Saint Laurent — Reimagining ownership for a new kind of collector
Before the NFT market cooled, luxury brands were racing to claim their spot in the metaverse. Gucci was already hosting NFT-giveaway galas. Kering—the parent company of brands like Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and Bottega Veneta—wanted to move faster and smarter. Our team was asked to create a scalable, demo-ready vision of what digital exclusivity could look like across their portfolio.
The result was a fully functioning prototype: a branded NFT marketplace for Saint Laurent that connected to Salesforce, enabling advisors to mint, market, and sell NFTs through a sleek ecommerce experience. The demo illustrated how Kering could industrialize its Web3 capabilities—not just as a marketing stunt, but as a strategic lever for consumer loyalty and brand equity. A custom-built Figma prototype and vision video brought the concept to life for Kering’s executive team.
DISCIPLINES
Product Design
UX Strategy
Prototyping
Engagement Strategy
TOOLS
Figma
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe After Effects
Salesforce
Background & Concept
The demo was built as part of a Salesforce Innovation Center (SIC) engagement with Kering. While the concept centered around Saint Laurent, the goal was to create a model that could scale across all maisons in the group.
The strategy reframed NFTs as long-term loyalty tools, not just collectibles—integrated with CRM and tied to exclusive perks. The goal was to show how digital ownership can serve to deepen engagement.
The experience was built to meet the expectations of a fashion-savvy, digital-first audience while demonstrating how Salesforce technology can support not just transactions, but lasting customer relationships.
The experience supported the full lifecycle of a digital asset and bridged digital ownership with Saint Laurent’s existing ecommerce profiles.
The concept was brought to life through a live-build, presented to Kering’s executive team with a real-time walkthrough using actual Salesforce data integrations.
In addition to the live demo, a vision video was produced to allow the concept to be revisited and shared across the wider network of Kering stakeholders.
Click through the above Figma prototype (hints available on click).
This is the marketplace portion of the demo. The narrative starts with a consumer interacting with an Instagram ad and being directed to Saint Laurent’s website.
Impact
The project demonstrated Salesforce’s ability to power CRM for luxury brands and contribute to their innovation roadmaps. While Web3 has cooled as a cultural moment, the foundational thinking behind this project—personalization, digital ownership, brand affinity—remains highly relevant, and in use at The Kering Group today.
Gucci’s recent reward strategy for NFT holders (Vogue Business, July 2023) reflects the kind of consumer experience this demo anticipated: exclusive physical perks tied to digital assets. Kering has also continued to lean into the power and provenance of NFTs as a trusted Salesforce partner.
In 2023, the Group partnered with artist Emily Yang to launch an NFT that combined innovation, creativity, and philanthropy, demonstrating their commitment to social impact through innovation.
Gucci’s evolving NFT strategy—exemplified by its 10KTF Gucci Grail project, which offered exclusive physical perks to digital asset holders—was directly influenced by our loyalty-driven experience envisioned in our demo for Kering.
« Kering is constantly innovating, imagining and encouraging all forms of boldness, with a freedom to create and explore new ideas while forever embracing its heritage and the history that drives this momentum. »
François-Henri Pinault, Chairman and CEO of Kering