With close to 60 million members worldwide, Starbucks Rewards is the most successful loyalty program in retail, generating around 50% of its business. It’s fair to say that every time a customer gets a free latte with their Starbucks stars or orders a drink on the app, the credit should go to Adam Brotman.

Then-Starbucks Chief Digital Officer Brotman led the design of the mobile ordering and payment system and created its rewards program, which launched in 2009. He then left Starbucks in 2018 for a brief stint as president, chief experience officer, and co-head executive. from retailer J.Crew.

Brotman fell down the crypto “rabbit hole” in January 2021, when he studied blockchain technology and all things Web3 with venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur Andy Sack. That’s when he came across non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which he described as a “great and innovative tool for brands.”

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NFTs “can be a storytelling mechanism because of the metadata that it can include and that can be bookmarked. You can have a rarity curve that gives you all the surface areas to tell stories and build brands. But because it’s collectible, there’s a digital asset that can also form a sense of identity, you can get community, and you can also get utility out of it,” Brotman told CoinDesk. In August 2021, Brotman and Sack co-founded Forum3 , a Web3 loyalty startup to advise retailers.

At the time, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, who has returned twice to run Starbucks, was back at the helm as interim CEO. He was curious about Web3’s loyalty concept, and in speaking with Brotman, he became convinced that it would be a powerful way to innovate Starbucks customer loyalty and engagement.

In September, Starbucks officially announced the concept of Starbucks Odyssey, a rewards program that allows customers to purchase and earn digital collectible stamps, also known as NFTs, that offer benefits and immersive experiences. The company opened a waiting list to gauge interest. In early November, Brotman said he and Starbucks were “very excited” about the number, but declined to disclose what it was.

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“They wanted to have a separate brand, but also a brand and a name that would evoke the idea of ​​romance and the fun of traveling and collecting stamps in your passport and stuff. So a lot of the Starbucks Odyssey nomenclature is based on the game in yes and the experience itself, which is an extension of the rewards program,” Brotman said.

Now, Brotman and his team are working closely with Starbucks on Starbucks Odyssey, expected to launch later this month. With Starbucks as Forum3’s third client, Brotman expects to work with hundreds of brands over the next year. Although the public’s passion for NFTs has cooled, for Brotman the speculative nature of the asset was never his primary concern.

“I’m just as excited now as I was then. [the first time he knew about NFTs] because it was always the combination of collectability and commitment to the brand that excited me. So that emotion hasn’t changed at all,” Brotman said.