Macy's Parade NFT Donation Campaign – Macy's Inc. & Make-A-Wish
With the 95th anniversary of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade® falling in 2021, the iconic department store sought to give customers a way to do good as the “season of giving” got underway.
Given the rapid growth of Non-Fungible Token (NFT) adoption and social chatter over the past year, producing its first set of NFTs for public collection was an area of interest for the company.
Macy’s looked to NFTs as a way for the public to own a digital parade collectible while also raising money for Make-A-Wish. In addition, it was an opportunity to bring innovation to the partnership and the brand and reach a younger audience. Make-A-Wish and Macy’s have been partners since 2003, and in that time, Macy’s has provided more than $140 million in donations.
For this program, Macy’s created animated MP4 NFT artwork featuring balloons that had flown in Thanksgiving Parades of the past 10 decades.
The brand released 10 ‘Epic’ NFTs, one per decade, which were made available for public auction, with 100% of proceeds going to Make-A-Wish. Later that month, the brand also announced 9,500 free NFTs, of varying rarities, available for free during the live NBC broadcast. Ten percent of all secondary market sales in perpetuity would be donated to Make-A-Wish upon each transaction.
The program raised more than $250 thousand for Make-A-Wish through the auction, and additional funds will be raised as the NFTs are sold over time.
The program garnered over 600 million media impressions, and press efforts received attention from top national and international media outlets. The campaign marked the first time Macy’s incorporated one of its charity partners into the Thanksgiving Parade broadcast, one of the most viewed television events of the year. Thanks to this help, Make-A-Wish granted more than 9,500 wishes in 2021.
