Customized Kusama Chocolate Bars

CUSTOMIZED KUSAMA CHOCOLATE BARS

1.General Project Information

Short description: customized chocolate bars to make Kusama tangible and to give it a touch of lifestyle

2. Context

After having a short discussion about this idea with Bill at Polkadot decoded last June, he gave me confidence to try to propose this idea here at the Kusama treasury.

The motivation for this idea comes from the digital nature of blockchain making it hard to grasp in the analogue world and hence not being tangible. The logo and branding of Kusama or Polkadot should be present on daily goods to make it easier for users to connect emotionally not only visually, but for example also through flavor, sound, or touch. I believe giving Kusama or Polkadot a touch of lifestyle would be a great differentiator to other blockchains out there and in the digital world, with all its noise it’s very hard to stand out only with nice branding and logos on social media.

3.Problem

What all the blockchain projects out there have in common, is that they only market and brand themselves in the digital world, but not in the analogue real world. The attention span on social media is very short and with all the noise it’s very hard for users to connect emotionally to a blockchain project, except if they are token holders, fan boys/girls, or team members of the project.
How can we attract new users to Polkadot/Kusama and keep existing users connected and attracted to Polkadot/Kusama, without digital marketing methods like air drops, online quizzes, virtual meetings, NFT drops, or online ads on social media?

I guess that one method which has proven itself in the last year to make users get emotionally attached to Polkadot, are real life events like Decoded or Sub0. Merchandise is also a good tool, but unfortunately it lacks creativity and by now we probably all have enough black t-shirts with a boring text logo in standard font in our wardrobe.

Producing real world lifestyle products for Kusama/Polkadot should help with brand awareness and long term connectivity to new users and existing users, who value physical products that can be experienced through touch, taste, visual appearance, scent and hence motivate user to interact with Kusama/Polkadot and use the provided tools like staking, governance, minting NFTs, community growth, etc.

4.Proposal

Kusama/Polkadot branded chocolate bars with custom packaging design to promote Kusama and Polkadot and other parachains with QR codes for example. These chocolate gift boxes can be used for:

Kusama/Polkadot gift tool (https://gifts.kusama.network/#/): receiver of gifted KSM/DOT can chose to receive the chocolate gift box by providing an address
Regular attendees of Meet Up’s or Twitter spaces who prove attendance with POAP’s
Business partners or investors to make them aware of projects building on top of Kusama/Polkadot
Give away on real life events like Polkadot Decoded to special guests, supporters or volunteers

4.8. Key deliverables

Graphic design for product packaging
Production of chocolate bars with custom packaging
Shipping to various partners: Parity, W3F, Parachains
Distribution of product at events
Collecting and analyzing feedback of users

4.9. Objectives/Success criteria

When the product is successfully produced, packaging design is matching the digital draft, partners are receiving their batches and users are having a smile on their faces after trying the chocolate, then we know that goals were achieved!

--> see original polkassembly posting and discussion here

--> COPY OF LINK TO FULL PROPOSAL HERE

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1st update on 11th of March 2023:

• funds were received form treasury and transferred to exchanged to convert to €
• payment to graphic designer of 13KSM (~$500) was transferred
• requested and received various graphic elements from W3F, which were not publicly available
• design for chocolate box and chocolate bars is in final stage
• unfortunately the selection of chocolate flavour is not as wide as initially believed (see poll) and according to the supplier, they can only offer flavours which are regularly produced on the line

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2nd and final update on 2nd of May 2023:

• 100 pieces of chocolate boxes were shipped and received today
• costs for production were paid (invoice available in shared folder)
• all the design files are available in shared folder (proof of work of graphic designer)
• proof of payment for graphic designer available as screen shot in shared folder
• preparation and shipment of boxes to users happening now
• shared folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1k-3tZwa9H9PcxEEkxkBModP8kjrfcJw4?usp=sharing

enjoy the yummy Polkadot/Kusama chocolate!!!