Agreed 100% with everything Luckybit has posted. Very, very powerful points in those posts. Utility and "what can it do for me?" is most important first and foremost, and the ideology will inevitably follow...
100% Agree with Nomorehereoes' 100% agreement with luckbit. Utility. Utility. Utility.
I understand the desire to emulate Apple's approach to marketing in some way. Their 1984 Superbowl 'Think different' ad for the Macintosh was one of the best TV ads ever made. But the Macintosh was not Apple's first product, they had already proven themselves to the world at large - they were already famous. They could afford to take risks with big ideological, slightly wooly, messaging as part of their advertising. They were big enough and organised enough to do that. We are not at that stage yet.
The Macintosh had a screen and a keyboard and a mouse and although we all now know that the Apple ecosystem became much more, most users (not developers) at the time would have seen the Macintosh as a way of using a handful of software packages to get their work done and perhaps be more creative. The ultimate USP was that Macintosh owners could do these things more efficiently and in a slicker way than they could on any other PC available at the time. That value and utility along with a little aspirational messaging was enough to propel Apple forward. Trying to sell the vision of a different society, as yet unrealised, as the product is a very different kettle of fish. That sounds like what Dan was suggesting, but I might have misinterpreted?
Luckily most of the people who will have read this thread will not have freaked at the sentiment from Dan's OP, including myself. But in the wider world I think we have to be very very careful with this kind of language being part of core messaging:
Lets reimagine everything, think out side the box and create a society where we can be secure and where threats of violence by the government are overwhelmed by non-violent cooperation. We all long for freedom, it is universal. We all long for security. No one likes theft and violence.
It's the sort of language that will put off or even scare average users. Elon Musk's reason for creating Tesla and Space-X are largely to do with his desire to do good. To reduce global warming and help heal the planet with Tesla and to give us humans a better chance of long term survival by exploring space and creating a human colony on Mars with SpaceX . I don't see his desire to colonise Mars or to cool down the planet featuring in either company's marketing material in any significant way. Sure he talks about these goals and his beliefs when speaking and when interviewed, but it's not part of the core marketing message aimed at his customers.
First and foremost it's value and utility that will bring the masses to Bitshares. To some extent novelty/shiny-cool-stuff will do this too as is always the way. There is a difference between a marketing strategy that lists boring specs and Ghz as a means to grab attention (like Dell used to) vs one that wraps up it's marketing message in imagery and slightly amorphous ideological/aspirational messaging (like Apple). I'm up for more of the latter - it can be a very solid strategy. Lot's of non-specific talk and imagery signifying freedom and individuality works and is probably a very good fit for Bitshares from a marketing point of view. But the latter is not the same as wholly defining an ideology as if it's part of the product itself and then shouting about it. I think we are much more likely to scare people off this way - i.e. the lets create a new society message. 9.99 people out of 10 will take the view that you have no chance of breaking the status quo (or colonising mars). They'll say it's impractical and unrealistic and then they'll switch off. I think Bitcoin suffers from this, people switch off because they can never see it truly taking over from traditional fiat. Their lack of understanding of it's potential slows adoption and the innovations that would create more utility. If we saw more utility within the Bitcoin ecosystem then perhaps things would change more swiftly. Bitshares has the opportunity and toolkit to demonstrate that crypto is not just about another way to pay for things. It's so much more, but it's utility not ideology that will demonstrate this.
Maybe I'm wrong and there is a way to weave both ideology and utility into messaging in a more palatable way for users. But I think it's a tall order and perhaps too risky to spell out the ultimate vision at this stage. Maybe one day the Bitshares brand will be big enough and established enough so that we can consider doing that, but at the moment it simply isn't. There's too much danger that we'll sound like a bunch of cranks, people are not ready for the message yet.
As a marketing strategy to attract bright and talented developers - well that's a different story. Here perhaps the vision and ideology is what will get the best and brightest through the door. They'll have the sense to understand what DACs offer themselves and wider society. But that's an entirely different marketing program to the the one you'd might execute in order to attract the average users we'll need to attract in order to grow.
Last week was a rough one in many ways, nerves were frayed, but I think we are pointed in the right direction now. Sorry if this contrary view brings even more rain to BM's parade, but I believe it's extremely important to discuss these things and make the right decisions. Almost as important as anything else we could be discussing. Without users we are dead in the water.
I do think we will colonise Mars one day and I think that Dan's vision for a DAC will come to pass in some form. Hopefully it will be by way of the Bitshares SuperDAC. I want to take the opportunity to express my appreciation for all the hard work that Dan and the various teams have done to push things forward so far. I've done very little in practical terms myself, though I'm very excited about the idea of someday working for a DAC. Perhaps even the SuperDAC.
For the record I've worked at a senior level within the advertising industry here in London for nearly twenty years. One client was actually one of the aforementioned big brands too and so I know at least a little bit about this kind of stuff. My Spidey senses are telling me this is a really big deal and that the path we take needs to be considered extremely carefully.
Topic: Marketing Direction - Why not How or What... (Read 23047 times)
