Suresh and Dave chat with Diego Borgo Web3 Executive Advisor

In this episode of the Web3 Marketing Association Podcast, hosts Suresh Balaji and Dave Wallace are joined by Diego Borgo, brand consultant, advisor, NFT collector, and educator, to explore what it takes for brands to enter the metaverse responsibly and meaningfully.

Diego shares his journey from 18 years in digital marketing to advising Fortune 500 companies like Adidas, Unilever, Volkswagen, and Salesforce on Web3 strategy. His work spans three pillars: consulting global brands on how to engage with Web3, advising NFT-native projects at the cutting edge of innovation, and educating through panels, keynotes, and his new Nas Academy Masterclass on how brands should enter the metaverse.

The conversation highlights a critical mentality shift—from consumers to co-creators, from one-way communication to community collaboration. Diego explains how leading brands are already thinking in terms of perpetual royalties for artists, shared ownership models, and “win–win–win” outcomes where brands, creators, and communities all benefit.

They also discuss the challenges of user experience, onboarding, and community engagement. Discord, while central today, is seen as a “necessary evil,” with better solutions on the horizon. Diego emphasises the importance of frictionless entry points—like fiat payments and digital collectibles—to bring mainstream audiences into Web3 without overwhelming them with technical barriers.

For marketers, this episode underscores the opportunity—and responsibility—of embracing Web3 as more than a technology trend. It is a cultural shift towards decentralisation, collaboration, and community-powered brand building. Diego argues that the brands willing to adapt will not only survive this transition but may redefine what brand power means in the digital age.

Transcript

Speaker 00: 0:00

Chances are if you ran into Diego Borga on the Metaverse playground, what with his pink knit cap and black hoodie, you might think he was just another whiz kid with some really cool ideas. Well, guess again and again and again. Diego Borga might be just as searing a thought leader in the Metaverse as anyone you're going to meet. And today on the Web3 Marketing Association podcast, he walks us through how to get into the space and talks about his incredible masterclass that he has put together to help people make the leap into this exciting new future.

Speaker 02: 0:51

latest thinking at the very cutting edge of marketing. We aim to bring you insightful and interesting discussion about Web3 and the metaverse and other emergent digital trends. And here are your hosts, Dave Wallace and Suresh Balaji.

Suresh: 1:09

Hello, everyone. It's our absolute pleasure to welcome Diego Borgo to the Web3 Marketing Association podcast. Your hosts today are Suresh Balaji, myself, and Dave Wallace, founders of Web3 Marketing Association. We are so excited to have Diego here. Diego, actually, I don't have to introduce him, but I will try and do justice if I can. Diego is a huge aficionado of Web3. He's a massive ambassador for all things Web3. He collects NFTs. He advises massive global brands, one end from Adidas all the way to enterprise level organizations like Salesforce. He's just created his masterclass on NASA Academy, which I'm quite excited to sign up and go to. And Diego is truly a Metaverse Web3 native, right? He's on a massive mission. He truly believes that, you know, he needs to bring mass adoption of the entire Web3 culture, the whole idea of communities and mass and the whole idea of idea of how blockchain, NFTs, etc. find true utilitarian value that can solve lots of problems. I've heard Diego speak before. I'm super excited to meet him actually face to face virtually. Diego, thank you so much for joining us. We would love to hear from you around. Everyone wants to know what on earth is Diego up to now. So tell us a bit about what on earth are you up to now?

Diego: 2:32

Thanks for the intro. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure being here talking to you guys. And yeah, what I'm up to? I think you intro already sort of like my background, right? I've been consulting brands for the last 18 years in digital marketing, digital strategy and branding. That's my Web2 experience. I've been working since I was 16. So I've been, you know, on the agency side, on the client side, learning as much as I could. And then I became, you know, sort of like my own boss through consultancy and advisory for a while ago. And then since December last year, when I left Adidas, which I have been consulting for the last four years, I went all in on NFTs and Web tree and all of that right so that's kind of like My journey in a nutshell, I now do three main things. So as you touched before, the first pillar on the left side is consulting Fortune 500 brands and advising them on how to enter the metaverse and NFT space. So that's kind of like the first pillar. As you said, I work with Salesforce, Unilever, Volkswagen, Real, other brands on that side that are really trying to figure out and get into the space now. So that's kind of like one side of it. On the mid pillar, the second pillar is where I work as an advisor for NFT and Web3 native projects and companies. So that's where I learn most. That's where I keep my knife sharp. That's where I have the great conversations around what is inside of the smart contract, why that rule is in there, why should we be doing this? Is this the best way to do it? What does the community want? How can we replicate things that other projects have done and do it better? So that's really why I stay really close to tech and the edge of innovation is where you always have also the most fun because it's just a very wild, wild space. The The third pillar is education, right? So as you said, I launched my masterclass, which is starting now on the 15th of July, Trunaz Academy, on how brands can enter the metaverse in an empty space. I also do a lot of like panels and keynotes and events and conference and online as well and podcasts. So yeah, that's in a nutshell what I'm up to. That's a lot. I tried to make it short.

Dave: 4:35

So what are you doing in your spare time? It doesn't sound like you've got

Diego: 4:40

any. Well, yeah, I just got son as well my son is 16 months so you know like congratulations

Dave: 4:45

amazing

Diego: 4:46

he tells me when to stop where to go and what to do

Suresh: 4:49

i love it

Diego: 4:50

love it i

Suresh: 4:50

mean we are building web3 for his generation in some ways right and web3 marketing association we always and our elevator pitches we are this generation of marketers influencing the next generation of the internet and the things that you're doing are quite important for the build out of web3 because i think we all agree that web3 is not here yet and it needs to be built in a way that it's the most responsible way that Dave and I constantly talk about, this information asymmetry. It's the Web 2.0 organizations who don't understand what Web 3.0 is. Web 3.0 organizations don't want to build a bridge to Web 2.0. How do we collectively go towards a better future, a better internet is the question. Your first pillar is deep into Fortune 500 companies. Your second pillar is deep into Web 3.0. Do you feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or are you just Diego in both places? How do you bridge these two?

Diego: 5:41

Two great questions. I think the first one on sort of like how we go about educating and helping those brands and the industry really on this new technology. And I stress a lot that we spend too much time on the technology. That's why it makes so hard for people to come in. I like to see Web3 as a mentality. What's happening rather than a fundamental shift in culture and technology because of blockchain, because of NFTs, because of metaverse, because of all of it. More than that, and most importantly, is a shift in mentality. When you're sitting in those rooms and you're talking to Fortune 500 brands that now are asking, you know, oh, okay, so how much percent you think we should be giving to the artists on their smart contract? Because when we are doing that project with him or her, that's how we roll, right? That for me is mentality shift, which is incredible because before you would pay a flat fee to an agency to do the artwork of whatever company you're building and they get a flat fee and that's it, right? But now every brand I speak with they are already thinking that way. They're like, okay, what is the cut they take on primary? What is their royalty in perpetuity for secondary? And I'm just mind blown that we are there at that level that, you know, is so exciting. So when you're talking to brands,

Dave: 6:55

they are already thinking around campaigns about the rights that the producers and NFTs in them. Is that what you're saying?

Diego: 7:04

Exactly. Exactly.

Dave: 7:07

Wow.

Diego: 7:07

The WebTree mentality that I play a lot with is the win-win win, right? So Web3 stands for win, win, win.

Dave: 7:14

Yeah.

Diego: 7:15

Where in this specific example, the brand is going to win because obviously it's a brand initiative. The artist, creator, partner wins because there is a rep share model that is being fought through by the brands already. And the community is going to win because most of the time, this artist is from the community anyway. So you're bringing value, adding value back to the community rather than extracting. All I'm trying to illustrate with that analogy and example is that we're going through a mentality shift, especially in marketing, because that's where I always started with NFTs. So 90% of the time I speak with brands, I'm talking to the marketing department, right? So like social marketing are the first departments that got it because they're very close to culture and they are trying to explore on how they can go down that path now and utilize utilize this new medium to bring value or build brand or generate revenue, whatever they have in mind. To your point, education for me and that mentality shift was kind of like what I really try to stress and where I really try to work really hard with the brands. I am in those rooms, the same person that I am in Twitter, Discord, the DGN that really love all about it. And the value I bring to the table is to be native to the space and to be the one that raise the arm whenever I see bullshit or whenever I see the brand going to a different direction that I feel the community or the space or all this mentality we are shaping and building together as a whole is not being taken into consideration.

Dave: 8:56

The brands you're talking to, are they ones which are ahead of the game? And as a follow-up question to that, are they pulling you in or are you pushing yourself in to those brands? Because from what you're describing, there is a sort of sea change, which I have to confess... I haven't observed, but can absolutely understand. So I was just wondering what sort of brands are leading the way around this.

Diego: 9:20

Yeah, that's a great question. So there are different levels of education and purpose and ideas within those brands. And it's not necessarily connected to the size, it's more connected to the people that started the conversation. Every single brand I know of that I've worked with, or I spoke with, or I had engagements with, There is always a big gen within the brand that starts it. There is always someone that is deep into the space, that being six months, 12 months, 24 months. That's how deep you could potentially be right now, unless you are a truly OG that has been around since 2010, 11, 12, 15, 17. So there is always that first person that starts the conversation, raise the arm and get people to talk about it. So depending on how much traction that person has got and how much education that person was able to do, there are different levels within the brands I work with that they will be at. But essentially what I have seen the last, let's say three to four months is a major shift on education when it comes to four months ago, every brand will come and say, we want to do a collectible. We want to do a PFP. We want to pay heritage for our brands. We want to launch 20,000, 10,000, 5,000 of whatever things that pay back to our history because we no, we can make, I don't know, 300 grand, 400 grand, 500 grand right now within this market. That was the pitch I was getting. And a lot of them I declined and I haven't necessarily engaged with because I felt it was too early for them and they needed to go through that education process so they see the bigger picture. That conversation has changed now. One thing that's happening that's really exciting is that I'm starting to talk to people that are not from marketing and social departments. I'm starting to talk to people that are from product. I'm starting to talk to people that are from my consumer journey I'm starting to talk to people from like e-commerce. So that's displaying for me that one, more people are interested in looking deeper, not necessarily just on PR stunt or a social stunt or anything like that, but also that there are looking to different use cases on how they can play for the long term. That's what's interesting on this shift that's happening within those conversations. Going back to your question, the education level is dictated by whoever started that conversation and how much time they invested as a group within the space already. And as soon as you sense check that, then it's a bit easier or harder to move forward.

Suresh: 11:49

What I find fascinating about Web3 is it is a cultural movement as much as it is a technological movement. It's a cultural movement around helping each other and community spirit and because of the whole inherent creator economy in the space. One is on the brand side. So my question to you is on the NFT side, which are not turning into brands now, everything that goes for Gucci from a FOMO is what also goes for MAYC or a BAYC or a Moonbirds. So what are the commonalities do you see between great brands and great NFT projects apart from the FOMO and Rarity and things like those?

Speaker 00: 12:29

Yeah,

Diego: 12:29

those are brands, as you suggested, which is insane to think, especially when you go to like Bored Apes that debuted the biggest brand within the space and considerably will become one of the largest brands in history to have done it without a single penny of marketing investment, without having to do any push out from product or trying to buy space or any of it. Literally what happened was the community brought it there. And because the space went mainstream, they were the ones doing it right. And the community was there. How mind blowing is it to think that they raised 400 million, if I'm not valuation that Star Wars is valued at or that Star Wars was purchased by Disney for. Let's let that sink, right? Star Wars is the most important IP and franchise, if you ask me, in history. And Bored Apes is a project that has been around for about one and a bit year now. And they have been raising money at the same evaluation. And they did. They got Google behind it. They got A16Z behind it. They got Adidas behind it. They got Samsung behind it. That proves the power of brand building natively within the space right now. And it's mind-blowing to think. You can argue that is a bubble. You can argue that is a speculation. You can argue that's overvalued. You can argue that the same happened to the internet back in 2000s. I understand. But the fact that they've built and are where they are right now, especially with the community behind, especially with the power of the brand, is undeniable. So instead of commonalities, the approach I'm trying to get brands to learn from things like that. For example, since we are there, a board aid project, right? Because what they've done, which is really interesting to your point, is the aspect of IP, right? So you can question that from a legal perspective. Obviously, there are terms and conditions that are blurry. I understand that side, but let's keep a bit more on the surface because that's literally what made the project so interesting. People are like, oh, you're telling me I can open my own clothing brand with it? You're telling me that I can do my brewery? You're telling me that I can open up the coffee subscription business with it? That's what made people excited. Burger shop. Burger shop. That was interesting. So what I'm trying to show brands is you were not... the one that should be owning and protecting and putting your brand in this crazy vault that nobody should ever touch, nobody should ever have a say on. What I'm saying is that now within this space, because of the cultural and mindset shift that's happening, you as a brand can take advantage of using your community to shape the future of your brand. Adidas Originals is just about to turn 50 years old. Now imagine if you can get the that's behind Adidas already within the web tree because Adidas was early to do it. And you say, hey, listen, come together with us and let's shape the next 50 years of Adidas. That's the power that now brands have and is a major risk, but you don't need to go all in. You can try here, left and right, small things, but that's the kind of mentality that I'm trying to bring to brands, which obviously everybody's looking to me and thinking that I'm an alien. That's why my PFP is an alien because that's how I feel every day.

Dave: 16:00

But I think the irony of it, actually what you're saying is have more faith in your brand, but not just your brand as a logo and a set of colours. It's your brand and what you really stand for. And actually, it feels like the courageous brands which really get what that means. The brand is the heartbeat of their business. The ones who can adapt and embrace this and really understand the power of communities. Every conversation that Suresh and I have around this topic, Matt we come back to the power of the community. I think it's an incredibly, incredibly interesting moment in time where the power of brands is being reborn. I think it's kind of fascinating what you're saying.

Diego: 16:49

Yeah, I mean, if you want to go there, what is a brand, right? For me, on my words, a brand is basically something that has perceived value from outside that has been built and people are willing to either spend money with or to do display that they can afford or they are connected to that symbol or to that set of values. Now, who are those people behind those brands and why the brands are valued as they are? Those are so-called today in marketing terms, consumers. But what consumers do, they consume. The relationship is one-sided. Now, if you want to look with the mentality shift I'm talking about, now we're going towards communities. Now we are going towards co-creators. Now we're going towards collaborators over consumers because that's how you shape the future. That's how you redesign how that brand looks like because the ones that decide the value of the brand are the consumers, are the community, are the co-creators, right? So what is the difference of someone paying $600, $700 for a Gucci bag and someone paying like $600, $700 for early mint of a doodle? Both of those so-called consumers are betting on values and the people around and what represent for you to be part of that thing, whether by wearing a Gucci logo on or by throwing around a doodle PFP. So I think that a lot of times there are confusions, especially from the brand side, where they feel they're the ones that should be dictating everything and should be saying what consumers should be feeling. But this new mindset shift is happening where they can get together and decide and shape the future of it together. And that's what is exciting. And that's what gets... The decentralization of brands. Essentially, you know, you can call it decentralization. You can call it collaboration. You can call it co-creation. You can call it like, let's put the brand in a DAO. I mean, there's different ways on how we can wrap around that concept. But essentially, this culture essentially is giving people the power to come and add their beat to something that they deeply feel connected with And there's tremendous, tremendous value in there. Move and reset the ideas you had because of heritage, that brands are the ones and most important things, and nobody should be saying what it represents instead of us. How many times you've been in rooms of consumer research? If you launch a Discord like Gucci and Adidas did, overnight, you have 50,000 people there that are either brand fans or speculator investors that are giving you feedback every single second, 24-7 on things you

Suresh: 19:33

can do or you could do or you could be. Going from user-generated content to community-generated product is a big switch between Web 2 to Web 3, right? I love that point, Diego. And I think some brands will get it and some brands won't. Some businesses will be able to take the leap. Some businesses won't. DAO doesn't have a legal standing in most countries. So basically, someone said that DAO is a Discord channel with a balance sheet. So if that's the case, how do we protect people who are investing their time, effort, and protecting the creators over there so that their creative time effort is not lost. Not everybody gets it right. To your point, brands get it wrong. Some NFT projects get it wrong. People end up burning their hands because they end up spending time, effort, and then they get nothing back. Sometimes things just crash. What steps do we need to take as people who are early adopters in the space to ensure a safe passage to Web3?

Diego: 20:30

It's going to be a really important aspect to make sure that there is rules in a playing field that we can all play together now. And the second aspect I would say is user experience. It's literally making it easier for people to come in. I'm talking about like, let's get people paying stuff with Fiat. Let's get credit cards being a payment method. Let's get custodian wallets rather than self-custodian wallets being an option for brands to come into the space because seriously, how complex and difficulties to open a MetaMask account right now. I onboarded over 350 people to this space. I walked them hand by hand on opening MetaMask and explaining seed phrase and all of it. It's hard. It's hard. So we need to give that option and possibility, especially for brands to be within a custodian wallet that they can hold that asset for their consumers and get them to experience their first senses within the space. Why is it exciting? Pull up, for example, because of that. You can claim with your email. You don't need a wallet is your first NFT, but also becomes a collectible, also becomes something historic because you've been to that place and it brings memories. Let's take that mentality. And there is no speculation. There is no really value behind it. There is nothing that you're expecting from it. So let's take that mentality and try to bring more towards the space instead of being this money-making machine, right? Because that's how we're going to get more people excited. Even like instead of calling NFTs, let's call sometimes digital collectibles, you know, it's an easier way to do it. You don't need to go through the Oh, NFT sits on the blockchain. It's no fungible because of this, because you cannot copy, because you cannot... It doesn't matter. It's a digital collectible. You can have here. It's for free. It's fun. You want a wallet? I can help you setting up, right? So I think we need to go through those conversations and mentalities as brands because they're going to be the ones that bring people at scale. People don't care about technology. People care about what technology can enable them to do. So I don't understand how electricity works, but I'm happy every time that I press a button and lights go on. I don't understand how the internet works, but I'm happy I can connect to my Wi-Fi and have that conversation with you. So we need to get with blockchain where we are nowadays with electricity and internet and all of it. And I understand it's going to take time.

Suresh: 22:42

Frictionless experiences is the way to get more people on board in many ways, like you're saying, right? Exactly. And I think it's tough, though. I wouldn't say I'm a technologist, but I'm a technology fan. Dave is a technologist. He built internet companies. Even for us to be on a Discord channel, we've tried. Dave and I have tried, right? We've tried to be on there. You get a headache, right? I mean, I am passionate about Gucci. I am passionate about Lacoste. I am passionate about Adidas. I am passionate about South China Morning Post. I am passionate about Web3 Marketing Association. I am on 20 Discord channels. The minute I take my eyes off one, something has happened on the other one. How can... I have missed something that is evoting or I missed out something else. Creators, we're all multifaceted creatures, right? I mean, we don't have one love for one brand only. We love 20 different brands. How can we keep creators engaged in a manner that it can get mainstream as well is the big question. I don't know if you have any thoughts around creator engagement, influencer engagement in the Web3 world. Yeah, I mean,

Diego: 23:41

Discord is a needed devil right now. We sort of like stole from gaming just because the platform was not built for that. That was not their intention. And it's not their fault. Someone had that idea and made it happen and everybody followed because there's no better option. And we end up where we are. So I feel you. What I highly recommend all brands I work with, as soon as we start talking about community, is maybe you don't need a Discord platform. You've been communicating with your consumers more in a one-way direction. The question is now, how do you open up a two-way direction communication? I know at least like 10 Web3 native entrepreneurs that are trying to build a Discord killer. So I think, you know, we're going to be laughing about this conversation six months from now where there's other options and there's better options and Discord is finally relieved that they don't need to deal with the complaints and the hate they're getting, which again is not their fault. I feel there is a mixture there. There is one looking into like, do I really deeply need it or we're going to do it just because everybody's doing it? Depends who you want to talk with as well. If you want to be native to the space, if you want to be talking to, if you exclude bots probably 10,000 DJs that are on Twitter every day, you're going to be talking to them, then sure, Discord is the key, right? There is no other option. That's how the space has been navigating so far.

Dave: 25:01

Well, I think our time is almost up. Again, I say this every time, but we could actually go on for the rest of the day talking it through. Just one quick question, which is about your masterclass. So could you just give us a quick peek about what the masterclass is? And people are interested in signing up, where they could go for that. You know, it sounds like a really valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about Web3 and the metaverse.

Diego: 25:28

Cool. Thanks for that. Yeah. So the masterclass is titled How Brands Should Enter the Metaverse in the NFT Space. And basically is a 10-hour class, which is on demand, one and a half hours a day. And there are two live sessions. One is to meet the community and one is to meet the creator, in this case, me, where it's literally for three different target groups or three different personas, if you will. One is brand leaders within brands that are trying to push the boundaries, but don't feel yet ready. So, you know, those are the ones working in big companies or big brands or small brands or medium brands. The second one is for people that are working within agencies. So agencies that are working with clients that are working with brands and they keep getting calls from clients telling them to help them to do an NFT project, but they don't have the clue where to start. So that's definitely for them. And And then the third is for entrepreneurs that are the ones that are building and owning brands. And again, an NFT project is a brand or anything else on those regards, right? You cannot think that brands are just like fashion or Apple or whatever, everything that you are building, even your personal brand is a brand. So those are for those entrepreneurs. The main thing behind it is that the entire content, which was 120 pages was written by myself, right? So I went down there and did that work. It's all about things I've experienced. and things I've been part of. So I do a lot of case studies within it. It's all firsthand experience. It's not about articles I've read. It's literally about things I've experienced and I transmit the things I learned through it. And then there is also a layer of seven or eight interviews with people from Fortune 500 brands like Volkswagen, Unilever, Salesforce, from WebTree creators, from Zen Academy is also a community builder native to the space and a bunch of different people that are interviews half an hour to 45 minutes where I ask them point of view it's not just about me right and then the third aspect is community again so there is a whole layer of community that is built within it for you to connect with other students for you to network with other students majority of the people that have purchased so far are within big brands so you get people from salesforce from volkswagen from mercedes so there is a network effect to one learn together but also to connect and potentially find business partners for the future so in a nutshell that's what it's about you can find it on nasacademy.com forward slash Diego. So NAS with S. That's basically the partner I've chosen to do it because NAS Academy is incredible and I'm really excited that I have worked with them. Amazing.

Dave: 28:02

Fabulous. Well, I'm going to sign up myself because I think it sounds like such a kind of rich source of content.

Suresh: 28:09

Don't do it before Diego gives you a discount code.

Dave: 28:12

Well, of course, I was going to say. Fantastic. Fantastic. But I'd really like to thank you for joining. It's been a really, really insightful conversation. You know, I'm walking away with more knowledge, which is fantastic. So thank you so much.

Suresh: 28:32

Thank you. Thank you, Diego. Best of luck. Appreciate for having me.

Speaker 02: 28:40

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