts Suresh and Dave Wallace are joined by Adam White – now known as Phoenix – entrepreneur, visionary, and founder of Edge.gg and the new project Spirit Tribe.Phoenix shares his journey from sports law and esports innovation to building Edge, a platform often described as the “Uber for influencers,” designed to validate and monetise creator content. He reflects on the evolution of Edge, its acquisition journey, and the role of Web3 in unlocking authenticity, ownership, and trust for creators and brands.The conversation then shifts to Phoenix’s personal transformation and his latest venture, Spirit Tribe. This bold initiative blends community building, spirituality, and Web3 technology, aiming to create global tribes where members share resources, embrace authenticity, and live beyond fear. With NFTs, festivals, and shared land ownership, Spirit Tribe seeks to redefine wealth and community in a post-matrix world.Key themes explored include authenticity as the foundation of Web3 marketing, the power of community over audience, the potential of NFTs as enablers of identity and ownership, and the intersection of spirituality, sustainability, and technology.The episode offers marketers a thought-provoking look at how Web3 can foster communities with genuine purpose – and why the future of identity, belonging, and brand engagement may lie well beyond traditional frameworks.

In this inaugural episode of the Web3 Marketing Association Podcast, hosts Dave Wallace and Suresh Balaji are joined by Chris Clark, former Group Head of Marketing at HSBC, to reflect on the lessons of Web1 and Web2 and explore what Web3 means for marketers.Suresh introduces the mission of the Web3 Marketing Association: to help marketers navigate a future shaped by decentralisation, community ownership, and new models of engagement. He outlines how Web3 could upend traditional marketing tools—cookies, platform partnerships, and first-party data—while opening new opportunities for co-creation, token-enabled loyalty, and gamified brand experiences.Chris draws parallels with past seismic shifts, comparing today’s transition to the moment humanity moved from barter to money. He recalls the early awe of Web1 (“changing a car’s colour on a Land Rover website”) and the mobile revolution of Web2, before stressing that Web3 has the potential to rebalance power away from corporations and towards communities. For him, marketers must be the bridge between customers and corporations—representing users in boardrooms and shaping rather than passively receiving the next internet era.The conversation ranges from the role of gaming and digital ownership to the impact of Web3 on sustainability, healthcare, and education. Both Chris and Suresh emphasise the importance of doing, not just observing—encouraging marketers to experiment with wallets, NFTs, and DAOs to gain first-hand understanding.This episode sets the tone for the series: Web3 is not just a technology shift but a cultural one. Marketers have a rare opportunity—and responsibility—to shape a more democratic, customer-centred digital future.

In this episode of the Web3 Marketing Association Podcast, hosts Suresh and Dave Wallace are joined by Adam Buehler, Senior Vice President of Creative Technology at Digitas North America. Together, they dive into the fast-moving worlds of generative AI and Web3, exploring how these two transformative technologies are beginning to converge.Adam outlines the rapid rise of generative AI—its “iPhone moment”—and explains why tools like ChatGPT and MidJourney are changing the way marketers, brands, and creatives think about content. From automating everyday tasks to reimagining search, art, and design, generative AI is no longer speculative: it is disrupting industries in real time.The discussion also touches on the risks: deepfakes, hallucinations, and the erosion of trust in digital content. Adam explains how blockchain and Web3 technologies could provide solutions, particularly through cryptographic provenance and content authentication standards such as C2PA, which could safeguard society against a collapse of shared reality.Throughout, the trio debate how AI might reshape the agency model, whether brands should set new guardrails on creative content, and how marketers can responsibly harness these tools. A recurring theme is partnership: machines won’t replace humans, but humans who use machines will outpace those who don’t.This is a thought-provoking conversation for marketers, creatives, and technologists alike—highlighting both the promise and peril of the coming collision between AI and Web3.

In this episode of the Web3 Marketing Association Podcast, hosts Dave Wallace and Suresh Balaji are joined by Angela Dalton, founder and CEO of Signum Growth Capital, to explore the intersection of gaming, NFTs, and Web3—and what it means for marketers.Angela shares her career journey from equities and investment banking to becoming one of the first esports analysts, before founding Signum to advise at the crossroads of culture and crypto. She explains how video games have long served as a proving ground for digital ownership, with skins and in-game items functioning as early forms of social capital. NFTs, she argues, are simply a natural extension of behaviours gamers already understand.The conversation covers the explosive growth of digital assets in gaming, the rise (and pitfalls) of play-to-earn models, and why the future lies in “play and own”—where identity, property rights, and interoperability across platforms reshape how people engage online. Angela discusses examples such as Burberry’s Sharky drop in Blankos and Balenciaga’s collaboration with Fortnite, showing how brands can enter authentically if they align with existing gamer behaviours.Beyond gaming, Angela highlights broader structural shifts: the need for interoperability across blockchains, the role of Polkadot in enabling cross-chain communication, and the opportunity for marketers to simplify and humanise Web3 education. She argues that Web3 isn’t just about technology—it’s about building fairer systems where creators, communities, and companies share value more equitably.For marketers, the key takeaway is clear: Web3 is not just a channel, but a cultural shift. The brands that succeed will be those that respect community norms, embrace transparency, and help bridge the gap between complex technology and everyday human behaviour.

In this episode of the Web3 Marketing Association Podcast, hosts Suresh Balaji and Dave Wallace are joined by Matt Smolin, co-founder and CEO of Hang.xyz, to explore the future of loyalty and membership programmes in a Web3 world.Matt shares his entrepreneurial journey from trading desks in finance to building consumer tech, and ultimately pivoting into Hang after an earlier business was disrupted by COVID-19. He explains how Hang was founded in late 2021 with the mission to reinvent customer engagement through NFT-powered loyalty—creating membership systems that are more flexible, interoperable, and rewarding than traditional models.The discussion covers the shortcomings of legacy loyalty programmes—closed systems, extractive models, lack of interoperability—and how Web3 technology can address them. With NFTs, loyalty becomes portable, tradable, and even tiered in ways that benefit both consumers and brands. Dave and Suresh explore scenarios ranging from airline miles you could rent out, to employee loyalty schemes validated on-chain, to interoperable memberships that travel with you across platforms and experiences.Matt stresses that the value proposition for brands isn’t “NFTs” as a buzzword but solving real problems: rising customer acquisition costs, fragmented data, and the need to build lasting community-driven engagement. He outlines practical paths for CMOs—from layering Web3 onto existing loyalty programmes, to experimenting with VIP segments, to creating new models entirely off-chain-compatible but Web3-enabled.The episode also touches on the regulatory and financial implications of tokenised loyalty, the challenges of moving liabilities off balance sheets, and the potential role of agencies and consultancies in scaling adoption.For marketers, the message is clear: loyalty is evolving from transactional points systems to community-driven value exchanges, where customers become stakeholders rather than just consumers. Web3-powered loyalty isn’t just the future—it’s already here.