[PROPOSAL #46][ACCEPTED] Prop 34 report and request for time extension to continue to spend the marketing budget

Hub Proposals Signaling/Text
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Proposal: Extend Luna Mission to Fund ATOM Marketing

The Cosmos community approved Proposal 34 on 2021-01-20 allocating 129,208 ATOM to implement a comprehensive ATOM marketing plan executed in collaboration with AiB (Tendermint). Proposal XX is requesting an extension of the time allowed to spend the approved budget and allocate existing funds for two additional ATOM-focused priorities. Below are details of this request and an outline of the successful results of Proposal 34 marketing spend as of 2021-03-31.

PROPOSAL XX REQUEST:

  1. Prop 34 Time Extension: The Prop 34 Implementation team seeks a three-month extension (until 2021-07-20) to fully spend the existing budget allocation under the terms approved in Proposal 34. The multisig team and AiB (Tendermint) invested significant time and energy properly researching and vetting vendors, contractors, and opportunities requiring additional time to complete the Prop 34 expenditure of funds. With the approval of Proposal 45, any unspent funds remaining from Proposal 34 efforts will be returned to the community pool on 2021-07-20.

  2. Additional Budget Priority - Project Execution Fund Pool: Execution, oversight, and accountability for this significant marketing spend requires substantive operational support. In addition to the 5 multisig administrators, extensive support is being provided by Adriana Mihai (Kalpatech), Garrette Furo (Regen Network), David Fortson (Regen Network/LOACOM), and others. We request an allocation of 3000 ATOM (from the existing budget) to compensate for previous and ongoing support of this expansive marketing campaign. Funds will be distributed through the multisig administration.

  3. Additional Budget Priority - Gravity DEX: This proposal seeks to allocate 10,000 ATOM (from the existing budget) to identify and support robust marketing of the Gravity DEX testnet and DEX mainnet launch- an AMM exchange that will have a significant impact on ATOM valuation if successful.

Gravity DEX is initially planned as an automated market maker (AMM) exchange that will allow users to trade IBC token pairs and provide liquidity for traders. These tokens would arrive on the Hub through IBC-enabled chains, IBC-wrapped ETH and ERC20 tokens, IBC-wrapped BTC tokens, and as well as future blockchain ecosystems that implement the IBC protocol.

PROP 34 RESULTS:

A summary report of current marketing activities and related analytics can be found here. Highlights include (Date Range 2021-01-20 to 2021-03-31):

  • ATOM Valuation: ATOM valuation has increased from $8.92 to $19.10 - a 214% increase.
  • Twitter Followers: 40,700 new followers; increase from 53,000 to 93,700 - a 77% increase.
  • Twitter: New 2020 and 2021 record on impressions and new followers
    • Impressions: 5M (million) on March / 3.7M on February
    • New followers: 19k as of March, following a close record of 20k as of Feb; 40,700 new followers for Jan-March; increase from 53,000 to 93,700
  • Number of new delegators: 31,408 new delegators (increase from 41,885 to 73,293 - a 74% increase.)
  • Number of new $ATOM accounts: 92,561 new accounts (increase from 136,219 accounts to 228,780 accounts - a 68% increase.)
  • Cosmos Website Visitors: 1,079,000 visitors, 244,000 new users from which 28,804 acquired new users from the marketing campaign.

As of 2021-03-31, a total of (x #) ATOM has been spent in the following ways:

  • Meme Contest: 0 ATOM
  • Banner ads - 8750 ATOM
  • Influencers: - 18,286 ATOM
  • YouTube shows / Podcasts - 7,176 ATOM
  • Podcasts, newsletters- 6,200 ATOM
  • Media/TV: 1000 ATOM
  • Signers fee: 500 ATOM

HISTORY:

The Cosmos Hub (ATOM) community approved the passage of Proposal 34 - Luna Mission - Funding $ATOM on 2021-01-20 at 74% yes, 18.9% abstain and 7.1% no.

Proposal 34 authorized a spending pool of 129,208 ATOM to implement a comprehensive ATOM marketing plan executed in collaboration with AiB (Tendermint). The funds deriving from Prop 34 have been approved by @johnniecosmos, @JoeDirtay, @jackzampolin (Jack Zampolin, Pylon Validator), @immasssi (SG-1 Validator), @zakimanian (Zaki Manian, Iqlusion Validator), as the designated multisig committee. Current funding allocation is due to expire and be returned to the community pool on 2021-04-20.

Proposal 34 - Results Summary - 2021-01-20 to 2021-03-31

Banner Ads

Banner Ad Locations: Blockfolio, Coinstats, Coingecko, Stacking Rewards

Sample Banner: gif - Google Drive

Spend: 8,750 ATOMs

Duration of the campaign ads: 1M-3M

Total performance on all 4 venues: (#37,000,000 impressions, #28,804 new acquired visitors, #30,500 new wallets downloads with ATOM as preset currency)

Marketing contracts

Podcasts, Newsletters, interviews, Articles

Sample Podcast: https://twitter.com/CharlieShrem/status/1376550892321730563?s=20

Spend: 6,200 ATOM

Performance:268K Twitter Impressions, 6265 Podcast Downloads, & 7600 youtube views.

Newsletters, Articles

Content is in the works, will be published in max 2 weeks.

Influencers:

Influencers: Over 30 Twitter influencers engaged including Crypto Dog and the Wolf of all Streets.

Sample Post: https://twitter.com/thecryptodog/status/1376640286428864514?s=21 - Crypto Dog

Spend: 18,286 ATOM, last month being paid shortly (Approx 150K spend remaining)

Results: from the 1st-month Twitter only (second-month data was not complete in time)

245 tweets, 20,000 Likes, 4,000 Retweets, & 1700 Comments.

YouTube Shows & Podcasts

Programs: Crypto Daily, Data Dash, Charlie Shrem,

Featured Shows:

Crypto Daily: Subscribers: 193K

Video views: 52,690

Data Dash: Subscribers: 423K

Video views: 40,097

Delphi Digital podcasts & Brand Sponsor

Podcast ads are just starting, clubhouse (later aired as podcast) W/ key cosmonauts soon.

Tech Con Catalina: Youtube Followers - 115K Subscribers

Crypto youtuber in South America. Videos will be airing soon.

Crypto Busy: Youtube Followers - 152K Subscribers

Youtube: This TOP Altcoin Will Be HUGE (Cosmos Price Prediction 2021) - YouTube

Views: 24,468

Wolf of all Streets Podcast / weekly AMA sponsorship

Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/scottmelker

Followers: 290K

Total Spent on these: 7,126 ATOMS

More Videos to be dropping soon cosmonauts, waiting for publishing

Public Relations:

Hired GFCA - work begins 2021-04-07

Spend: 990 ATOM

MEME Competition 2021

Start 22nd of March (3 Total stages)

Spend total: 3915 ATOM (Split up for each stage)

Stage 1 accepted entries for prizes (so far): 170+

Total valid entries: 2000+

Cosmonaut Telegram channel growth: 700+ new people in 2 weeks (organic)

Cosmonaut Twitter channel growth: 400+ new people in 2 weeks (organic)

MEME Live tracker:

Competition outline:

2 Likes
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Thank you for the write-up, Zaki. My preference would be for the creation of RFP (Request for Proposal) documents surrounding a global Strategy & PR campaign going forward. I think this will help us evaluate a significant amount of ideas, costs associated with those ideas, and professional execution, monitoring, and reporting on the overall strategy. Thoughts?

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I don’t think an RFP mechanism makes any sense. I think an RFP mechanism will produce nothing.

Prop 34 empowered the people in our community who are willing to work nights, weekends etc like Immassi, Joe Dirtay, Adrianna, David, Jack to push the message of Cosmos and ATOM to the world.

We will never reproduce their passion in a " professional" marketing agency.

This is messier but truer to the Cosmos Ethos.

We are not here to grow through partnership or slick press releases but through the most passionate evangelists spreading the message.

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I respect the desire to adhere to cosmos ethos, but it’s unclear whether the results provided in this thread can be safely attributed to the marketing tactics done so far. A sentiment of many who voted yes on this prop in the first place has been that they’ve been in the dark on what has happened behind the scenes for the most part. I don’t think laying out a rough framework of what the prop 34 team wants to happen between now and July/strategies to make those things happen is a bad idea, and I don’t think this is against the ethos of cosmos.

We are grateful for the volunteered time here ofc, but just want to have a more fleshed out plan. The DEX needs marketing but we also need to be sure that the avenues being chosen are having genuine impact.

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Hi zaki ,

Thank-you for your response and making your position explicitly clear with respect to issuing a Request for Proposal for a professional team to submit marketing and strategy proposal going forward. That being said, could you please provide a further breakdown of the second bullet point and the 3000 ATOM you are seeking for operational support?

Additional Budget Priority - Project Execution Fund Pool: Execution, oversight, and accountability for this significant marketing spend requires substantive operational support. In addition to the 5 multisig administrators, extensive support is being provided by Adriana Mihai (Kalpatech), Garrette Furo (Regen Network), David Fortson (Regen Network/LOACOM), and others. We request an allocation of 3000 ATOM (from the existing budget) to compensate for previous and ongoing support of this expansive marketing campaign. Funds will be distributed through the multisig administration.

You’ve written that the 3000 ATOM will be used to compensate previous and ongoing support for this marketing campaign. Can you please provide the following information to add more transparency to this proposal and create an open and transparent precedent with how community funds are spent?

-Step-by-step work breakdown of what is needed for operational support on this campaign
-Each operational support personnel’s role, skills, and/or qualifications as it relates to this work, and how many years experience they have with relevant work
-How many hours each support personnel is expected to spend on this work and the rate at which each individual is paid? (i.e., total compensation)

Further It is not clear as to much of this 3000 ATOM is going to be spent on pay for work already completed that was not state din the original proposal. From what I understood, some ATOMs were already allocated for the multisigners, and there was no intention for others to receive any additional compensation for the original work, so any clarification would be appreciated.

Thank you very much for your contribution to this community and I look forward to your clarifications.

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Dear guys, before jumping into details & giving out comment, can you please share the actual % of traffic coming from each channel (direct, paid ads, social, referral…) for our Twitter & Website?
In addition, I assume that you guys have been tracking some kind of conversions from all campaigns, therefore I really want to see the real number of conversions coming out from activities above.

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Paul,

It takes a good deal of work for us to line up and manage all of this. Currently there are a number of people doing this for free to help out. We are proposing the 3k to be able to pay those folks (as well as others who can help) for their time and efforts. This is how we get the best bang for our buck as ATOM holders.

Also to be clear the multisig signers have each been paid 100 ATOM. This is a de minimis amount considering the magnitude of the results shared above as well as the amount of time we have all spent on this.

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I see really good points raised in the previous replies, and they are unanswered. Since the proposal went already live, I’d strongly suggest voting against it till the points flagged are clarified.