Emily Elyse Miller knows a thing or two about breakfast.
Not only has the one-time journalist and fashion trends forecaster written a book on the topic (complete with 380 recipes from 80 countries), but she’d also run a consulting company that helped world-renowned chefs like Enrique Olvera develop breakfast events.
But after years of writing and teaching about first-meal, Miller realized that cereal, the centerpiece of the American breakfast for generations of kids and adults, had gone stale. So she decided to start a cereal company of her own to reinvent the category.
Called OffLimits, Miller’s company created a line of irreverent brands like Dash and Zombie, each with its own ‘moody mascot’ and a clean ingredient list.
The funky mascots were important for Miller, because while she loved the rainbow-colored pop culture she grew up with in the cereal aisle, she felt it was time for something new.
“Tony the Tiger is not cool,” said Miller. “Cereal is one of the only products that carry culture in this unique way, and that culture has not been updated in decades.”
Miller worked with artists to design the cereal brands’ characters and boxes. Now, she sees NFTs as a natural evolution to bring the creations to life and connect directly with the OffLimits’ community.
“The mascots have moody personalities, and there are highs and lows to those personalities too,” said Miller. “They have mental health issues as much as they have kind of successes and wins, and I think that’s what makes the brand so right for building out in the Web3 space.”
New to Web3, Miller initially started small by giving away NFTs during a pop-up at the Art Basel art fair last December in Miami Beach. Attendees of the pop-up scanned a QR code to claim an NFT for what Miller describes as the first-ever “NFT cereal toy.” The giveaway was gamified, so some who scanned got an “exploding cereal” NFT and given an OffLimits cereal variety pack.
The Art Basel NFT giveaway gave Miller confidence to go bigger. “My first NFT protect was just so I could understand who would claim it and if people would care at all,” said Miller. “People very much cared, so that helped just like solidify that I get to pay a lot more attention to this.”
That extra attention resulted in a new NFT project announced this week called “Best Cereal in the Metaverse.” The project will feature a collection of 2,500 NFTs (.111 Etherium (~$290)), each with its own unique artist-created spin on an OffLimits’ mascot. In addition to unique artwork, NFT owners gain access to the private discord and can participate in the custom cereal box design process by submitting an NFT they own to be featured on a custom-designed cereal box. Each NFT holder will also get four of the custom-designed boxes of cereal shipped to their home.
OffLimits is part of a bigger trend of upstart food brands pushing into NFTs. Startups like Bored Breakfast Club, Liquid Death, and Yerb have all launched NFT projects over the past few months as a way to directly connect with their customers and create a new commerce model. For Miller, while all of this is exciting and represents opportunity, there’s still lots of work to do.
“While people were excited to learn about an NFT (with the first project) and potentially claim it, the amount of questions that we got and education that we have to do for our community who are not crypto native is a lot,” said Miller. “So brands need to take their responsibility.”
That responsibility also means talking to other brands curious about the Web3 space and conveying what she’s learned.
“I’ve been talking to so many brands about how they can be more involved in the space,” said Miller. “For me, everything’s about functionality, which is why I wanted this project to have a lot of layers. I wanted to involve our existing community to help grow a larger community of artists and just keep a circle of engagement going. That’s why I feel like there needs to be a physical product for something digital, trying to keep a good balance.”
If you want to sign up for the OffLimits NFT, you can do so here.
