JOIN USSelling Trump isn’t what it used to be
When Donald Trump announced his foray into NFTs last year, capitalizing on public interest in his presidential campaign to sell cartoonish virtual trading cards depicting him as a superhero, he was derided for retreating to his huckster impulses.
Anyone seeking insight into Trump’s decision need look no further than his partner in the enterprise.
The online trading cards are the brainchild of Bill Zanker, a serial entrepreneur who has sold back rubs, gym equipment, self-help courses and, at times, Donald Trump himself. Before Trump’s political rise, Zanker co-wrote a book with him, teamed up in a crowdfunding business and, for several years, made Trump the centerpiece of a real estate road show.
Times have changed for both men. Zanker’s best-known business, a for-profit education company called the Learning Annex, has gone dark, and a recent foray into fitness equipment hasn’t taken off. Trump, who is facing several investigations into his conduct, including his attempts to overturn a fair election, has become far less a symbol of American prosperity than of the nation’s polarizing politics.
In business together again for the first time in more than seven years, the two are seeking to resuscitate a once-dependable formula blending celebrity with unabashed hype. Early sales results hint at just how difficult that project really is.
Zanker first approached the former president with the idea last year, telling him that the enterprise could bring in as much as $100 million. In exchange for licensing his name and likeness, Trump would receive a significant portion of any revenues from sales of what would become known as Trump Cards.
On December 14, Trump used social media to promote what he called a “major announcement”: the sale of thousands of digital cards showing him dressed, variously, as a cowboy, an astronaut and a superhero shooting laser beams out of his eyeballs.
Some Trump advisers worried that the enterprise would come across as a tacky marketing gimmick. Of even greater concern was the idea that every dollar spent by his supporters on the NFTs might translate into a dollar not contributed to Trump’s campaign.
Despite Trump’s promotional efforts, the Trump Cards have not, as of yet, become the cash cow they were pitched as.
To date, Trump Cards sales have hit $17.3 million, generating about $5.6 million in revenue, according to an analysis conducted by CryptoSlam, a blockchain data aggregator, for The New York Times. That total includes the $99 original price for each of the 44,000 cards that were sold on the first day, plus a 10 per cent royalty each time any of those cards is resold on the secondary market.