• Forum has been upgraded, all links, images, etc are as they were. Please see Official Announcements for more information

Proposal: Marketing & Communication (October)

Ryan Taylor

Well-known member
Foundation Member
This proposal is cross-posted at www.dashcentral.org/p/marketing-201710

This proposal funds a marketing contract with Ogilvy & Mather, a leading global multi-channel advertising agency and marketing firm for a professional rebranding and a digital advertising campaign consisting of strategy, creative development, production, and media management.

About Ogilvy & Mather:

Ogilvy & Mather was founded in 1948 and represents many of the largest consumer brands. It is now part of WPP, one of the "Big Four" agencies, and by revenue is one of the largest marketing companies in the world. Ogilvy & Mather enjoys a very strong reputation, and was named Effies "World's most Effective Agency Network" in 2012, 2013 and 2016. They are very selective about the clients they choose to service, and the Dash Core Group has spent considerable effort to help the firm understand Dash, our value in the market, and the potential of our movement.

http://www.ogilvy.com/

About the contract:

The main goal of the project is to begin approaching marketing and communication professionally to ensure we deliver a clear and relevant message to the market. The outcome of the project is to establish a solid basis to make Dash a powerful brand. There are several phases to the project toward achieving that goal.

Step 1: Brand Positioning

O&M will develop and propose a brand positioning for all future marketing communications. The goal is to provide a conceptual framework for the brand and make it relevant for the audience. Work on this phase has already begun in good faith as we await the outcome of this proposal. This framework will serve as an input into our logo, look & feel, artworks, guidelines and creatives.

Step 1 is expected to be completed by the end of October or early November. The exact timing will depend on the outcome from research on market effectiveness of various concepts.

Step 2: Visual Identity

Once step 1 is complete, O&M will develop the visual aspects of the brand to reflect our brand values and positioning. There are several phases to this step:

Phase 1: Logo creation. Starting from to the brand values and its positioning, they will redesign DASH’s logotype. In this phase, they will work on the creative concept, the shape, the symbol, the colors, the typography and its application.

Phase 2: Look & feel creation. The look&feel of the brand will define the complementary graphic codes, typographic codes, chromatic codes, photographic and illustrative style and the hierarchy of the information. You will see the look & feel proposal applied to key corporate or communication assets such as the website.

Phase 3: Artworks. Creation of the final artworks of the master logotype and the rest of logotypes from the brand architecture to ensure its correct reproduction.

Phase 4: Guidelines. Once the new logotype and look & feel has been totally finalized, they will normalize the new visual identity of Dash through a Brand Guidelines of 25-30 pages that enable consistent use and the correct implementation of the new brand identity system. These guidelines will include the creative concept explanation, the graphic construction of the logotype, the brand architecture and its versions, its dimensions and proportions, its application in different backgrounds, the look&feel and its main elements and all the key corporate and communication supports designed in the previous phases.

Step 2 will be completed approximately 2 months after it is started.

Building digital awareness campaigns:

In addition, we will begin delivering digital advertising campaigns to raise awareness of the Dash brand. O&M will pursue this ad campaign right away with our current brand. They will provide the strategy, creative development, production and media management. This consists of:

1) building a simple and clear framework to build and execute communication campaigns for Dash
2) creating and producing different originals and different format using Dash current branding and logo
3) buying and managing digital media using the creative assets

Setting the strategy and creative development will take about one month, and then we will begin executing campaigns. We will start small, learn from the early efforts, and begin expansion on an ongoing basis. We will receive a monthly report on the campaign's results. We are proposing starting with a 50,000 EUR investment above the 8,300 € for the strategy framework.

Costs:
Branding contract: 88,561 € + 10 Dash (total of about 91,500 €)
Digital awareness campaign: 58,300 €
Total = 149,753 €

If you have any other questions, please direct them to @fernando in this Dash Forum post to ensure I see your request.

Didn't we already fund a rebranding?

Yes, there was a small budget request in the spring for a rebranding "refresh". Work was performed on designs that proposed minor aesthetic changes and sought to preserve the general look and feel of the current Dash brand. However, Dash is in a vastly different financial position compared with this spring, and we feel that now is the time for a full professional rebranding leveraging one of the very best firms in the industry. Given that a full rebranding was likely necessary upon the launch of Evolution, we decided against two rebranding efforts in such a short time. Insteand, we now feel it is preferable to launch straight into a brand that can carry us through the launch of Evolution and beyond.

Requested funding is as follows for the October 3rd budget cycle:
  • 317.28 Dash for branding effort (91,453 € @ 288.24 € per Dash)
  • 202.27 Dash for digital marketing campaign (58,300 € @ 288.24 € per Dash)
  • 5.00 Dash proposal reimbursement
Total: 524.55 Dash

Note: Should any funding remain, we will apply it toward future marketing expenses.

Manually vote YES on this proposal:
dash-cli gobject vote-many 5f34e308b644b1684c7a92af50c7edbc5306d9287bb1d370ec68b2913cfaa6f8 funding yes
OR from the qt console:
gobject vote-many 5f34e308b644b1684c7a92af50c7edbc5306d9287bb1d370ec68b2913cfaa6f8 funding yes

Manually vote NO on this proposal:
dash-cli gobject vote-many 5f34e308b644b1684c7a92af50c7edbc5306d9287bb1d370ec68b2913cfaa6f8 funding no
OR from the qt console:
gobject vote-many 5f34e308b644b1684c7a92af50c7edbc5306d9287bb1d370ec68b2913cfaa6f8 funding no
 
I'm all for a refresh. The one thing we also need is some good generic advertising content. We have a substantial number of in-person events happening now that could use generic cards, tri-fold papers etc. The ability to have a large supply of low cost tshirts etc. Right now there seems to be a duplication of effort or these things don't get given out reducing effectiveness. Paper wallets could be refreshed as well to be more user friendly. Most people don't seem to understand the two qr code thing.
 
The advantages of a relationship with such a prestigious firm should be obvious. I do have questions about how decisions will be made, however.

For example, let's say Ogilvy creates a new Dash logo. More than likely, they will create a few mockups to choose from (at least, that has been my experience). Who decides which one to go with? Ogilvy? Someone on the Core team? If so, who on the Core team? Tungfa? Ryan? Evan? Or will it be decided by Masternode vote? (Just to be clear: a Masternode vote would be the most decentralized while also probably the worst way to proceed - it would be slow and MN owners have no particular expertise in this area.)

And of course, there will be many such decisions during the relationship, not just the logo choice.

I don't really have a recommendation for the best way to make these decisions, but I am curious about how the process will work and if you've discussed this with Ogilvy and what their recommendations are.
 
The advantages of a relationship with such a prestigious firm should be obvious. I do have questions about how decisions will be made, however.

For example, let's say Ogilvy creates a new Dash logo. More than likely, they will create a few mockups to choose from (at least, that has been my experience). Who decides which one to go with? Ogilvy? Someone on the Core team? If so, who on the Core team? Tungfa? Ryan? Evan? Or will it be decided by Masternode vote? (Just to be clear: a Masternode vote would be the most decentralized while also probably the worst way to proceed - it would be slow and MN owners have no particular expertise in this area.)

And of course, there will be many such decisions during the relationship, not just the logo choice.

I don't really have a recommendation for the best way to make these decisions, but I am curious about how the process will work and if you've discussed this with Ogilvy and what their recommendations are.
The decisions related to this project are not different to the ones in any other project. We don't vote on how to improve the protocol because those are technical decisions and it would not made sense. This is not that different.

Branding and logos are something we all think we know about, but there is a lot of science to it and we really don't. Having said that, Ogilvy won't have the last decision, it will be in the core team. But we need to listen to what they have to say. It doesn't make any sense to pay an expert and then ignore them. In order for them to be able to provide good advice we need to feed them with a lot of information and that has been underway since before the summer.

As for who in the core team, I'm coordinating the project and already have had many meetings with them (in real life, we are working with the Madrid office, where I live), but all important decisions will be voted on our board. However, this won't be about liking things. We need to evaluate if what they propose fits into our broader strategy (when talking about the brand essential elements) or if it works for our branding strategy (when talking about visual identity).
 
The decisions related to this project are not different to the ones in any other project. We don't vote on how to improve the protocol because those are technical decisions and it would not made sense. This is not that different.

Branding and logos are something we all think we know about, but there is a lot of science to it and we really don't. Having said that, Ogilvy won't have the last decision, it will be in the core team. But we need to listen to what they have to say. It doesn't make any sense to pay an expert and then ignore them. In order for them to be able to provide good advice we need to feed them with a lot of information and that has been underway since before the summer.

As for who in the core team, I'm coordinating the project and already have had many meetings with them (in real life, we are working with the Madrid office, where I live), but all important decisions will be voted on our board. However, this won't be about liking things. We need to evaluate if what they propose fits into our broader strategy (when talking about the brand essential elements) or if it works for our branding strategy (when talking about visual identity).

Thanks for the quick response, and I think that sounds good, Fernando. I agree Ogilvy are the experts and their views should be paramount. And if you are involved, I have a lot of confidence.

This might be something I should know, but who is on the board? Is it the "Dash Core DAO Management" found here: https://www.dash.org/team/? Or some other group?
 
Thanks for the quick response, and I think that sounds good, Fernando. I agree Ogilvy are the experts and their views should be paramount. And if you are involved, I have a lot of confidence.

This might be something I should know, but who is on the board? Is it the "Dash Core DAO Management" found here: https://www.dash.org/team/? Or some other group?
Thanks Eric!

Side note: Ryan and I are doing a presentation on Dash governance in the conference on Sunday and it will have some details also on how the core team works (and the video will be available in a few days).
 
So almost $200,000 and nothing physical or digital ads included? This is just for some market research (which they are doing now anyway to try to woo DASH as a client, and which any good agency would do for this reason) a new DASH logo, color scheme and type face for DASH, and their "strategy"? Pretty vague. And pretty expensive. Anyone else check out their website? And they are picky about who their clients are? Aren't we all? I think they care whether DASH has the $ or not.

I definitely do think that the funds allocated for promoting DASH should be used every single month, and if throwing insane amounts of $ at a BloatedOldBoysClubFatCatMadMen style agency is the only way this gets done, then go ahead. It just seems to me that a younger, leaner, edgier, hungrier, faster and hipper mid-size agency would be more economical as well as more appropriate to the fast-moving, cutting-edge space of digital currency promotion.

A budget of $85,000 instead of $200,000 could sure buy us a lot of digital ads, T-shirts, folding cards for events etc. Just saying. Let me know if I'm missing anything besides almost $200,000 for a logo, color scheme, type face and "strategy" for digital promotion (so not including actual payment for digital promotion such as Facebook ads, google ads etc.)

Thanks!
 
I'm all for a refresh. The one thing we also need is some good generic advertising content. We have a substantial number of in-person events happening now that could use generic cards, tri-fold papers etc. The ability to have a large supply of low cost tshirts etc. Right now there seems to be a duplication of effort or these things don't get given out reducing effectiveness. Paper wallets could be refreshed as well to be more user friendly. Most people don't seem to understand the two qr code thing.
I agree. I don't see this proposal to be about funding that though. It's something to think about!
 
There's a lot of science involved, and rather little of, "Hey that looks cool, let's do that."

The MasterNode community has mostly been using their intuition about what looks cool and what feels right. I proudly count myself among that group. And I would say we have been pretty successful to date. But professional marketing that uses all available channels, that will take us to the next level.

I am happy to hand this off to the pros and support the new branding and marketing.
 
Thanks Eric!

Side note: Ryan and I are doing a presentation on Dash governance in the conference on Sunday and it will have some details also on how the core team works (and the video will be available in a few days).
Sounds great - I look forward to seeing it. I really wish I could be there, but some health issues will keep me away. Hopefully next time!
 
So almost $200,000 and nothing physical or digital ads included? This is just for some market research (which they are doing now anyway to try to woo DASH as a client, and which any good agency would do for this reason) a new DASH logo, color scheme and type face for DASH, and their "strategy"? Pretty vague. And pretty expensive. Anyone else check out their website? And they are picky about who their clients are? Aren't we all? I think they care whether DASH has the $ or not.

I definitely do think that the funds allocated for promoting DASH should be used every single month, and if throwing insane amounts of $ at a BloatedOldBoysClubFatCatMadMen style agency is the only way this gets done, then go ahead. It just seems to me that a younger, leaner, edgier, hungrier, faster and hipper mid-size agency would be more economical as well as more appropriate to the fast-moving, cutting-edge space of digital currency promotion.

A budget of $85,000 instead of $200,000 could sure buy us a lot of digital ads, T-shirts, folding cards for events etc. Just saying. Let me know if I'm missing anything besides almost $200,000 for a logo, color scheme, type face and "strategy" for digital promotion (so not including actual payment for digital promotion such as Facebook ads, google ads etc.)

Thanks!
Read again Ryan's post :) It is 180k usd (150k eur), not 200k. And of that, more than 70k usd (60k eur) is for actual campaigns.

I understand that you may had preferred another agency, but there is no way everyone would agree with the decision. We have talked to many, some of them in that smaller-more-hungry category you mention, and Ogilvy gave what we believe is the best proposal.
 
Read again Ryan's post :) It is 180k usd (150k eur), not 200k. And of that, more than 70k usd (60k eur) is for actual campaigns.

I understand that you may had preferred another agency, but there is no way everyone would agree with the decision. We have talked to many, some of them in that smaller-more-hungry category you mention, and Ogilvy gave what we believe is the best proposal.
i agree its much especially given the fact now our treasury is worth freaking 2 million usd per month :D

we can afford the big names now , and once the prices touches $1000 all hell breaks loose :)
 
Hi @fernando,

I am starting a Dash Cycling Team in France. I have a deadline to order the customized outfit (end of december) in order to be able to start the racing season. I am patiently waiting for the result of Orgilvy & Mather work to order the outfit but it would be a great inconvenience for my project if the rebranding had any delay (I'm on a very tight schedule).

Could you please tell me if step 1 Brand positioning is completed ? If yes, on which phase on Step 2 are they currently working ?

If created yet, does the new logo has a different color than the actual one ?
If the logo is completely different (let's say Dash branding becomes red) then I'll have to wait no matter what.
If it is different but same colors, I guess I could be using the former logo in case of any delay.

Would you be able to tell me anything on that matter so I can take an appropriate approach to my project ?

Thank you,
 
Hi @fernando,

I am starting a Dash Cycling Team in France. I have a deadline to order the customized outfit (end of december) in order to be able to start the racing season. I am patiently waiting for the result of Orgilvy & Mather work to order the outfit but it would be a great inconvenience for my project if the rebranding had any delay (I'm on a very tight schedule).

Could you please tell me if step 1 Brand positioning is completed ? If yes, on which phase on Step 2 are they currently working ?

If created yet, does the new logo has a different color than the actual one ?
If the logo is completely different (let's say Dash branding becomes red) then I'll have to wait no matter what.
If it is different but same colors, I guess I could be using the former logo in case of any delay.

Would you be able to tell me anything on that matter so I can take an appropriate approach to my project ?

Thank you,
The brand positioning phase is not completed yet. There is some work done on phase two, but very preliminary, so I would not be able to say if colors/logo will change a lot. I'm sorry to say, but I don't think the results will be public by December.
 
Just praying they don't screw it up. Expensive mistakes that come to mind include the 2012 Olympics logo and the Post Office rebrand attempt to Consignia. Do we get to vote on it?

 
Just praying they don't screw it up. Expensive mistakes that come to mind include the 2012 Olympics logo and the Post Office rebrand attempt to Consignia. Do we get to vote on it?


we did community votes on logo design before
and tbh i was never a fan of this
a Professional has to decide what works and what does not
not normal users (no offence) or None Designers
we finally have a Design Pro on hand (1st time ever) and we have full confidence in them
(+ they are doing market research with their versions 1st anyway)
 
we did community votes on logo design before
and tbh i was never a fan of this
a Professional has to decide what works and what does not
not normal users (no offence) or None Designers
we finally have a Design Pro on hand (1st time ever) and we have full confidence in them
(+ they are doing market research with their versions 1st anyway)

Actually, I agree with this. A lot of brand exercises go wrong when you try to please everyone. In reality I wouldn't want to rely on a masternode vote to approve / disapprove, but simply to engage with us and get some kind of feedback.
 
Back
Top