Creative Studio Budget Request

[Draper-Eth]

Scope

Bear markets are for building.

This budget request is to continue the work I’ve been doing over the past months, and take on more functions and responsibilities as we become more streamlined.

I believe this is exactly the time we should be investing in long term brand planning, smart campaigns that target TVL boosts, and new product initiatives that tap new audiences for TVL increases or existing audiences (for the same reason).

Furthermore, as per Georgia’s research findings, good copywriting and simplification will be important steps for us to make core Yearn products more user friendly and understandable.

Plan

Areas of responsibility include, but are not limited to:

• New TVL boosting products (e.g NFTreasury)
• Brand development (tone of voice, strategy, visual work with Alpha)
• Campaign planning
• Campaign & content creation
• Copywriting and tone of voice guardian across Yearn (e.g working with Evan and the design team where required).

We are entering a period where we need to do more with less. This is where scrappy, smart, tactical and highly targeted marketing, product improvements and longer term thoughtful branding building will be a strong combination.

I’ve spent the last months getting to know Yearn’s brand and lore intimately, and we are now well positioned to push onwards and help ensure we emerge with a stronger identity, voice, and purpose than ever before (and maybe with a couple of new products along the way).

Deadline

2022-09-31

People

Draper +1, working under oversight from @banteg.

(Always happy to pull in favours from my network to benefit Yearn wherever I can.)

Money

10,000 DAI + $10,000 in YFI p/m

Starting in July (current grant ends June) with an evaluation after three months (sept).

Amount

10,000 DAI + $10,000 in YFI p/m

Wallet address

0x8727FF875E070d73B678cCea85BF9FF01c05A785

Reporting

• [X] I agree to post weekly updates

[cryptoouf-blog]

Hey Draper, sorry for this question.

But do you have exemple of things you have done ? 18k / month seems a lot, especially during a budget cut.

Also wondering this as we are already paying 40k for a branding agency, how would that fit with this ?

[Draper-Eth]

Hey cryptoouf,

No need to apologize for the question. In case it wasn’t clear, this is a full time role (to be transparent it is below my market rate), and I hope that the work I do at Yearn provides good value.

We are no longer paying 40k for a branding agency and we are taking over that work internally as part of the creative studio.

As mentioned in the budget request, the areas I work on in this creative studio role are:

• New product initiatives. Developing creative product concepts with market fit (e.g most recently NFTreasury).
• Create & execute our social campaigns/ and announcements. We are on a mission to increase our execution level/ and effectiveness atm.
• Yearn rebrand creative development (first externally with nemesis, now internally with a small core team).
• Copywriting across Yearn (something that has been called out in user research that was commissioned recently as being an area we need to invest in).

Those are my main areas of work, but I help out on other things as and when required. It’s important that Yearn becomes lean during the bear market, but we also need to continue to push into attracting new users and improving our brand.

I hope this answers your question.

Cheers,

Draper

[miguel567]

Hello Draper. Thanks for sharing this budget proposal and the extra information provided.

I can see from your wallet address that you have received 3 18,333DAI payments (Apr, May, June). The amount you request is the same moving forward.

Looking at the market situation, the overall industry mode, layoffs in yearn and new budget process to achieve a more efficient use of capital, I would expect from our contributors, to contribute with this trend Yearn has embarked on. What I mean by this is that I expect a cut on your request accordingly as other parts of Yearn have gone through.

I don't know your credentials to assess how off market your current request is, but I do see that working on Brand building in Yearn most likely is the most exciting thing that any well aware marketeer could imagine to work on. Working in a DAO, built through a fair launch, with an unique culture of doers, writing the pages of history every-single-day is something you should put into perspective when choosing to contribute for Yearn at a lower rate vs. doing it at a full rate for other options you for sure have.

thanks!

[cryptoouf-blog]

Thanks for your answer.

I guess Miguel asked the question in a better way. I find that 18k / month is A LOT in this context , even if i agree that this work is key, and this is why some of us are trying to help in that direction.

What have you been doing during the last month ?

You wrote:

I’ve spent the last months getting to know Yearn’s brand and lore intimately, and we are now well positioned to push onwards and help ensure we emerge with a stronger identity, voice, and purpose than ever before (and maybe with a couple of new products along the way).

I can't convinced myself that being paid 18k month matches with this...

Do you have exemple of work you have done ? (not necessarily for Yearn)

[pentcle]

there is a common perception that copywriting is easy. because anybody can do it.

code either compiles or it doesn't, and you can see it immediately. that's nice.

good copywriting doesn't compile until it reaches the people who are reading it. the compiler won't tell you that.

so you send your copy out to the world and that's that. job done. i'm a copywriter. lovely. oh - wait.

so. we hire a georgia. she's a specialist web3 researcher. and she talks to people. and asks them, do people understand how yearn works. in her first tranche of work she was looking for the low-hanging fruit – how can we easily fix how we speak to people while they use our vaults.

quite a bit of work to do there.

we also hire a nemesis - martii and lucas. and they talk to a lot of ppl at yearn, and ask - what does yearn mean? where did it come from? where's it going? what's the point?

if you aren't sure about draper's work, please go and speak with martti and lucas. go and have a chat with alphanumeric, who's producing the brand visual creative direction. talk to me and ask me about the work he's done. have you noticed the change in comms of late? inpa.

draper is a one in a million advertising defi person (not 'just' copy, he's an advertising creative - look it up), who we should be welcoming to help make this space better. we all know defi needs better ux, better comms, better ways of communicating with people.

he's worth his weight in gold. instead of resisting – see him as one of the teachers we need.

[pentcle]

quite a few people don't understand what draper does, which is fair enough when we all live in software / dev land - but open your minds. after all that's what we're here for. right.

right?

draper is an advertising creative - he's the copy part of art and copy.

advertising creatives work in teams. he's copy, b is art. evan is art too.

so is alpha.

draper knows how to write ux copy to fix our software and make it better for ppl to use. evan's pretty great at that too. I am boring and (attempt to) get people to adhere to basic user journey stuff that georgia points out (please do it - it's there for a reason, sorry).

draper is also p good a photoshopping memes. he comes up with magical campaign ideas - he's not sitting at a keyboard writing text - his brain is on fire with ideas.

it's lovely to see his ideas come to life

we could all talk about market rates - and yes, draper is asking for lower than he'd ask in ad-land - but it's seriously depressing hearing so many people commenting on his ask.

yes you could save x amount per month - but haven't any of you watched mad men?

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/7863230/174318667-8600d4c2-3ed9-473a-88f0-1c9dc1900676.mp4

(and have a scroll through all the tweets on main)

[miguel567]

Hi @pentcle . Thanks for sharing the info. From my PoV I don't see any updates from the Brand/creative/Marketing teams on the "Team updates" notion page: https://yearnfinance.notion.site/Ecosystem-Updates-adcccb9a1f4b44d5ade65f22bb6f2380 or/and on the https://roamresearch.com/#/app/yearn website

I'm not going to judge the above content shared as I don't know the Brand guardrails and Brand identity framework used when producing such assets that you have shared. I do know there is a new Brand Identity being rolled out and I already can see lack of coordination on the first sneak peak on the Ystory video shared on Twitter (old logo).

I don't need to ask the ppl that you've mentioned about the work done, cuz I'm not a budget auditor tasked to talk to ppl and audit the work done, it should be all the way around: shared transparently as a habit within the team itself. We operate in a transparent blockchain, hence, teams should be transparent in their habits as well.

I am going to judge this:

• Lack of reporting: we need constant transparency on the ways of working for every team, sharing what had been done during budget request is an after thought, not a good behavior. We need better behaviors, and if this budget passes, I strongly encourage the team to frequently share what they are working on, what they've accomplished, what they are planning, where they struggle; if not budget requests become a chase.
• As stated before, Draper already started working at a 18,333DAI rate in Jan, so it was already an argument back then that such rate was below market. Back then the market was different, now the market has crashed and Yearn is going through budget cuts, further new ones, hence I don't see how the same argument "below market rate" that was used back in JAN can be used again here. The situation is different and I expect every contributor to empathize, contribute with the cuts and keep the protocol moving forward, this is what separates "maximum value extractors" in the old world system from real hardcore doers committed to a cause in a DAO who are not looking to extract value, but to build together. I do bare in mind that this needs to be a win-win relationship, the point is not to squeeze contributors / providers to such a level that they are struggling, the point is, to make the protocol survive and when better times come, it will remain a win-win situation for both sides as well.

thanks for sharing and for the time you guys are putting into this, I do appreciate it honestly.

[pentcle]

if it was me and i wanted value for money, i'd rather draper was doing his job than filling out yet another notion page. I never even knew that page existed, and it doesn't look like most of the other teams do either - so perhaps that's not the best place to expect to find the information you're after.

All the creative work i posted above is screen-grabbed from twitter, twitter or github more github - it's all out in the open, and very easy for people to find the information for themselves.

all the brand work that's been underway, plus plans for the year, was presented at an all-hands in April, including the brand strategy which was presented by nemesis.

the brand guidelines are being prepared and the logo artwork was finalised last wednesday. what is the Ystory video? was it produced in the last six days? cheers

[cryptoouf-blog]

"draper is also p good a photoshopping memes. he comes up with magical campaign ideas - he's not sitting at a keyboard writing text - his brain is on fire with ideas."

Don't get me wrong. But in your examples i see nothing spectacular. Especially for 18k / month and if images are made by someone else.

I guess here, we are just wondering what can justify 18k / month in the current market, when Yearn is asking contributors to make a cut. You also wrote "he's copy, b is art. evan is art too." Are those members core members ? what is their salary ? also 18k/month ?... meaning 54k / month for a marketing team ? Would make more sense to ask for a team grant in that case.

Also seems the request was modified budget is 10,000 DAI + $10,000 in YFI p/m so even more than before.

ps: Would be good if Drapper could answer by himself :)

This request will probably be accepted anyway, so we should probably not spend to much time on it. Just wanted to rise this point, as several contributors also reached me by pm to ask if I had more informations about this request. I guess, i'm like you.. an "advocate".. but for a group on contributors asking for more infos.

[pentcle]

You also wrote "he's copy, b is art. evan is art too." Are those members core members ? what is their salary ?

b is banteg. people in core-team are sometimes polymaths.

you can see core-team salaries here https://gov.yearn.finance/t/ybudget-update-bear-minimum-comp/12609