Nouns Presence In Chinese Community

NounsDAO NounsDAO Proposals
1

Nouns Presence In Chinese Community

730×911 161 KB

tl;dr: Showcase and introduce Nouns to mandarin speaking communities by nounifying China with an array of nounish activations; tapping into the network of connection leveraging on content created to grab attention from audience pool who have ability to become potential new DAO member within the mandarin speaking communities.

Description:
NounsDAO is highly diversified with the power to break out from the cultural center of NYC, BUT there are still gaps & barriers to penetrate especially into the mandarin speaking/Asian communities.

Despite the many international builders, awareness and presence of Nouns in chinese communities where Mandarin is the native language, our world’s 2nd most spoken language is tremendously low.

This prop seeks to introduce and bring Nouns presence into chinese communities with Shanghai, China as the starting point; the world’s leading populated cities where blockchain/web3.0 technology are growing rapidly. To further expand Nouns global reach, to proliferate nounish culture by creating a lasting nounish impression with an array of activations over a span of 6 months:

  1. Nouns Haus, a fun one stop shop to proliferate and educate Nouns across 5 NFT/Crypto centric events
  2. Nouns Shanghai Carnival, a OTG activation to solidify proliferation of Nouns & create authentic/memorable connection with general public
  3. Nounish Digital Collectibles launched on China’s largest social media platform Sina Weibo.
  4. NounsCN Grant to expose local creator to Nouns funding system.
  5. Nouns Go Viral on Douyin a.k.a Chinese version of TikTok.
  6. Nouns Chair, a public structure at Shanghai Himalayas Museum
  7. Nounish PR Campaign with both blockchain media (Foresight、PANews、Odaily) and traditional media (Shanghai daily) for the leadup and duration of all Nounish events in China

1500×593 92.4 KB

Why China?:
NFT picked up its popularity in 2021 and this phenomenon continues into 2022; entering mainstream consciousness and China has not been left out. In China, NFT are referred to as “digital collectibles” rather than “token” and its digital collectibles market has been growing rapidly as chinese young consumers are increasingly embracing digitisation.

According to TechInSight NFT survey, China digital collectibles spend value will increase from $4.8 billion in 2022 to reach $48.3 billion by 2028. Searches for post related to digital collectibles increased by 1,228% y-o-y, while the number of post related to keyword “NFT” rose by 159-fold.

Tech giants like Ant Group and Tencent have also ventured into this space and we will be seeing many more Chinese companies/investors jumping onto this bandwagon and they could all be potential DAO members contributing to the DAO, opening untapped channels and ways to proliferate Nouns branding and the meme to a wider/larger market & audiences.

1200×675 395 KB

How will this be done?:
We will establish Nouns presence and build its brand/meme awareness in China through activations in multiple domains both online and offline:

1. Nouns Haus:

A fun one stop shop focusing on educating and explaining NounsDAO and what it means to be nounish while showcasing what the DAO have achieved till date to event goers; a proliferation engine that will be on-going throughout 5 of China’s major NFT/Crypto centric event like: CryptoArt Shanghai, CryptoArt ShenZhen, Beijing Creator DAO Exhibition, 8BTC Digital Art Summit, WanXiang Blockchain Summit and so forth over the course of 2023.

Event like CryptoArt Shanghai draws in huge pool of participants/audiences yearly, these are people who have interest, understand and looking to contribute to the space thus,
Nouns Haus aim is to:

  • Educate and grab attention from this pool of audience(s), onboarding them as potential DAO contributors
  • Allow this pool of audience(s) to have the chance to understand Nouns
  • Put Nouns in the eyes of thousands of Collectors / Investors / Builders (Devs)

Nouns Haus will also be packed with nounish activation(s) like:

  1. Nouns-branded photo station, where everyone is able to have photo taking opportunities helping us proliferate the meme to the millions across Weibo and Wechat, China’s main social platform (equivalent to Twitter/Facebook/Instagram). Content over those platforms will be captured by team and shared among the nouniverse.
  2. Display of Nounish creative tools like Noundry Studio, where participants are able to have hands-on experience, all while learning about Nouns and the tools the DAO funded/created.
  3. Nounish graffiti wall for participants to leave their mark in Nouns Haus.
  4. Nounish wheel of knowledge, a Learn & Earn activation where participants are able to win nounish swag by answering random questions about NounsDAO (wheel of fortune style) correctly using the information they obtain by interacting in Nouns Haus.

1031×752 168 KB

2. Nouns Shanghai Carnival:
This will be a curated IRL nounish experience aimed to proliferate Nouns branding to mass public in China, to help increase awareness of Nouns and put noggles ⌐◨-◨ in the eyes of hundreds.

We believe that Nouns IRL presence should not only be restricted to Web3.0/NFT events; localized nounish IRL events that break off from the usual Web3.0/NFT audience are equally important.

Nouns Shanghai Carnival will be a localized nounish experience held at Shanghai 1933, a historical building that has transformed itself into a cultural epicenter and a national tourism demonstration site. It is ideally located close to 2 rail transit lines, connecting the city’s main roads and is only 1km from the Shanghai luxury cruise terminal and the Hyatt on the Bund.

What will be installed (not limited to):

  • Nouns photo station
  • Game stations
  • Food stations
  • Nouns Gallery
  • Nounish swag
  • Nounish lounge area
  • Accessibility to various Nouns platform (nouns.wtf, prop house, nouns center etc)

A QR code will also be distributed during the event for participants to join our community, where they will be given priority in claiming the Nounish digital collectibles. Number of digital collectibles claim through this group would give us a insight on the effect of such IRL events.

475×584 411 KB

3. Nounish Digital Collectibles
As the digital collectibles market in China continue to grow rapidly, we aim to work with China’s largest social media platform Sina Weibo which is a Chinese microblogging website, with over 582 million monthly active users to launch a Nounish collection of digital collectibles on their marketplace.

This Nounish collection of digital collectibles will be something native and it will facilitate the education of this native community about Nouns & enable the community to discover what it meant to be nounish organically; it is also a on-going exploration of the iconic noggle and it’s meme value by expanding it into a different domain.

To unveil and amplify the launch of these nounish collectibles, Sina Weibo will mobilize its media resources to proliferate the collection on top of facilitating the distribution of this collection to its users. This nounish digital collectibles will be free to collect (FCFS), in addition, a meme contest will also be held in parallel with the launch to seed and boost the meme value of noggle/nouns within Chinese digital collectibles communities.

719×644 330 KB

4. NounsCN Grant
NounsCN Grant will be a pilot/experimental pool of small capital that serves the DAO’s interest similar to NSFW and DCS pod, it will be stewarded on a completely discretionary basis.

Current funding system like prop house, NSFW & DCS pod are not readily available to the chinese community in China due to their internet censorship, hence NounsCN Grant aim is to serve this gap by taking on the stewardship of distributing grants, to introduce Nouns funding system (small grants, retro funding, trail/pilot) to local creatives/creator by having it on native channel(s) that are readily available to the chinese community.

The group will conduct its daily operations on Sina Weibo Nouns Chinese community page, 1) it is a platform where proposer could put up their proposal and have it discussed openly, 2) resonate & attract builder within the digital collectibles community

719×653 106 KB

5. Nouns Go Viral
In this current era the quickest and most effective way to bring millions of new people’s attention onto Nouns is none other than creating viral content that helps spread the Nouns meme/brand across the internet.

Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, a native social media platform in China has over 700 million daily active users and is one of the most popular app in the country; thus by working with Douyin sensation for example like street basketballer “小酷翔”, we aim to generate a series of curated content for at least 2 months where we not only showcase the iconic noggle but also foster interest towards the brand by launching periodic Nounish swag giveaway through various activation/engagement over Douyin and WeChat.

p.s 万 = 10,000
p.p.s From just 6 clips, there’s a total of 143.4万 (1.43 millions) views

1085×462 731 KB

6. Nouns Chair:
A huge part of being nounish is to be able to spread the culture and meme through public goods and to do fun & creative stuff; thus in the spirit of public good we aim to put up a nounish structure in Shanghai by fabricating a Nounish furniture - “Nouns Chair”

“Nouns Chair” design will be heavily influenced by the iconic noggle and 3 of such “Nouns Chair” will be place at Shanghai Himalayas Museum, a non-profit art institution focusing on art exhibition, education, collection and academic exchange with a average of 4,000 monthly visitors.

Why “Nouns Chair”? As an IRL object of the world, an artistic memeish take on noggle, “Nouns Chair” at the same time is also an instrument proliferating the Nouns branding; it invites museum visitors to sit down, to begin a conversation, provoke them to wonder how this design came about and that itself is fun/nounish.

1205×792 175 KB

1328×664 155 KB

2 draft design

7. Nounish PR Campaign
Have developed a deep network of media partners over the years, leading up to execution of all Nounish activations; we will seed the content and details about Nouns to our media partners (web3 outlets & traditional media outlets). Positive publication coverage would help boost interest and engagement revolving Nouns.

4954×2944 943 KB

The Team

  • Noun 74 - Founder of Chinese Cryptopunks Community (CCC), a community with more than 200 members each of which are verified punk holders. CCC as one of the leading NFT community in China has the highest concentration of web3 thought-leaders, including directors from Christie’s and Sotheby’s, founders of notable crypto exchanges as well as directors of notable crypto media.

    Noun 74 also spearheaded multiple Web3.0 activations within China; co-hosted events like Cryptoart Shanghai that was featured on China national news as well as multiple media platforms. Recently organized a joint exhibition that is currently on-going till 25th Feb 2023 at Shenzhen China, where Nouns are being exhibited alongside other renowned NFT project like Cryptopunks, BAYC etc.

    Noun 74 also tend to received multiple opportunities where he gets invited to major Web3.0/Crypto events as speaker or host; for example in recent month he was invited to host a roundtable at Web3 Innovation Summit in HK, a event huge enough to have HK financial secretary Paul Chan as their special guest. As a contributor, these are opportunities apart from this prop that we can leverage on to further proliferate Nouns.

f902b2ccc2f9e46a30eb66938c3d7a3
f902b2ccc2f9e46a30eb66938c3d7a31725×992 231 KB

q6EOBvv

Karl has also successfully displayed proliferation to acquisition, through his sharing as a guest speaker on 6000U CLub twitter space, as a catalyst onboarded new member who is the current holder of Noun #557.

1961×835 196 KB

1280×720 219 KB

Team have also organized a 1) bilingual twitter space with The Noun Square which was aired in parallel in BNB chain, summary of the space was also reported/shared across China’s top 6 blockchain media platform even made it to front page on Defi DAO news generating over >138K read upon publication.

Furthermore, with the dissolution of official NounsDAO discord on-top of China’s Internet censorship - Team have also started to build a growing 2) Nouns Chinese community on China’s native media platform WeChat prior to putting up this on-chain prop. A Nouns Chinese community page will also be launch on Shina Weibo to serve as a landing page to provide Nounish information in mandarin; as well as tracking the growth of chinese community.
(Target members by end of 6 mths = 3000 - 4000)

We strongly believe the potential in this untapped/new market within the Chinese community, and we are confident that with these array of activations we are able to grow the presence of Nouns in Chinese community + 3) leverage on the content created, tapping into our network of connection, a audience pool that have the ability to enter the ecosystem, to educate them on all thing Nounish & onboarding them as potential new DAO members.
(Onboarding Target = 2-3 new DAO members)

With this on-chain prop, we would like to onboard the DAO to explore this new domain & market together. As a DAO member and Nounish builder we are ready to execute/delivery & look forward to contribute to the DAO.

The Ask / Funds breakdown

  • 5x Nouns Haus - Total: $64,900

    • Venue Set up - 《$32,900》
      • 3D Nouns Print up - $12,500
      • Graffiti wall - $2,700
      • Photo wall - $2,700
      • Screens - $3,000
      • Equipment Rental - $12,000
    • Nounish Swag - 《$21,500》
      • T-shirt - $6,000
      • Noggle pins - $5,000
      • Stickers pack - $3,000
      • Print Out Noggle - $7,500
    • Logistic - 《$10,500》
      • Transport - $2,000
      • Shipping - $1,000
      • Installation/Tear Down - $7,500

  • Nouns Shanghai Carnival - Total: $22,000

    • Event Planner - $3,000
    • Permit - $300
    • Event budget (Planner to work with) - $18,700

  • Nounish Digital Collectibles - Total: $26,400

    • Sina Weibo Partnership - $24,000
    • Meme Contest - $2,400

  • Nouns Go Viral - Total: $19,880

    • Influencer Partnership - 《$17,500》
      • Dribble Camp post - $3,500
      • Weekly post (Total 16 post) - $14,000
    • Nounish Merch - 《$2,380》
      • Nouns Jersey - $1,350
      • Nouns Arm Sleeves - $1,030

  • NounsCN Grant - Total: $5,500

  • 3x Nouns Chair - Total: $23,100

    • Design Conceptualization - $3,000
    • Fabrication - $13,500
    • Transport/Shipping - $4,500
    • Installation - $2,100

  • Content & Media Production - Total: $12,100

    • PR Content - $5,500
    • Unveiling film/photograph - $6,600

  • Team Remuneration (6mths) - Total: $46,200

    • Core team - $36,300
      • Noun 74 - $18,150
      • Karl - $18,150
    • Labor - $9,900

Total Ask = $220,080 USDC (176ETH)
1ETH = $1250 USDC

2 Likes
2

Do you have any examples of where this has worked for you in the past with character brands, or any character brands?

My concern is the cost as in relation to how marketing like this in general has little to no impact on culture, and would be perceived as marketing, versus going into all the major department stores in China over a very slow period of time which would cost nothing.

it also feels like given the dynamics of pop, culture and character culture right now, you would want to focus on specialty in South Korea to have direct impact on China as laying down some sort of base layer foundation?

there are endless entities who will happily take money to plaster visuals all over Beijing and Shanghai, but I’m having a hard time finding individual instances where this has actually worked other than the famous Pepsi promotion, with Fido Dido, which I think, was more of an outlier case and still relied upon that characters context in previous history.

I think if you had examples of how this worked for you in the past, that would be wonderful to see, thank you!

3

GM @DAVID thank you for your comment.

Could you explain more on why you feel this in general has little to no impact on culture? Activations are curated and focused on areas that are relatable, example having Nouns presence in web3/crypto event in China.

Am not familiar with how South Korea will have direct impact on China vs having activation directly in China.

Anw I feel there might be some confusion here towards this prop? Maybe we could hop on a quick call, to address/explain the purpose of this prop to you. Sent you a FR on discourse btw. Thank you

4

sure thing, and thank you for your reply and time.

I come from the character brand business, and have entered China with much success at specialty over the years. Doing so never cost me anything.

In general, “marketing” new character brands, such as Nouns, and even marketing existing character brands like Hello Kitty, not only don’t work in general ( historically ) but can be damaging. The idea is your potential future fan base is being marketed to… VS your potential future fan base making a discovery of your brand on their own.

(Korea has been very powerful for us in slow growth into China and Hong Kong, as the top high end department stores in Seoul are a favorite destination with young tourists. Our own character brand store in Seoul attracted mostly people from mainland China, Hong Kong, and surrounding territories. We build awareness with pop culture within China this way, which then years later lead to Alibaba wanting to invest etc. What we did in Korea also allowed us to take over larger department stores in Shanghai and Beijing, such as Gallerie Lafayette, and at the Taipei Toy Festival, 90% of our sales cone from fans in China, thanks to our efforts in Korea. We have spent zero dollars in China on any of our brands and have never done marketing, but have millions in revenues from China, Hong Kong, and surrounding… our next phase activates there in 2025-26, but still treated very carefully with slow, incremental growth, as to make sure we never seem to be “marketing” to the market…as that could end our brand. )

For new character brands especially, it is very important not to “market” or use “event activations”.

That said, if you have had success raising a dedicated fan base for a new character brand using this method in the past, do you have examples of such.

5

Understood, so we are viewing Nouns from two very different perspective in terms of the way we proliferate. You view Nouns as a “Character” and look to proliferate via the “Character” route, being able to become a IRL toy etc. moving into department store…

But for our prop we are viewing Nouns as what it is, a meme, a NFT project, a DAO and proliferate as is, thus IRL events are mainly focused on Web3/crypto events where attendees are audience who are in this space, who understand digital art/collectibles + other activation revolving around Nouns to create content.

As we will be leveraging on these content, to bring awareness to Nouns this project/DAO, tap into our network of connections, a audience pool who invest/collect NFT to onboard them into the DAO. Hope this clear up the confusion.

6

If nouns is a meme strictly, do you have any examples of where you have successfully proliferated a meme with this method, or if not , an example of where similar paid promotions resulted in the proliferation of a meme ( vs how memes are typically spread, organically, and naturally)

Human beings interfacing with information and visuals are going to feel marketed to, whether they are interfacing with a character brand or a designer bag, or even a protocol.

Treating nouns as a character brand adds high potential to the likelihood of proliferation by becoming one with culture and presenting potential meaning in peoples lives, versus being something we place an ad for, with Google, or one of the multitudes of mass media companies very happy to take as much money as we will throw at them.
But if you have an example in that same market of this working previously, I’m eager to learn. I personally have never seen it.

I would also love to hear from the larger community to confirm that it is widely believed that it is best not to treat nouns as a character brand? Because blanketing imagery of characters will, in my point of view, and in my experience, hurt any chances of executing as a successful character brand , long term.

. It doesn’t mean that’s all it is, but I would love to hear if that’s definitely not what it is…

Again, I am mostly hoping to see existing examples where this has worked in China in the way you describe in relation to proliferation of a meme.

Thank you again

7

Hi David, for our prop the angle we perceive Nouns is as a meme, a NFT project, a DAO and we proliferate as is, educating people what is Nouns and its ecosystem. But that does not mean Nouns is strictly just a meme; being cc0 allow Nouns to be perceived in many different form, a comic, a short film, a game, a skate board obstacle, a toy, so many more iteration.

And I agree, Nouns make a great character brand, have seen many iteration of it including your own as well as Bigshot. But what I don’t understand is that, how would activation revolving around Nouns hurt the success of Nouns being a character brand? This is not my area of expertise, so would love to hear more of your thought.

Because the goal of this prop is to let more creative creator in chinese community get exposure to Nouns network, onboarding new members that have align goal into the DAO through various activations. With more creator like yourself with industry know-how, bringing their expertise and resource into Nouns network, we would then see more quality prop with diff strategy in which creator breath life into Nouns, either treating Nouns as a character brand, or meme, or any creative iteration.

8

thanks so much for your thoughtful reply.

I always say the best ads in China are free, and aren’t ads. But there are arguments against my take, to be certain, which leads to my question at the end here.

In general, there haven’t been any examples of a character brand reaching success in their formative years by placing ads or paid activations (such as Hello Kitty, Miffy, Moomin, Snoopy in Japan, Rillakuma, Barbapapa, Lisa Larson, and similar) and in general, most take great care in making it a point to become one with culture VS marketing to it.

In general, these brands dont avoid ads and paid activations because of cost, but because of perception by their intended audience.

It’s a little like Toy Fair or the Licensing show. We expect each brand to have a booth, but the one brand who takes over the “lanyard”, the back of the ID badge, and wraps the show lobby in their brand ID, is seen as “hungry” and without their own culture to grow upon. The attendees feel “marketed to”. That example may be a little too specific…

Other brands outside the character business but held in high regard in culture, such as Supreme, Bathing Ape, Human Made, and similar, also grew their early steps without paid promotions in their formative years, in favor of taking steps to become one with culture… this often means taking some extra maneuvers. (some of the more slow growth maneuvers suggested by the nouns Japan community in discords were very good, IMO )

In my own personal example, everything we have done so far in China was done for free.

My example runs similar to how other brands have entered that territory, and at a similar, slow speed.
We were a point of fun discovery for travelers in mainland China, Hong Kong and others by being discovered in the one place in Seoul where almost all tourists and travelers new to Korea visit on their first trip. (Insadong, Zzamzigil).
We opened a store in Zzamzigil for the purpose of being discovered by travelers from China. Over time, we established a base layer of fans which lead to us being invited to take over high end luxury department stores in mainland China, put on gallery shows in Hong Kong with noted companies, work with toy companies in Hong Kong (which became our 2nd largest brand), and once we were ready, execute a more meaningful program with KFC China, Alibaba, and for 2025-26, go to mainland China and Hong Kong in a much larger way, in thousands of stores, with an established base layer “underground” but influential following.

That all said, I agree that not only is nouns very different than all of these, in many ways, but it is at it’s core a brilliant protocol, and I agree with your take on what it is, which is indeed much more than just a character brand. Much, much more.
I like to look at nouns as a character brand, as a tool to help bring the attention of the rest of the world, through the same discovery process which got them to fall in love with brands they identity with, in hopes of reaching beyond the circle of NFTs and crypto.

Doing away with my take and approach in regards to characters,

I still have the same question re: is there a time when you saw an NFT project raise their level of awareness though an activation like your idea, in China?
Or, if not an NFT brand, any brand or any similar project making use of such activations.

I thank you again for your time, and I feel strongly that anybody who knows of nouns this early, enough to make a prop, comes from a special place to have been able to do so. We’re on the same team.

9

Hi David, thank you for sharing your methodology and industry know-how on character branding.

I admire the incredible ambition; I too would love to see mass public fall in love with Nouns and identify themselves with it. With more creators like yourself coming into Nouns network, I believe that could be a reality sooner than we hope. But I do not agree that Nouns is to be look at as just a character brand only, being cc0 allow Nouns to be more than that and the only limit to that is our imagination.

Echoing 4156, the problem we face/should try to solve is to onboard more high quality, aligned builder, creatives (like yourself), dev to participate in Nouns. To collectively work towards creating an awesome open-source brand.

image
image903×371 54.6 KB

Personally experienced it myself - Kaiju Kingz a NFT brand/project was able to raise their awareness in Singapore through various activations (IRL & Online). The Singapore community grew from a mere 60+ members to currently 641 members.

Therefore I strongly believe the importance of having activations in diff domains (IRL and Online), content created are powerful tool to bring awareness/exposure to Nouns and used correctly we could attract, onboard right members into the DAO.

10

@LaughAndBelly is someone who was quite actively spreading nouns in her circle and above few months back. Not sure if she got the 2eth to manage the chinese community but hopefully she is still active in nouncil and other servers. Ya’ll should come together
https://twitter.com/NounsDAOChinese
https://twitter.com/LaughAndBelly