We held a marketing focused AMA in the Mogul telegram channel hosted by Cory Ross, Mogul’s Head of Marketing. Because there was so much great information, we’ll be splitting this recap up into three posts.
Q1) Can you give the community a detailed overview and possible timeline on marketing plans for both the crypto and non crypto spaces, what mediums will be used, and will you factor in the overall market sentiment when making decisions?
A1) Of course, starting off with the most loaded question possible! The marketing, starting in the next few weeks, will be the machine that takes Mogul to the next level. Basically, we have a LOT going on right now, and there is a robust plan in place that’s waiting for us to click the big red button. Not everything can be announced in full – and some of it can’t be announced at all – so I’ll try to say as much as I can in broad terms to give you an idea of what’s coming.
I have a feeling it’s going to come up later, but you’ve all heard rumblings about STARS and Binance Smart Chain. Let’s just say… more on that later 🙂
Our film & marketing teams are hard at work preparing the film showcase, trying to get as much “stuff” for the Mogul community as possible. That includes NFTs, A-List actors, distribution partners for the films, and more. The best part is that these movies will be ready to shoot so that after the vote ends, STARS holders and Mogul users will immediately be brought jnto the behind-the-scenes action that you’ve all been waiting for. We are THIS close to announcing this, so stay tuned! And of course – everything on the NFT side, from Access Passes (more on these later, too) to Rob Prior’s upcoming NFTs.
Obviously, when doing any marketing in this industry, if crypto is down across the board, it makes life a little bit harder. But we’ve all also seen examples of coins doing very well and growing quickly while BTC and ETH are in a downturn. So while market sentiment can be an indicator, it’s not always 100% accurate or indicative
That said, and to answer the question, you’re going to see Mogul EVERYWHERE. This includes major publications, podcasts, influencer channels, newsletters, and many other distribution outlets that have a proven track record for growing crypto companies and coin holders. Executing plans at the scale we want takes a lot of planning, but we’re moving quickly.
We were just written about in Variety (THEE publication for Hollywood news), Forbes, Ivan on Tech, Playback Online (the Variety of Canada), Yahoo Finance, and PopHorror, not to mention one of the biggest news publications in Asia (owned by the massive company Tencent). And that’s just in the past couple weeks.
If market sentiment says that crypto is pointing down, well, that doesn’t speak for us. To us, STARS is always pointing up, so we’re never going to take a break or slow down, we’ll keep pushing and keep getting written about in top publications!
Q2) Mogul has received more than 50 submissions so far for the showcase. How did these filmmakers find out about Mogul? How does the team plan to attract more experienced / acclaimed filmmakers to the platform?
A2) Great question. It’s actually been many more than that – I don’t have the number on hand right now but I would imagine it’s well over 200. As you know, the Mogul team is made up of not just marketing and “business” folks like myself, but also several very successful filmmakers, actors, and producers!
People like Cindy Cowan, David Cormican, Lyriq Bent, and now Tifanie Acosta, know so many people in the industry between them. It really makes my job much easier! It makes it so that Mogul is only a phone call away from working with some of the top people in Hollywood. I can’t name drop right now, but our business development folks have been working on some very, very exciting NFT drops as a result of these relationships….
In marketing, there’s a generally known fact that word of mouth is by far the best form of advertising. If you’re looking for a new car and all your friends say “buy a Lambo!” then you’re probably buying a Lambo. Okay, extreme example, but the same principle applies to the film industry.
When Cindy, David, Lyriq, and Tifanie are talking to their peers about Mogul, even if those people aren’t familiar with or previously interested in blockchain, they still listen and still want to get their films made and benefit from participating in a community where they can build a fan-driven experience that helps their project succeed all the way from a script level. That’s the process and offering we’re creating for existing filmmakers.
Mogul doesn’t just offer a unique funding experience – we also have a built in fanbase! Anyone who’s been on our website has seen the popup – join 47,000 users – well, imagine if a filmmaker heard that 47,000 people were already interested in their film, and it hasn’t even been announced yet? That’s pretty powerful stuff and ANYONE would be interested in that.
(@ Ryan Reynolds – if you’re reading this, please call. We’d like to talk)
Q3) Crypto is a fast-paced industry. There are some Mogul imitators; who have emerged and are acting fast to capture the market’s attention. How are you going to compete with them? Do you intend to implement new marketing strategies to effectively increase Mogul’s market share?
A3) Fast-paced is an understatement!
So, without naming names, I will acknowledge that there are one or two competitors out there. Then again, technically, Amazon has competitors 😉
I kid slightly, but there’s really no sense in thinking of Mogul as anything less than the Amazon of film! At least on the blockchain. And our strategies for maintaining the momentum we’ve built up are tenfold. Maybe even elevenfold.
For starters, if you check our Twitter bio (or Reddit, or Medium…) it clearly states “DeFi and NFTs for the film & entertainment industry.” To break that down a little further: decentralized film financing (that’s our film showcase that we’re ALL excited to see… soon) and NFTs for the film & entertainment industry – well, for anyone just learning about Mogul Productions, one month ago almost to the day, we hosted a livestream with the insanely talented Rob Prior, followed by an NFT auction based on his artwork, resulting in a 1 of 1 NFT sale approaching $200k USD!
How did that compare to our competitors? I think it’s okay to brag a little here. We did better than Floyd Mayweather. Maybe you’ve heard of him – the most successful boxer of all time and a known shrewd businessman. Rob’s NFT also sold for more than an entire collection from another person you may have heard of… Snoop Dogg!
The film industry can be slow at times, but the crypto world is fast-paced (there I go coming around full circle again). It can take time to line up everything we need for a film showcase – script submissions, talking to directors, talking to producers, involving lawyers, taking time zones into consideration, the list goes on – but that’s why we can’t have any down time.
Will we have more NFT auctions? You bet! Will we have a film showcase soon? You bet! That’s why we have so many amazing people on our team, working on so many amazing things all at once, so that YOU the Mogul STARS holder (and future Mogul STARS holder 😉) will always have something to look forward to NOW. Not six months from now.
In terms of Mogul imitators, I think there are a few who are looking to raise money and launch products, but our team hasn’t identified any as real competitors due to our competitive advantages of our:
1. Team: Our team has multiple Oscar and Emmy awards. Not to mention many more awards. There are few, if any, teams in crypto that can say they have the track record in their respective industries that Mogul has. Hollywood is all about connections and it’s hard to enter if you don’t have them. Luckily, our team is immersed and we’re working every day to bring Hollywood to blockchain
2. Product: Our product is built (and improving with more features and milestones each week). Our smart contracts have seen millions of dollars pass through them and have 40% of our total token supply locked in them currently for farming. 99% of Uniswap LPs have chosen to lock their STARS_ETH tokens into our smart contracts.
3. Assets/IP: right out of the gate we announced one film, Bonded, that’s going into post-production. In the next month, which seems like it will be before any of these imitators or competitors launch, we will have another film underway. Any movies we do directly benefit STARS holders because 50% of Mogul profits are governed by holders, which exceeds the profit-sharing of many bluechip defi projects, including Sushiswap, which our smart contracts are based off of
It’s going to be hard to compete with what we have in the pipeline, and our team of marketers and engineers love competition!
Q4) Do you have an estimated time for the Access Pass only (using NFTY labs tech) VIP community to be set up and ready?
A4) First of all, we’re incredibly excited for Access Pass users to be able to have the added utility to their NFTs that NFTY Labs brings! If you recall, their founder Ty Blackard was a panelist in our Proof of Origin event – and actually attended the Bitcoin Conference in Miami that Mogul sponsored!
We had a call with NFTY Labs just this week to discuss getting us set up on their flagship product, NFTY Connect, which as you know acts as a sort of key into gated online communities to give access only to those with specific NFTs. Unfortunately, as is sometimes the case with any kind of software development but especially with blockchain technology, the product is still in development.
We’ve been told that July is a big month for their company from a product and marketing perspective, and we’ll be working together more than just as technical partners – doing events in one another’s communities to cross promote and utilize one anothers’ networks.
I can also say we expect NFTY Connect to be a place where Access Pass holders can have exclusive conversations with a lot of our film partners, for instance. When we’re negotiating with all the projects who are going to show up in our next showcase, one of the requirements we propose is that they – directors, producers, Hollywood actors – participate in these conversations with our community members :). These gated communities will provide further utility and value to Access Passes.
Q5) it’s important to the success of new crypto projects to be able to appeal to the large and small token holders alike, what would you say is the best marketing strategy to achieve this?
A5) Interesting question. Every project is going to have its whales and let’s say more conservative or casual token buyers, but the key is to not treat one any differently from the other because in the end, we all want the same thing – and in this case, that’s for Mogul and STARS to succeed.In our case, we’ve actually built in parameters within our tech stack to make sure that everyone gets a voice in the voting process for movies.
Our quadratic voting system, which you’ll hear much more about soon, is something that Vitalik has talked about since 2017 as a way to make Internet-based voting (and specifically token-based voting) much more fair and representative of an entire audience. It makes it so that a small STARS holder, with as little as 100 STARS, still has a voice in the outcome of the voting round when we are making movies.
With this in mind, it’s also meant to avoid any deterrents in buying tokens! Oftentimes, in blockchain governance, people have a bit of voter apathy if they’re not a big holder, and may not want to get involved. But with Mogul, now every STARS holder can sit in the director’s chair and participate in a community-governed film fund where their voice is heard. And, after the vote, you may even see the movie on Netflix …. (oopps… I may have said too much)
From a marketing perspective, we’re also cognizant about barriers to entry, our target audience of filmmakers, and how it can be difficult to use Ethereum, pay gas, and set up your own wallet. That’s why, as a marketer, I’m very excited for our Smart Wallet to launch and for Mogul to migrate over to the Matic Layer 2 solution so that our users can have gasless, free transactions and immediately have a wallet when they sign up.
This gives us much more flexibility, especially when it comes to paid marketing from the film & entertainment side, to A/B test how to directly onboard millions of fans from the film industry to use the Mogul product (eliminating the barrier and 5 step process of downloading metamask, saving your private key, funding your wallet, etc.)
