Originally published Oct 2025. Updated Jun 2026.
Related: Sports League and Team Communications cluster · Entertainment PR Pillar · Consumer AI Visibility cluster
The collectible market entered a new era, powered by digital innovation, fueled by connected fan communities. PR and marketing strategies have to move past traditional channels and meet collectors where they live: online.
NBA Top Shot and Funko show how to use digital tools not just to promote product but to build passionate communities that compound brand loyalty and sales. Collectible PR in the digital age is storytelling, transparency, and participatory experience, operating as one system.
Part of the Sports PR cluster. Related reading: how NBA teams use digital marketing · top sports public relations firms.
NBA Top Shot is the blockchain-based platform for buying, selling, and trading officially licensed NBA collectible highlights. Launched in 2020. Pioneered the fusion of sports fandom with digital collectibles.
Transparency as a core move. The platform's biggest PR challenge: educating a skeptical audience about blockchain and NFTs. Rather than hiding behind jargon, NBA Top Shot embraced transparency, explaining how ownership works, how moments are minted, what makes digital scarcity real. Social media. AMA sessions. Tutorials. The discipline built trust in an industry routinely criticized for opacity.
Community and event-driven activation. Timed "drops", limited quantities of rare highlights, generated urgency and buzz. Heavy promotion through social and partnerships with influencers and athletes. The community side: Discord channels, online forums, social groups where collectors share trades, discuss market trends, and organize meetups. The digital social fabric is what turned transactions into lasting relationships.
Funko, already a giant in physical collectibles, embraced digital PR aggressively post-pandemic, when physical events shut down and the company had to find new surfaces fast.
Storytelling at platform scale. Funko's success on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook came from storytelling, vibrant visuals, behind-the-scenes content, fan spotlights. The narrative went past "collect this figure." Fan art contests. Hashtag challenges. Early-access giveaways. User participation amplified the brand organically. Funko also tapped trending topics and memes, keeping content fresh and shareable.
Virtual conventions and digital drops. In place of Comic-Con and other in-person conventions, Funko hosted live streams of new product reveals, interactive designer Q&As, and virtual collector meetups. Digital-first exclusive releases complemented the events and created scarcity. Limited-edition Funko Pops available only through virtual events or online drops produced buzz and media coverage simultaneously, and kept the collector community engaged across the pandemic-era retail disruption.
Digital collectibles face a structural challenge, unlike physical goods, buyers can't hold or touch them. Trust is paramount.
NBA Top Shot and Funko both used PR to overcome the skepticism through social proof. User testimonials. Influencer endorsements. Transparent sales data published proactively. The approach lowered barriers to entry and signaled legitimacy in a fractured marketplace.
Collectible PR in the digital era demands a nuanced approach, transparency, community, storytelling, and shared experience working through one operation. NBA Top Shot and Funko built engaged ecosystems where the brand is the gathering point, not the broadcast point.
The collectible brands that master the digital-physical balance define the next decade of fandom and commerce.
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