Catapult Brand Update #1
Join the discussion about the NEM Catapult Branding on the NEM forum!
Translations:
• Japanese: LINK
• Spanish: LINK
• Mandarin: Forthcoming
• Italian: Here
• Russian: Here
Dear Community,
Many of you have supported NEM since early on – thank you. Some of you are newer to the community and are curious about learning more about the tech and what differentiates it from other blockchain protocols on the market today. You’ve probably read documentation on GitHub or Qiita, downloaded the Nano wallet, built some projects on NEM, or perhaps you’ve gone into Slack, BitcoinTalk or the Telegram channels Red or HelpDesk to get a sense of how things work around here beyond the typical POCs. Almost all of you, most likley, have heard about Catapult.
Today the goal is to share a new way to look at Catapult from a different lens than the one you may be used to. It’s a glimpse at what the future of Catapult could look like in Q1 2020.
This is a culmination of ongoing research, insight from community and partners and also an outside perspective on how Catapult might look with a new focus and refinement.
NEM and Catapult have differences in code so the approach we’ll be sharing with you is through the lens of Catapult as a new brand. A key part of this work our group has been collaborating on is to establish a ‘brand narrative,’ setting out Catapult’s ambition, brand characteristics, value proposition, and target audience in a way that differentiates Catapult as a competitive leader and makes Catapult relevant for all our audiences – but particularly the enterprise audience.
It’s a lot of information and naturally, you’re going to have questions – that’s what we want. We want you to participate and join the discussion in this forum post below.
Thanks in advance for all your support,
The Brand Steering Committee
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1. ABOUT THE CATAPULT BRAND STEERING COMMITTEE AND PROCESS**
Earlier this year, an MOU was signed between the NEM Foundation and David Shaw (Director of NEM Studios) to do market research, brand exploration and help create a go-to-market strategy for the launch of Catapult protocol.
To better support these efforts, a Catapult Brand Steering Committee was comprised of Alexandra Tinsman, David Shaw, Lewis Farrell, and Nate D’Amico as a reliable source of counsel to weigh in on strategies for Catapult Branding. In November, the committee expanded to also include Jeff McDonald and Dave Hodgson.
CATAPULT BRAND PROPOSAL AND DECISION PROCESS
- The Catapult Brand Steering Committee has been working on an initial brand proposal that we’ll be sharing with the community, ecosystem partners, and core team for feedback. (?Skip to the bottom of this post for a detailed brand work back schedule.)
- Feedback is absorbed along the way and balanced between what is wanted and what is possible across various stakeholder groups, and then the Catapult Brand Steering Committee creates a brand proposal.
- A single summary proposal encompassing the brand recommendation will then be drafted and put to the Core Team and Community for a decision. If it is rejected, then it will be reworked, but this may impact Q1 2020 launch, and that must be balanced to avoid as a priority.
2. ABOUT THE BRAND AGENCY
An important part of helping Catapult fulfill its potential and vision was to pull in brand professionals with a proven track record for transforming and elevating world-class brands. Please say a warm hello to the lead team at Better Way, the brand agency helping us bring Catapult to the enterprise market.They bring decades of experience shaping products into evergreen brands.
Katie Barber, Strategy and Program Management
Katie is a digital strategist with 20+ years of experience for many high profile brands, including Microsoft, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Legal & General, and United Airlines. She specializes in delivering strategic planning across multiple platforms and formats to drive business goals, engagement, and brand perception.
Dan Rowe, Creative Lead
Dan has spent 20 years advising government, companies, and boards on brand & marketing strategy with clients including Nokia, Miniclip, Accenture, Playstation, BNP Paribas, Cable & Wireless, IKEA, Sky, and Telefonica. His roles include being the Creative Director of Planetactive, co-founder and Creative Director of Dave and Calling Brands, and Partner at Engine Group.
Dan Bobby, Strategy Lead
Dan has spent 25 years in building, developing, and advising companies and Boards on brand, marketing & business strategy. He specializes in building brands as strategic assets with experience in B2B, Technology, and Professional Services. Roles include head of strategy of Wolf Olins, CEO of dave, a Board Director of The Engine group, and most recently CEO of Calling Brands. Clients include Orange, KPMG, IKEA, ITN, Accenture, Nokia, Experian, and Cable & Wireless.
3. ABOUT THE CATAPULT BRAND GO-TO-MARKET PROJECT
The NEM Foundation tasked the brand agency to help with the following areas:
1. To define and agree on the core philosophy that sits at the heart of the Catapult brand platform. To clarify the core elements that sit at the heart of the proposition – why it exists, what makes it unique, how it delivers, who it is for – and articulate those benefits to enterprise customers and other stakeholders.
2. To bring the narrative to life – verbally and visually – to inform the launch.
? Interested to learn more? You can read more about the agency’s approach in the Brand Steering Committee Kickoff Presentation HERE.
ABOUT THE MARKET RESEARCH
The agency started the project by doing extensive market research on NEM and the blockchain landscape. This research included:
- Desk Research
- Competitor analysis – communications and brand
- Internal interviews
- External Interviews
?Interested to learn more? Check out the discovery and market research that was compiled.
The discovery process was helpful and some of the actionable findings from the market research and interviews included:
- NEM’s reputation as a brand has been affected by negative press. (Ex. Coincheck Hack)
- The current NEM brand has little traction with Enterprise clients.
- Blockchain competition is well poised. (Check out how the competition has been positioning themselves in the marketplace.)
?The takeaway is that we see this as a huge opportunity to take an active leadership position within blockchain and for business thanks to Catapult, which we risk not realizing with the current brand NEM.
4. A NEW FUTURE IN ENTERPRISE WITH CATAPULT
Catapult presents itself with being a strong enterprise protocol platform, and we knew we needed to think about how we start to develop a brand and brand strategy that enables us to go on a journey and a roadmap as an organization as we develop additional elements to the technology over the long term.
Specific details emerged from the market research that showed us what strengths Catapult has in the enterprise landscape. These became the “building blocks” that we decided to take in for how we will talk about the brand moving forward.
5. CATAPULT STRATEGY AND MESSAGING
We want to position Catapult as having a point of view and being contextualized in and around the world – and especially in the world of business. We believe the lack of trust between people, businesses, organizations, and in society is being exposed, creating barriers to and destroying potential value and allowing fewer large companies to maintain dominance at a time where collaboration and working together are key to growth.
We see that while increased connectivity through technology is meant to bring us closer together, in reality, it fuels isolation and protectionism. For businesses, despite their connectivity, they are now less certain of who their dealing with and the integrity and honesty of those players in their value chain.
At Catapult we believe that everything has value and everyone should be valued. Corporations, organizations, communities, and individuals have ideas, business opportunities, and innovation that can create collective value for themselves and others within the ecosystem.
? We believe that the next evolution of business will be about fair value exchange.
The ability to ascribe value to anything that individuals or organizations own – and exchange it fairly – will create a level playing field that removes barriers to entry and allows full participation in markets and business.
Business needs a secure and trusted value network where everything has a value, and everyone will achieve the return they deserve for the things they make and own.
Technology & blockchain has an essential role to play by establishing collective value through trust at the heart of the exchanges of ideas, innovation, and information between individuals, businesses, and communities.
? We believe that Catapult can be the secure and trusted value transfer network for business. Catapult, as an organization and a technology, will provide the means and ways of making the creation and realization of value possible.
In the following future updates, we’ll be sharing more details around brand strategy and go deeper into topics including:
- Brand Ambition, Belief, and Philosophy
- Brand Strategy
- Brand Names (Including Ticker)
- Bringing the Brand To Life Creatively
- The Brand Proposal First Draft
- The Brand Proposal Final Draft (With Feedback/Updates)
- The Catapult Brand Go-To-Market Plan
- The Catapult Brand Go-To-Market Toolkit
- Strengthening Catapult’s Culture and Community
6. TIMELINE
We want to hear your constructive feedback and we aim to do our best to provide you with progress updates and check-ins.
? To help keep you in the loop, here’s a handy timeline on the project deliverables.
Thanks for your continued support,
Alexandra Tinsman
on behalf of the Catapult Steering Committee
