Introducing sneaker collectors to digital ownership

eBay ran two sneaker events in 2022, OG Drops Manchester and Sneaker Con London. I ran the KnownOrigin side: the POAPs, the digital wearable, and a claim route that started with an email address instead of a wallet. 56% of attendees claimed one.

The eBay × KnownOrigin stand at Sneaker Con London, with the T-shirts on the wall and the digital wearable on screen

Role: Senior Digital Marketing Lead, eBay
Period: 2022
Disciplines: Activation · Research · Community

The problem: eBay wanted to know whether its sneaker collectors, most with no exposure to crypto, would take up digital collectibles at all.
What I did: Ran the KnownOrigin side of two eBay activations, OG Drops Manchester and Sneaker Con London: the POAPs, a Decentraland wearable, and a claim route that began with an email address.
The result: 56%Of event attendees claimed a digital collectibleOG Drops Manchester and Sneaker Con London, 2022. The team’s reporting at the time.
39%Conversion from email to app download
70+Influencers engaged across the two activationsBoth activations, 2022. The team’s reporting at the time.

eBay bought KnownOrigin in June 2022. Sneakers are one of eBay’s most active collector categories, which made them the obvious place to test whether its collectors would take a digital collectible when most had never used a crypto wallet.

eBay ran two sneaker events that year: OG Drops in Manchester in October, and Sneaker Con at Olympia London on 10 December. I ran the KnownOrigin side of both. That covered the digital collectibles (a POAP for each event and, in London, a wearable for Decentraland), the route for claiming them, the KnownOrigin team on the stand, and the social posts before and after.

The risk was a gimmick. Someone with no exposure to blockchain had to be able to claim something in a minute, and it had to feel worth keeping.

What was wrong, and what I did about it

The audience was sceptical about NFTs

Frame them as mementos, not investments

The sneaker community had limited exposure to NFTs and plenty of scepticism about digital ownership. Traditional collectors valued physical items they could display and trade in person.

We introduced digital assets through POAPs (proof of attendance), which positioned them as digital mementos rather than speculative assets. In Manchester the POAP was made from sticker designs by the artists louis16art and yoy_vector. That framing landed with a collector mindset, presenting digital items as extensions of a physical collection rather than a replacement for one.

The technical barrier was the real barrier

Email first, wallets later

Most attendees had no crypto wallet and no blockchain knowledge. Asking them to navigate an exchange or set up a wallet would have ended the journey before it started.

We designed an onboarding flow that let people claim a digital asset without cryptocurrency or technical knowledge. It started with an email signup and introduced wallet concepts gradually. In London, anyone who left with a flyer could claim the wearable afterwards by following the steps on it.

Purely digital assets felt weightless

Design both halves as one set

For people who collect physical things, a purely digital asset often has no felt value. Without a clear connection to something tangible, the digital items risked reading as novelties.

Tegan Price designed the artwork for London: the eBay Sneakers T-shirts, the stand wall and the Decentraland wearable. The shirt someone bought and the wearable they claimed were the same piece, so each half made the other worth more.

Novelty wears off

Attach real utility

Plenty of early NFT projects failed to establish value beyond initial hype. Without utility, a digital asset is a one-time souvenir rather than part of an ongoing relationship.

We gave the assets a role: access to future events, raffle entries for physical products, and wearables usable in the metaverse.

The stand’s screens reading “Collect an eBay event POAP” and “Get your unique digital wearable”, beside Tegan Price’s eBay Sneakers wall dated 10 December 2022 — Sneaker Con London, 10 December 2022: the claim screens on the eBay × KnownOrigin stand, and Tegan Price’s eBay Sneakers wall.

The framework it produced

Hype

Pre-event education and anticipation: content explaining digital collectibles in collector-friendly language, artists chosen to resonate with sneaker culture, and email nurture that walked people through the concept before they arrived.

Event

Frictionless experience on the day: in-person onboarding help from the KnownOrigin team, QR codes to claim assets, and physical representations of the digital items on display.

Maintain

Ongoing value after the event: additional utility announced for POAP holders, digital raffles requiring a connected wallet, and clear routes into eBay’s wider Web3 work.

The framework turned one-off events into sustained engagement, with the digital assets acting as the connective tissue between a physical experience and an ongoing relationship with the brand.

What we learned

The activations were as much research as marketing. These are the findings that were useful afterwards.

Collector framing beats investment framing

Positioning digital assets as an extension of collecting rather than as an investment significantly increased receptivity. Collectors immediately understood limited digital items when described in familiar terms.

Email first beats wallet first

A gradual approach starting with a familiar mechanism, then introducing blockchain concepts, worked better than asking for wallet creation up front.

Physical anchors carry the value

Digital assets connected to a physical experience or product had markedly higher perceived value. The visual link between the t-shirts and their digital counterparts is what made the digital items legitimate.

People in the room change the conversion rate

Having KnownOrigin team members present significantly improved conversion, because questions and scepticism could be addressed face to face.

Infrastructure is a conversion factor

Reliable venue wifi turned out to be a material determinant of on-site claim rates. Practical logistics affected the numbers as much as the creative did.

What we found out

This engagement was designed to produce findings as much as figures. Both are reported as they were.

Results, with the figure and its basis
Metric	Figure	What it measures	Basis
Uptake	56%	Of event attendees claimed a digital asset: strong appetite when they are positioned as collectibles rather than investments OG Drops Manchester and Sneaker Con London, 2022. The team’s reporting at the time.	OG Drops Manchester and Sneaker Con London, 2022. The team’s reporting at the time.
Onboarding	39%	Conversion from email signup to POAP app download, showing that educational content could overcome the initial barrier Both activations, 2022. The team’s reporting at the time.	Both activations, 2022. The team’s reporting at the time.
Influencers engaged	70+	Across both activations Both activations, 2022. The team’s reporting at the time.	Both activations, 2022. The team’s reporting at the time.
Sentiment	Positive	Qualitative feedback showed minimal negativity towards NFTs among sneaker collectors, which validated the strategic hypothesis Qualitative: gathered on site, not a survey instrument.	Qualitative: gathered on site, not a survey instrument.
Primary friction point	Wallet setup	Wallet creation remained the main barrier, which is why email-first onboarding proved essential Observed at both events.	Observed at both events.
Scalability	Validated	The framework worked across two different event formats, suggesting it could extend to other eBay collector categories Two events; not yet tested outside sneakers.	Two events; not yet tested outside sneakers.

Figures are as measured at the time, on the basis stated against each one. Where an outcome was not a number, it is reported as a finding rather than converted into one.

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