Proposal description
Project Jet Plane - YouTube Dash advertising campaign, 10,000+ views per day for 60 days.
Help us to advertise Dash to 10,000+ potential Dash users a day for 60 days!
Help us to advertise Dash to 10,000+ potential Dash users a day for 60 days!
Amount: 249.6153 Dash
Time: Two months (two payments of 124.8076 Dash)
The storyboard video is here:
The treatment documentation and concept art are here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2zEadXolbddLXdQOHNUdUZuSTg/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2zEadXolbddZFB4N1ZrNlpId28
The budget: (calculated at 1 Dash = 195USD)
Proposal Details:
In light of the success of our first ad campaign (please see our analytics report), we presented the Dash community with a choice of two storyboards.
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/poll-vote-on-our-next-animated-dash-commercial.15275/#post-129582
The community chose Project Jet Plane by an overwhelming majority. We are very excited about this because it ties in perfectly with the Dash Aerosports team led by Scott Farnsworth.
Who we are:
Eralith Studios is a brand new startup advertising studio in Cape Town, South Africa. We have sold our first Dash commercial to the Dash DAO, which is now running as a successful
YouTube campaign. We promised the Dash Dao 1000 views per day, and we are getting more than that!
Here is the first ad. (And please note the view count!)
https://youtu.be/YY6aYxJS-W4
Pieter Louw is a 3D computer animator with 6 years of experience. He spent the last three years freelancing in the advertising industry. His latest demo reel is here: https://vimeo.com/198623546
Please refer to the description below the video for Pieter's contribution to each clip.
An older demo reel is here: https://vimeo.com/106955516
Thomas du Plessis is a final year animation student at The Animation School in Cape Town. His latest animation project won 2nd prize for Best Student Character Animator at the Cape Town International Animation Festival in 2017.
His demo reel is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kywUQ9kgAMk
Charl du Plessis is a chartered accountant with three decades of business experience.
Lastly, Cape Town is the media industry hub of Africa with a large community of highly skilled freelance artists, animators and videographers from which freelance workers may be drawn at very competitive prices.
We are invested in Dash.
The ad campaign
a. Target audience
Our target audience is people who are new to Bitcoin, but may not be aware that there is an alternative to Bitcoin available with much better features that will ensure its long-term usability and growth.
Despite the growth of altcoins, Bitcoin is still the market leader. The reason is not that Bitcoin has superior technology, features or advantages, but simply its first mover network effect.
Because of the YouTube ad targeting algorithms, we have been able to target our first ad with surgical precision to people who are newly interested in Bitcoin.
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/eralith-youtube-ad-campaign-report-thread.15370/
When better informed, a significant percentage of new Bitcoin users should migrate to Dash.
b. The message
Dash is the digital currency with the fastest transaction confirmation times. While waiting for other digital currency transactions to be confirmed is a drag, transacting with Dash is lightning fast, and fun.
While the ad does reference Bitcoin as the slower digital currency, the storytelling will appeal to anybody who ever had to wait more than a day for a bank transfer to come through. We therefore believe that the ad will have universal appeal, even to people who are new to cryptocurrencies. It is specifically for this reason that we refer to “digital currency transactions” instead of “cryptocurrency transactions.”
The voiceover states: “For lightning fast digital currency transactions, you need Dash.” This message is reinforced at the end with the text, “Dash is Lightning Fast Digital Cash!”
c. The format
The commercial is designed to run in-line before YouTube videos. It is a 30-second long story-driven ad with animated characters and a distinctive art style. Because the viewer may click away from the ad after 5 seconds, we try to pack as much message as possible into those first five seconds.
d. The YouTube campaign.
The ad will run in line before YouTube videos. It will only be served to viewers who have been watching videos on Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Localized versions of the ad will be served to Hindi and Spanish viewers. We aim to have 10,000 views per day for 60 days, which is our community voted distribution budget. We will evaluate YouTube’s Adwords analytics of this campaign to gauge its efficacy, and report on them regularly.
d.i. Renewal of our first YouTube ad campaign
We also budgeted for the renewal of our first YouTube ad campaign for 1000 views a day, for 60 days: From the start of July until the end of August.
e. Production milestones.
This project is much more complex than the solid surface animation we did for our first ad. It has rigged animated characters, a whole cityscape with buildings, cars, bobble head dashboard figures and a jet plane that flies above the city grid. The production cost is therefore significantly higher, and it will take much longer to produce. We will be contracting trusted local freelance animators for this project.
For this reason we have decided to make this a two month proposal with specific production milestones before each voting deadline.
Dates:
June 16 2017: (Completed)
- Release of Week 1 analytics of our current YouTube ad campaign. https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/eralith-youtube-ad-campaign-report-thread.15370/
June 19 2017: (Completed)
- Release of concept art. This is a document that displays refined character and environment paintings that encapsulate the production look and feel.
June 20 2017 (Completed)
- Posting of proposal to Dashcentral.org
June 23 2017 (Completed)
- Release of Week 2 analytics of our current YouTube ad campaign.
- Release of 3D model showcase. This is a document that displays uncoloured 3D assets in order to convey shape, scale and volume.
June 26 2017 (Completed)
- Release of character showcase. This is a document that displays 3D character designs.
June 28 2017
- Release of environment render. This is a document that displays the 3D environment with objects arranged inside it. (This was a scheduling error, sorry. We will update this milestone in July)
June 30 2017 (Completed)
- Release of Week 3 analytics of our current YouTube ad campaign.
- Proposal voting deadline
July 07 2017 (Completed)
- Release of Week 4 analytics of our current YouTube ad campaign.
July 26 2017 August 2017
- Upload of the final commercial. (Release was delayed due to low crypto prices limiting spending)
Once payout is received we will start running the ad on YouTube within a week.
Thank you for your continued support! Our experience in the Dash community so far has been nothing short of amazing.
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Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?
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We’re very excited to share with you, our first fully 3D animatic of Project Jet Plane. This is a “skeletal†representation of what the motion and timing of the finished ad will look like.
Please note, this is not a representation of the final advertisement. There is no lighting yet, and there are no materials (such as metal or concrete) applied. All animation is subject to change.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2zEadXolbdddUlqWl9hZndzeTg
We’re very glad to have gotten to this point, and we are psyched to finish and get this in front of our audience.
As you know, we’ve been hard at work this month on “Project Jet Planeâ€, our latest Dash commercial, and it’s coming together really well.
Unfortunately, as the month of July progressed it became clear that the crypto market was going through a very tenuous time. Dash’s value has depreciated to $140 at time of writing, whereas we posted our proposal at a value of $195. This has put a considerable dent in our liquid capital.
As a result, we’ve had to put the brakes on hiring more fiat-based subcontractors to push for the 26 July finish date.
Thomas_Eralith and I have re-allocated additional workload between the two of us and we will continue to work to finish the animation at the highest possible standard. The positive aspect of this is that it gives us time to add personal touches to the animation as we wait for the results of the Bitcoin fork.
Once we have a clearer picture we’ll update the release schedule.
Thank you for your continued support. You guys rock.
Thanks for the great support we've been getting so far!
We've been hard at work the last few days, putting together some 3D modelling samples for you to look at. We've made these objects ourselves in order to provide proof-of-concept, but we will hire more modellers once our proposal is approved.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2zEadXolbddQW82bDJEM2dfSEE
These images represent uncoloured versions of assets that will appear in the commercial.
We are still in the process of sourcing the 3D model of the jet plane itself, but it will be available soon.
We hope you enjoy our samples as we move towards the conclusion of this proposal phase.
Link to Categorized and Prioritized List of Proposals here: https://goo.gl/qu2JsP
Here's a city for less than 500 Dollars: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-city-buildings-details-2012/647054
Also planes: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-model/airplane?synonym=planes;
cars: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-model/car?keyword=cartoon
we realy need a marketing pro for dash who can hire an 3d agency for less than 50% of this proposal to do this job.
Thanks for the comment.
We make use of Turbosquid and other online resources when it's appropriate, i.e when the source has the exact look we want, the cost/labour ratio is right, it doesn't require cleanup or technical repurposing etc. When you have a bespoke art style, repurposing stock models can work out more expensive than making them from scratch.
Thank you for the comment, and the vote of confidence.
We honestly appreciate the vote, and we are very happy to hear that!
Please consider the following constructive criticism: for a flashy fast currency add the timing felt a little sluggish. I know this is a sketch but I would love some slapping happening in these seconds.
Also please coordinate coorporate branding. I believe "Dash - Digital Cash" is considered our tagline?
We will definitely use timing as a priority to provide contrast between the slow and fast portions of the ad.
We will add "Dash is digital cash" to the ad at some point. Keep an eye out for milestone posts!
Thank you for your comment! We share your excitement :)
Thank you very much for the comment. We are also very excited about this project. Look out for the milestone posts coming up! :)
maybe the airplane can be the same as the one we are sponsoring :P
We appreciate the votes.
It will be the same plane! :)
We have been keeping close contact with Scott Farnsworth who is the owner of the Acrobatic Airplanes proposal. We will be modeling his L39 Albatros in 3D and using it in the animation.
This proposer has proposed before, right? What was the outcome of their last proposal? Did we likely see a return on investment last time?
I do not know dashtreasury.org's opinion about the proposal as it is now, but @dashdisciple has commented on this thread:
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/poll-vote-on-our-next-animated-dash-commercial.15275/
We posted our first weekly report on the current campaign here:
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/eralith-youtube-ad-campaign-report-thread.15370/
The next report is due on the 23rd.
Top 10 Internet languages
If you are deciding which languages to localize your project into first, here are some interesting statistics about world languages used online:
https://alconost.com/en/services/software-localization#anchor-17
Our YouTube analytics showed a very large amount of engagement from India (30% of all views). We believe this may be due to the Indian government outlawing larger cash denominations, as you will see in our analytics report. It's been a very encouraging result!
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/eralith-youtube-ad-campaign-report-thread.15370/
How do I see this issue, and I've been working in marketing for more than 20 years - if we do not implement the budget 100%, it's very bad. Now only 1/6 of the budget works, it's terrible. It is necessary to do at least something!
Another question is how solvent is the Indian audience. It may happen that 1 US user purchases more crypto currency than 10 Indian.
I'd rather see you explain Dash like the person doesn't know what it is because over 99.7% of the worlds population doesn't know what crypto is. Our focus should be on the market that hasn't got in yet. Allowing us to be the first coin they see and recognize is HUGE! It's one of those things, they have seen it before so they automatically draw interest towards it.
I feel this is definitely not going to gain us $50,000 back in investments (current cost of proposal). Seeing this is like the last one, the first thing you see is the bitcoin symbol and everyone gave you feedback that it was not a good idea yet you proceed to do it again.
The pay to make this is extremely high and was geared towards the wrong audience and gives no insight at all on what Dash is/ does. I'd vote no
Thank you for your comment. We appreciate the feedback.
When we first tested this pitch on the Dash forum, we provided a second storyboard choice to the community, which was an explainer video outlining the aspects of Dash you've raised. A very large majority of people voted in favour of this storyboard, given the pros and cons of both treatments. https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/poll-vote-on-our-next-animated-dash-commercial.15275/#post-129582
With regards to the term "instant" vs "lightning fast" in the voiceover, we'll review the delivery of that line as a team. If there's consensus we can edit it.
When Evolution launches we will definitely evaluate our options in order to start casting our net into the general public.
At this moment we will be exclusively targeting new and existing crypto users, so all our impressions will be from people with a base knowledge or interest in crypto. (Our YouTube analytics indicated our first campaign had much more room to grow in terms of distribution budget. It has also been performing great in terms of views per dollar)
In terms of cost, distribution budget outweighs production cost 2-to-1, which we believe is a solid baseline. This does not account for future distribution renewals which will increase value further.
We're committed to providing a high-quality commercial that viewers will enjoy.
Thanks again
You must use "Instant Send" , "Private Send" , et cetera
Consult the community slack for help if needed!