Zcash Zodler Campaign

Community Grants
1

Title: Zcash Zodler Campaign

Pitch : A one-liner elevator pitch version of your proposal

Proposal for ‘The Zodler Campaign’, a multi-pronged song and video campaign to popularize the term ‘Zodler’ and the Zcash spirit of freedom, privacy and community

Applicant background:

I am a self-taught Singer-Songwriter and Music Composer/Producer based out of Mumbai, India. My YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/hanudixit) has over 153,000 subscribers and counting to its credit.

I am the creator of the very popular Zcash anthem released earlier this year which garnered over 115,000 views, 10K+ likes and comments, and much love across platforms. Not only was the anthem a massive success in terms of the number of views and reach, but it also made people more curious about Zcash and attracted several potential adopters. My DMs were flooded with inquiries about Zcash, and even now, months after the release of the song, the curiosity remains intact and I keep getting messages from people across the board who want to know more about Zcash. I have also joined several Indian crypto communities in the past few months and have realized that the penetration of my Zcash anthem has been deep and effective.

Additionally, over the past year, I have expanded my profile and social media influence. Currently, I am working on an exciting new project with Google, and have been recently chosen as Nexa Music’s Top 24 Musicians in India. I will be featured by Rolling Stone and will be sharing space with the Academy Award Winner A.R Rahman next month.

Based on the fact that my Zcash anthem has already given me a ready and curious audience who want to know more about Zcash, I plan to use my increased influence and social capital to promote the Zodler campaign more effectively.

I am the brains behind multiple viral songs and music videos with a total of more than 20 million views. In the last two years, my viral original music series ‘If…Was A Song?’ ’ where I created original songs around themes and icons from popular culture like the old Airtel jingle, Harry Potter, and The Avengers, among others, garnered me a Silver Button and attention from national and international media including The Hindu, Screenrant, Radiocity and BBC Lancashire.

Apart from my work on Youtube, I have created commissioned soundtracks for brands like Google (that are some of the most downloaded and used tracks in the Youtube Audio Library), the Indian Brand Anthem for Clash of Clans where I created both the jingle and the video for it and have worked with over 60 brands in past 5 years to provide songs and music for them.

My Original Songs are available on Spotify, JioSaavn, Apple Music, & Amazon Music, and my Youtube channel showcases my abilities not only as a music composer, but also as a filmmaker, and music video producer.

Some example links for reference:

  1. Zcash Brand Anthem - Hanu Dixit - Zcash Anthem - YouTube

  2. If Airtel Theme Was A Song? - If Airtel Theme Was A Song? - Hanu Dixit - YouTube

  3. If Harry Potter Theme Was A Song? - If Harry Potter Theme Was A Song? - Hanu Dixit - YouTube

  4. Sahara Rains (Google) - Hanu Dixit - Sahara Rains | Original | Available In YouTube Audio Library - YouTube

  5. Clash Of Clans Indian Brand Anthem - Super Diwali ka celebration's on! (Clash of Clans) - YouTube

Description of Problem or Opportunity:

Over the past few months, as the influence of my Zcash anthem expanded, I found myself becoming a part of several crypto communities in India. It’s been an interesting journey and I have realized that the dominant sentiment in the Indian crypto community is positive. They are optimistic and willing to venture deep and wide into the crypto market.

Mumbai is the financial capital of India and the prevailing sentiment in the city influences how the rest of the country thinks and moves in the financial domain. As a resident of Mumbai, and having interacted with financial communities across the board, I have also realized that Mumbai is rapidly becoming the hotspot of the crypto communities as well. A dedicated campaign spearheaded by someone like me who lives in Mumbai and has a good penetration in the crypto and financial circles is a great way to bridge this gap.

Post the integration of Polygon with Meta, and Instagram announcing the launch of NFTs, crypto users in India have become even more privacy conscious and there is a prevailing sense that the existing cryptos may not be matching the expectations of the users in India in the context of privacy and freedom.

The Indian crypto community, old and new users alike, are looking for something that is different, radical, and revolutionary. Something that can be a crusader of absolute freedom and unimpeachable privacy. In other words, they are looking for something exactly like Zcash.

The market is ripe and ready. What is needed is to expand our outreach and make Zcash stand out on the virtue of its fantastic merits. In a world inundated with cryptos, we need to celebrate our uniqueness and authenticity and harness the positive emotion in the market through a focused campaign.

The best way to do this I believe is by owning, celebrating, and showcasing our identity as Zcash users…a Zodler. We have to embrace and showcase our power as an individual and as a community. The Zcash community is not only a closely knit group of like-minded people but also a force to reckon with, and I want to create a fun, peppy, and super entertaining song campaign that celebrates our camaraderie, our spirit, our freedom, our commitment to privacy and our identity as a Zodler.

The success and attention that the Zcash anthem received made me aware of the possibilities and opportunities that we could benefit from if we were to launch an extended campaign. And so, this time, I want to take this a notch higher and launch a dedicated campaign that will help old and new Zcash users reconnect with and celebrate the spirit of freedom and privacy that defines Zcash.

Proposed Solution: Describe the solution at a high level.

The Zodler song that I, along with a dedicated social media team, propose to create is a step beyond the Zcash anthem, and an essential next step in not only reinforcing the idea of Zcash as a whole but also celebrating our power and identity as Zcash users or the Zodlers. The ultimate goal is to increase awareness about Zcash across users and communities and harness the positive sentiment of the market to create a Zcash wave in India.

This is a campaign that will harness the curious audience that the Zcash anthem has already prepped for us, the network that I have created in the Indian crypto community since the release of this anthem, and the insights we have gathered as a part of multiple crypto groups and conversations over the past few months.

Much like the Zcash anthem, this will be a hummable and memorable number that will be designed to grab eyeballs while capturing the essence of the Zcash community. This will be a song that will capture our great differentiator, convey and celebrate how Zcash is different from other cryptos in the market, give new users a taste of what is in store for them, and underscore the greatest strengths of Zcash—our community and its commitment to freedom and privacy.

While the Zcash anthem was about Zcash, this is a song about the most important element that makes Zcash great. This is a song about us—the Zcash users. Post Z-Con3 where we showcased our strength in numbers and as a community, it is only apt that we now also have a song that celebrates that very spirit.

This campaign is not just about creating a song. As an extended 2 week campaign, we intend to not only capture attention but also hold it through multiple content pieces created and distributed around the song campaign.

To this end, I along with a dedicated social media team, will :

  • Create official Zodler handles on Instagram and Twitter that will then be used to create, distribute and popularize the Zodler song through viral-worthy content pieces like memes, posts, and shorts around the song
  • Promote the #IAMZodler hashtag across platforms
  • Get Influencers on board and help us promote the Zodler song by pushing it through their handles
  • Create and provide the community with a Zodler Pack that will contain the original downloadable track and video, two Zcash ringtones, and #IAMZodler graphics that can be used for posting on various platforms and merchandising purposes.
  • Increased awareness about Zcash across new and old users, with a highlighted focus on the unmatchable privacy and freedom Zcash brings to the table for all the Zodlers.

Additionally, the song will be made available under Creative Commons for all the community users and audience to experiment with and create their own fun videos, TikToks, and reels around it, thus adding to the buzz and the conversations around the Zcash community and us, the Zodlers!

As with the Zcash anthem, the Zodler song will be accompanied by a finely conceived music video that will be released on my channel. It will be in sync with the spirit of the song and which will reinforce the faith in Zcash, will be a fun celebration for existing users and a beacon of hope for new and aspiring users.

Solution Format: What is the exact form of the final deliverable you’re creating?

  1. Original Song ‘ I’m a Zodler ’ on my Youtube Channel with a music video (3-4 min length)

  2. The audio will be made available for free to download and use under creative commons licenses - Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.

  3. The song will also be made available on Tiktok, Instagram, Spotify and Facebook so people can create their own short videos with it.

  4. A Zodler Pack that will contain the original downloadable track, two Zcash ringtones, and #IAMZodler graphics that can be used for posting on various platforms and merchandizing purposes.

  5. A 2 week long Social Media Campaign to push the song across platforms.

Technical Approach: Dive into the how of your project. Describe your approaches, components, workflows, methodology, etc. Bullet points and diagrams are appreciated!

Writing the song with a unique hook line ‘I’m a Zodler’

Arranging, recording, and producing the song.

Mixing and mastering the track to industry standard.

Creating a video of the song with me performing it.

Distributing it on my YouTube Channel.

Distributing it on Spotify, Apple Music, Tiktok & Insta Reels.

Making the Zodler Pack available for all old and new users

Dedicated 2 Week Campaign through dedicated Zodler pages and handles on Instagram and Twitter

Sharing it with the community everywhere and encouraging them to create their own videos around the song.

Dependencies: What external entities is your project dependent on? What involvement is required from ZF, ECC, and/or other external organizations? Who would have to incorporate your work in order for it to be usable?

None. The song including the associated video will be wholly written, composed, produced, programmed, edited, acted, directed and distributed by me and my team. There are zero external dependencies. As far as incorporation is concerned, I will be distributing the song to all the relevant platform under Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International) to ensure they are available for other creators within and beyond the community for creative integration on their own respective platforms. The social media campaign will also be solely handled by me and my team so that there are no bottlenecks.

Execution risks: What obstacles do you expect? What is most likely to go wrong? Which unknown factors could jeopardize success? Who would have to incorporate your work in order for it to be usable?

There is no execution risk as we have a prior experience of over 10 years in this field and I have completed similar projects successfully including the previous Zcash Anthem project.

Unintended Consequences: What are the negative ramifications if your project is successful? Consider usability, stability, privacy, integrity, availability, decentralization, interoperability, maintainability, technical debt, requisite education, etc.

Since this song will be released under Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International) anyone can use it for commercial purpose in their project as long as the derivative work uses the same license.

Evaluation plan: What metrics for success will you share with the community once you’re done? In addition to quantitative metrics, what qualitative metrics will you commit to report?

We’ll be sharing the direct response and comments of my subscribers as well the response from my community. We’ll also share the general metrics like views counts and likes. Also, we’ll share the videos created by other people on this Song once it’s available on Instagram and Tiktok.

Please provide justification for the total compensation budget:

The budget of $ 44,850 will be spent in song writing, music composition and production, singing, live session musicians charges, mixing and mastering, studio hire charges, equipment, creating the music video, shooting, editing and color grading the video, song distribution across platforms and the social media campaign and their content.

Songwriting & Singing – $9000

Music Composition & Production – $8000

Studio Hire, Mixing, Mastering – $6000

Live Session Musicians – $2000

Video Cost (Shoot, Edit, Location & Color Grade) – $6000

Social Media Campaign& Content - $8000

Taxes (15%) - $5850

Do you require startup funding?

No

Milestone 1 - Full Audio Track (24 bit wav audio) - It will be shared as a private SoundCloud link for the community to review.

Date - 12/22/2022

Milestone 1 - USD value of payout upon completion of deliverables:

$25850

Milestone 2 - Music Video Published on Youtube Channel along with a link for Zodler Pack.

Along with a Link to download the high-quality video (1080P Full HD) & the full audio (24 bit wav audio). The audio will also be made available inside Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok natively.

Date - 12/29/2022

Milestone 2 - USD value of payout upon completion of deliverables:

$10000

Milestone 3– 2 Weeks of Social Media Campaign to Push the Zodler Song with Dedicated Zodler Pages on Instagram & Twitter.

Date - 01/14/2023

Milestone 3 - USD value of payout upon completion of deliverables:

$9000

How was the project timeline determined?

I have determined the timeline from my prior experience on similar projects.

How did you learn about Zcash Community Grants?

I learned about ZCG from a mutual friend of fellow community member @aiyadt

See the full proposal again here !

3

Apologies, but I’m a little sad to see that you don’t see value in it.

I understand your concern but I came up with this campaign after a lot of research, on-ground about the Indian crypto community, and understanding the overall sentiment here.

India is the fastest growing economy in the world and with the current prices more and more users will adopt Zcash as with its privacy and freedom, there is nothing like it in the world of crypto.
This is the current thought process in the Indian crypto community. They want freedom, they want privacy, they want exactly everything that Zcash is.

This is the time to act.

The last Zcash anthem campaign I did was a tremendous success here and I still get messages almost every week, months after the release of the Zcash anthem about how they got into Zcash after the Zcash anthem. Sometimes there are even Monero fans sending me hate mails which is funny.

But what I want to tell you is that there was an impact.

What we now need is for those people to become a part of this community.

From my on-ground talks in Indian web3 and crypto community, I realized not a lot of people know about our Zcash community or even this forum.

Why the term ‘Zodler’ is essential? Because it gives us a symbol, a unique hashtag, an identity defined in one word. A term that we can use to show how powerful we are as a community.

In my observation, passion is one common trait among all Zcash users. Passion for what Zcash stands for. The Zodler campaign will project this passion in a Song and Campaign.

The term ‘Zodler’ with Zodler Song will create awareness about our community, about Zcash, and tell a story about us. About every Zcash user and our stand for privacy and freedom, which is what I feel we need in this current economic scenario.

4

Friendly reminder from the Code of Conduct that Forum members should strive to be kind and respectful. Ideally, your presence in the community should improve the experience for everyone

7 Likes
5

Popularizing this term when the ecosystem is struggling with the spam and some users have their funds stuck may be tone deaf (pun intended).

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6

I found it to be direct criticism that didn’t veer into a personal attack.

This is also a hard no from me. 45k for a music video is unjustified when a) the network is under a consistent spam attack and as a result has 1 functioning light wallet whose users are all centralized around a few lightwalletd servers b) the ecosystem’s mobile sdk can only be used to build what are essentially non-functional wallets in the current environment c) the network still has scalability issues d) fee market issues, etc

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7

Advertising the use of Zcash as a purely speculative vehicle rather than a censorship resistant p2p currency is a hard NO from me…

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8

Hello, @HanuDixit Thank you for submitting your grant proposal! We will review it in the upcoming weeks and reach out if we have any questions.

In the meantime, if you have any questions for us, you can post them to this thread or DM us at @ZcashGrants.

Thank you.

4 Likes
9

To all members of the community. I agree that it’s rather inappropriate today, but don’t say no to each other. After all, @HanuDixit is sincerely trying to make Zcash more popular. I am sure that this proposal will gain relevance in the future.

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10

Don’t say no to each other

What? If the answer is no, then people are going to hear “no”. Walking on eggshells is not a valid model for progress.

11

I take a neutral or soft yes position on this grant. But I would like to offer some thoughts on common themes that have emerged recently. I don’t expect them to change the minds of the people here but I hope they can be things that @ZcashGrants will take into consideration.

  1. I do not think it is fair to decry people attempting to promote Zcash at this time. They are not at fault for the state of the Zcash network. They are not taking away opportunities from devs - their work is not related to the work devs are doing and, for the most part, the funding streams are unrelated or non-competitive. If development and hope of improved UX were dead, then it would be a different story. Promoting a technology with no hope of improvement doesn’t make sense - but that is definitely not the case here.

  2. I do not like to look at grants in isolation. Instead, I see them as investments in longer term payoffs. For instance, I would look at this grant as an opportunity to simultaneously (i) generate some excitement and content centered on bringing awareness to Zcash for Indian fans of @HanuDixit as well as (ii) an investment in longer term community building in an extremely important part of the world. It takes time to build the connections and relationships that will become something meaningful - one-off things rarely make a difference in any arena. Therefore, a key factor in funding a grant, imo, is whether the grantee will be around for the long run and whether funding them now will pay dividends later.

  3. The appropriate timing of awareness campaigns is very subjective. For instance, a lot of people have complained over Zcash’s history at Zcash’s poor marketing. Yet, for most of the time, the UX of using shielded ZEC has been as bad or worse than today. In talking to some Zcashers recently, I’ve learned that the tools we have available today, such as Ywallet (especially on Android with background syncing), are the best tools we’ve had to date to use shielded Zcash. So in some respects, the situation is not that bad. And not everyone has to use shielded ZEC right away. It is admittedly more complex and unfamiliar than traditional Bitcoin-style addresses. Plus - we have to give audiences some credit - it is not that difficult to understand that shielded addresses are relatively new and therefore have more kinks that are being worked out over time. Many people may still be willing to give it a try because Zcash and its ideas excites them, and they have something to look forward to - more ease of use of shielded addresses. Plus - just tell people to try the wallets before they buy a bunch of Zcash - if they don’t like it then don’t buy more. Also, the road to a truly “world-class UX” will not be a straight line, there may be a lot of bumps for years to come. We’re going to have to get used to some turbulence and some angry voices - I don’t see any way of growing a meaningful base of users over the next 5 years without losing some people along the way. If poor UX and lack of ability to spend crypto anywhere stopped the Bitcoin community from touting Bitcoin, I don’t think Bitcoin would be where it is today. I’d say a lot of the Bitcoin promotion has been disingenuous or overhyped, and that is a key thing that should be considered for Zcash’s promotion efforts - how to walk the line of promoting Zcash and its ideals while still accurately informing people of its current usability.
    Further, some say that only during a bull market should awareness campaigns be done. I personally disagree with that take for the simple fact that getting people to buy in when prices are high is less responsible than getting them to buy in when prices are low. Also, I’m not so sure the Indian economy is teetering on the brink of a recession like in the US. What is the climate on the ground there? Are people still excited about crypto there? It may be a relatively good time to raise awareness in India, I don’t know. Nonetheless, the best awareness campaigns that will be run during a bull market will be by those who’ve grown their network, capabilities, practiced their messaging, etc. leading up to that bull market (see Point 2 above).

  1. Not being willing to fund additional awareness campaigns during this time is contradictory to a lot of things that Zcash is already doing that are very popular. For instance, should we also stop investing in the Global Ambassadors? The regulatory work of the ECC (Zcash shielded addresses are so rough around the egdes why bother telling regulators about Zcash?)? The planning for subsequent ZCONs to grow, consolidate, and excite our community? Should we tell Zooko to stop telling new people he meets to download Zcash wallets? Should he stop going on podcasts? I believe we should definitely keep doing all those things because they will pay off in the long term. Each global ambassador’s skills and network will compound over time, Zcash’s relationships with regulators will be key upcoming policy battles, subsequent ZCONs will continue to provide invaluable opportunities for in-person meet ups, etc. etc.

Now, with all that being said, I think a better and more fair foundation for judging this grant is on its own merits. Is there a chance this could lead to an actual pro-Zcash movement in India? Is what is being proposed a viable way to do that? Etc. I leave that up to @ZcashGrants to decide as I think I’ve said my piece here :v:

P.S. I personally am pretty ambivalent about the term “zodler” but I know many others like it.

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12

@HanuDixit, thank you for your submission. After consideration from @ZcashGrants , and sufficient time for the community to provide feedback on the forum, the committee has decided to reject this proposal as it is out of scope for funding at the moment.

Your contribution to the ecosystem and previous grant is seen as valuable by the committee and they would like to see you to stay as an active member of the Zcash community going forward and potentially do another collaboration with you in the future.

7 Likes
13

Thank you so much for your kind response @decentralistdan @ZcashGrants .
I totally understand and am extremely grateful for the community’s feedback and support.
The timing may not seem right at the moment for this idea but I have immense faith in Zcash and our community.
I hope to collaborate with Zcash soon in the future. Until then, happy to be an active member of this community as always. Thanks a ton!

10 Likes