AdaQuest Brand Awareness campaign

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Let´s face it! Brand awareness campaigns cost a lot of time, resources, and money. We will create a feasible plan that will use the entire budget of this proposal to boost AdaQuest's attention level.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Founder: Marcin worked in marketing, sales, and biz dev for THQ, Ubisoft, CI Games, Daedalic, and Rockstar. He has helped start-ups in their initial phase, and provides guidance for the Cardano gaming community, as well! >10 years exp.

LinkedIn: https://tinyurl.com/yc74rm4p

[GENERAL] Requested funds in USD.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Marketing is key in terms of awareness and spread. In the past, we have had the pleasure to take part in different shows like this great NFT Gaming podcast!

These kinds of videos not only boost our NFT sales but also brought us new followers on Twitter or Discord. Some will say you need a ton of budget to create a great marketing campaign. This is the easy way. 

What I have learned in the last 15 years on the subject of marketing and --> here, especially games marketing, is that viral wins over budget!

Please don't get me wrong. Viral marketing without any budget is very tedious and slow (see AdaQuest :( ) This is also the reason why we explicitly put this proposal here!

We would like to do the following with the budget:

• Create at least two different teasers and a trailer to support the campaign in the long-term.
• Use of influencer channels via YouTube, Podcasts
• Special advertisement campaign on online portals such as Reddit and gaming blogs.
• Small PR campaign where we also wave the Cardano flag.
• Participation this summer at the devcom conference, Indiegame Festival and gamescom

PLUS the release of our most anticipated AdaQuest ARENA mobile mode should ensure to get the word spread around!

Or funny things like this:

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

We think that this whole package will give AdaQuest a real important boost to be successful in the upcoming months.

We think that this campaign is the logical addition to cover these challenge problem statement:

!Mass Adoption!

Without a big game project like AdaQuest, it will be difficult and hard to bring Cardano closer to the masses. We understand this and try to make it possible with our knowledge and experience. 

However, this will not be possible without the support of the community. That's why this marketing campaign is aimed precisely at that. We want to make AdaQuest better known outside the Cardano community. We want to do this within a reasonable economic framework. That is why we have chosen a very conservative budget request!

This marketing campaign and the strategy to add more content is always a good way to generate revenue and awareness within a project. Since Red Potion Studio is more focused on the mantra - GAME experience First - we see this as the perfect mix to finally get the attention Cardano & AdaQuest need so badly.

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Main focuses - AdaQuest Development

Game experience FIRST!

• Hand-drawn graphics
• Different game modes for different target groups & player styles
• Deep Lore related to the Cardano blockchain (names, places, people, etc.)

Reaching for a wide gamer-centric user base

• Real free to play model without any paywall or pay2win
• Running a focused viral marketing campaign to reach outside of the Cardano community
• Easy and user-friendly game-account/marketplace experience
• Involving the community in the development
• Fair prices and no powercreep related NFTs

Ensuring the development cycle

• Using our native on-chain token(QuestToken) for marketing and further funding
• Reaching out to DEX and SEED funding platforms related to Cardano (e.g. kick.io)
• Collaborate with other developers from the Cardano ecosystem
• Onboarding young talents through AdaQuest into the Crypto world

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Marketing Deep Dive

Once completed we will communicate this through our social media and game-related channels. We also will use our business network from the games & entertainment industry. Showing and promoting AdaQuest with different partners like IGN, Checkpointhub, GEE Magazin, and of course a lot of Influencers, Podcasters, YouTubers, and Cardano Partners like Playermint, Muesliswap, or Cardano SWARM!

Key Marketing Strategy: Organic, steady, and healthy growth without useless pseudo Influencer and social media spend!

SWOT Analysis - Target Groups

Primarily:

• Turn-based & strategic hack & slay lovers
• Fans of competitive games
• Core gamers

Secondary:

• NFT & blockchain enthusiasts
• Hand-drawn art lovers
• Casual gamers

Tertiary:

• PC gamers
• Curiosity-seekers

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Challenges

• Finding the right channels to communicate with
• Generate high attention despite a low budget
• Showing the non-blockchain community the NFTs are a good thing

Risks

• Overspending
• Choosing the wrong communication channels
• Toxic NFT gaming environment

Our risk management includes the experience we have gathered within the last two decades in games marketing. We avoid already some of the risks by clearly communicating our steps and taking precautions NOW! That´s why we never will drop a version, because for the sake of releasing something. However, we use some of these tools to help us minimize the risk:

• Only one weekly team meeting (tasks are distributed to each division)
• Tracking & documentation with JIRA & Confluence
• Overall quick communication through Slack
• Learning & optimizing processes by reflecting everyone's working style

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

August 2022

• Creating Teasers and a Trailer
• Spread the word through YouTube(shorts), Instagram, Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Reddit
• Participating https://www.devcom.global/ AND https://www.gamescom.global/

September - October 2022

• Special advertisement campaign on online portals such as Reddit and gaming blogs.
• Small PR campaign where we also wave the Cardano flag.

November - December 2022

• Tailored X-Mas brand campaign
• Raffles, sweepstakes, giveaways in cooperation with target group relevant partners

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Overview viral marketing spend AdaQuest 2022

August 2022

• Hiring Motion Designer for Teasers & Trailers
• Creating video content for social media channels
• Participating and presenting AdaQuest on devcom, gamescom and indie games festival

Overall spend == 17,000$

September - October 2022

• Advertisement campaign on Reddit and gaming blogs
• PR campaign using our business network for lower budget spend

Overall spend == 13,000$

November - December 2022

• Xmas campaign - using Christian(Art Director) skills to keep the spending low
• Giveaway cooperations - using our business network

Overall spend == 5000$

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Art Direction: Christian is our Illustrator and UX Designer with more than 15 years of professional work in digital art, gamification, interface- and app design in the industry. Starting as a big fan of the classic "point & click" adventures (e.g., Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky, Day of the Tentacle) on DOS and hoarding tons of comic books, he turned his geek hobby into an ever-expanding full-time job! (LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-hayungs-9ba22457)

Strategic Advisor & Founder: Marcin worked in marketing, sales, and project management for THQ, Ubisoft, CI Games, Daedalic Entertainment, and Rockstar. In the past 10 years, he has helped some start-ups in their initial phase, and he will also provide guidance for the Cardano gaming community, as well! (LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcin-kugla-a92b5964)

Michael is the second guy and is mainly responsible for game design and balancing. He holds a degree in business administration and had a lot of experience in sales & marketing.

(LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-fischer-574678212/)

Lore & Finance: Thomas is the oldest financial expert on the team. His knowledge of movies, games, and fantasy worlds is immense. He currently tries to tie the stitches to bring the world of ADA to life. Otherwise, you can find him on some LARP battlefields on our planet. Soon probably also on ADA! Oh, and did we mention that Thomas likes magic tricks? We did...

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Since this proposal is aiming for an initial successful marketing/brand campaign, we can´t currently tell you if we will need further funding. If everything will went well and we will have also funded our Vertical Slice proposal a further need of funds is not needed :)

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

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Our KPIs

Even if we are free and not at the "mercy" of a big publisher or investor, budget and time are always issues when it comes to creating games. As an independent developer, the biggest risk is that you will run out of money or dev power. Either someone will try to sell you a service he/she can´t deliver in time or someone create something you already paid for, but in the end, it is useless for your project :(

To mitigate this, we work only with people we already know and meet in RL or worked before with them. Sometimes we receive recommendations or test young talents before offering them a contract. Our working and project experience will ensure to keep track of the budget and put enough into our reserve to be prepared for turbulences and struggles, which sometimes you can´t avoid.

That´s why we will track & measure this:

• New user accounts after running the campaign
• Budget spend vs. Revenue benchmarking
• Website Visits, Page Impressions & Views (also YT, Twitter, etc.)
• NFT Sales tracking

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As already mentioned we will use tools to benchmark & track every piece of media we will release and spread. Further, we also use analytics to collect data for our KPIs

However, we develop AdaQuest based on our internal roadmap and the milestones we have set. In doing so, we set realistic goals and report them as we achieve them through our social channels. Progress is documented and discussed with the team every week (Mondays). After that, we update our roadmap and take the next step within the development.

When successful funded - This campaign will become a huge part of our roadmap

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

This campaign will allow us to gather more followers within the social and media channels. As it will help us also to generate a higher awareness and revenue. Finally, while running this campaign we will offer additional content to expand the audience and strengthen the AdaQuest brand.

Achieving this will be the main criteria for success!

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

AdaQuest was already funded in Fund5. Since then we manage to become well known within the Cardano ecosystem (Gamers On-Chained challenge was initiated by us). Besides founding Red Potion Studios, we have hired people, started to develop AdaQuest, created a Web portal with user management & tools, and build a mission statement & vision for the whole AdaQuest project.

Without the initial Catalyst funding, this would never happen!

To all the VOTERS from Fund5 & Fund8 Thank you for this chance!

Nevertheless, as we stated in Fund 5 already:

Our project with the three planned game phases (ARENA, Dungeon Crawler, Skirmish Battlefield - https://ada-quest.com/howto#future) needs a budget of around 500K$. So all our proposals here are aiming to get additional support. Every missed funding from Catalyst will protract development, because of the nature of such a gaming project. As always we are keen to hear your thoughts. You are welcome to comment!

So far our Catalyst proposals:

Fund 5 - DApps & Integrations (funded - 100K$):

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/351663

Fund 6 - DApps & Integrations (NOT funded - 75K$):

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/365863

Fund 7 - Gamers On-Chained (NOT funded - 55K$):

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/382933

Fund 8 - Gamers On-Chained (funded - 96K$):

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/405375

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/404544

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/404315

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

TBA