Wawa created its own NFTs, and the internet had thoughts — but 40k still entered to win one

When Wawa announced on social media Friday that it was releasing its own NFTs as part of its annual Hoagiefest marketing campaign, some ardent fans of the convenience store chain took it very personally.

Responses on Twitter to the announcement included “This is the worst day of my life Wawa please don’t do this” to “there is truly nothing sacred left to live for” and “can’t look at wawa in the face anymore after this.”

One fan tweeting under the handle @BefishProd even wrote a free verse poem to the convenience store chain:

“MY HEART IS BROKEN NOOOO

MY NIGHT IS RUINED

MY LIFE IS RUINED

I CRY EVERY DAY AND EVERY HOUR

WAWA HOW COULD YOU

Ive never been so betrayed.”

Others likened the company’s decision to get into NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, to Anakin Skywalker’s turn to the dark side of the Force in Star Wars. A few people sent Wawa a GIF of Obi-Wan Kenobi screaming “It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them.”

One person even lobbed the line “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” from the 2008 Batman film, The Dark Knight, at Wawa.

And, of course, Sheetz fans didn’t waste a minute in declaring the announcement meant their team had secured victory in the long-waging Pennsylvania convenience store battle.

“I see Sheetz has finally won the war and they didn’t even do anything,” one Twitter user wrote.

Even though Wawa is giving away and not selling its 5,000+ NFTs — which the company describes as “one-of-kind digital collectible artwork” of its Hoagiefest “characters, backgrounds, hoagies, and accessories” — the negative reaction to the announcement on social media illustrated just how controversial NFTs remain.

According to Mike DiPietro, an assistant professor of marketing at La Salle University, an NFT is a “unique, irreplaceable, verifiable, digital piece of work” whose authenticity is tracked by blockchain technology.

NFTs are often bought and sold online with cryptocurrency and allow artists to sell their digital work for thousands, or sometimes, millions of dollars. The works can be anything from videos to digital images, from autographs to avatars. In 2021 alone, the NFT market reached a $41 billion value, according to Business Insider.

But the NFT market is also considered volatile and risky, prone to scammers, and bad for the environment, since the blockchain technology needed to conduct transactions and verify NFTs requires a large network of computers that uses a lot of energy, according to Forbes and Wired.

Yet many companies and celebrities, from Adidas to Madonna, have entered the world of NFTs. Even Major League Baseball announced it was getting into the NFT game this year, with digital baseball cards.

DiPietro said Wawa NFTs could be the company’s foray into the metaverse, a theoretical 3-D world users will interact with through a virtual-reality headset (think the OASIS in Ready Player One). Citing a 2022 paper from the consulting group McKinsey & Company, DiPietro said private-equity funding in the metaverse is already in excess of $120 billion this year (compared to $13 billion last year), and 59% of consumers surveyed were excited about transitioning to the metaverse.

“With the digital asset, Wawa may want to drive their customers to the metaverse, to digital content for a future strategy they may have,” he said. “Maybe those people can form a metaverse community, and obviously, they got people talking.”

While you won’t be able to eat a hoagie in the metaverse, one day you may be able to earn points toward a free hoagie by playing a game there, or you might be able to visit the Wawa room of an art museum to see a bunch of Hoagiefest NFTs on display, DiPietro said.

“This may be a way for Wawa to look at NFTs and do more research so they have the skill level when this becomes something that is more common,” he said. “When you take a look at research firms that are evaluating what growth looks like in this arena and you see a statistic that 59% of consumers are willing to have a relationship in the metaverse with companies they do business with, it’s hard to ignore if you’re the chief marketing officer.”

Despite the backlash Wawa received on social media, Wawa spokesperson Lori Bruce said the response to the campaign has been “overwhelming.” The company received more than 40,000 entries for the sweepstakes, which runs through July 24, in its first two days alone, she said.

”While we don’t expect everyone to be intrigued by the world of NFTs, we are excited to see such excitement with so many entries received in just the first few days of the sweepstakes,” she said.

Bruce stressed that Wawa is not selling its NFTs, nor will it receive profits if they are eventually sold, but the chain’s charitable partners could benefit from any future sales of them, she said.

According to a news release, 11 winners will receive one “rare” animated Wawa NFT with a personalized shirt that matches their NFT, as well as a Hoagiefest social swag pack. One winner will get a rare animated Wawa NFT co-branded with Reese’s, a personalized shirt that matches their NFT, and swag packs from Wawa and Reese’s. Fifty people get an NFT, a shirt, and a swag pack, and 3,950 will receive one NFT.

Everyone else will just have to settle for the memes.