[Thoughts #169] Cool Cats Blackout Activation
PLUS: 🖼 Are you looking for a Product Designer? and another X to mint example
I was going to write about Pudgy Penguin’s LayerZero efforts, but I guess that will have to wait because Cool Cats just launched a delightful activation. More on that in a bit.
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Cool Cats Blackout Activation
As the bar for community activations has risen, we’re seeing more creative formats for announcements and reveals and Twitch is a channel that is coming to augment the primary channels that are Discord and Twitter.
One example of this is RTFKT’s Animus activation, which integrated audience chat participation for the story to progress.
Another example appeared today in a creative fashion courtesy of Cool Cats.
Clon, founder and artist of Cool Cats went on Twitch for one of his popular drawing sessions. These sessions allow for audience participation and co-creation. For example, last week’s stream resulted in these little fellas to be created.
Just as the term community became an industry buzzword over the past few years, I believe the term co-creation will also proliferate across professional circles and conferences in the coming years.
An example of this is Nike’s .SWOOSH efforts:
Today’s stream had more excitement than usual as the team was giving away a Cool Cat in the stream. As a result, an above average number of users joined the live stream to participate in the giveaway.
About 28 minutes into the stream, something weird happened. As Clon sketched along, his pen stopped working and a rift opened up on his screen.
Viewers shared their excitement and surprise in the chat as the video played over the original stream.
This was my response (multiple times):
This is also my response when I go on rollercoasters or watch a live sports game. I’m fun to be around.
The whole sequence lasted about a minute and half and just like that, the stream abruptly ended. While this clip was playing, a couple of other changes happened in parallel, on Twitter and Discord.
Twitter
When going to a Cool Cats team member’s profile:
Profile picture changed to blackout theme
Banner changed to blackout theme
#whereisblue hashtag
Discord
The team changed their Discord profile pictures as well and added the 🌀🔦 emojis after their name and added the status #whereisblue.
Even the Instagram account went dark.
Shortly after, the team revealed the next steps of the puzzle,
When applying the !whereisblue command into the Discord, additional steps appeared.
So what gives?
Convergent/Divergent community activation
I initially brought up the concept of convergence and divergence in my Consensus recap last June.
So how does this apply to Consensus?
Even though the values and ultimate vision of Crypto is around decentralization, the participants are humans. As social beings, we can of course collaborate and work from anywhere around the world at any time and build. However, when we ‘converge’, we’re able to have a richer experience sharing ideas, meeting new people, and go back to a state of divergence with renewed energy, sense of mission, and new connections.
Put in another way…
Digital decentralization + (occasional) Physical centralization = A positive growth loop of innovation for the space.
As we transition from physical convergence back to digital divergence, we create stronger ties on Discord and Twitter…until the next conference or meetup!
A digital-only example of this is Goblintown, one of the projects born out of the deep bear market last May.
Goblintown Twitter Spaces were legendary as the community (and broader web3 space) tuned into the ridiculous and entertaining goblin voices. And when the spaces concluded the audience diverged into other channels to talk about Goblintown.
How does this look with Cool Cats?
Note that the convergence through PFP, banner, hashtags, and emojis are on a symbolic level, and my buddy Eliot Couvat summarizes the concept well.
What’s also notable about this is that the team is modeling the behavior they want to see.
From CEO to community moderator, it’s clear that they’re bought into this story, encouraging the community to be more bought in as well. This isn’t a “do as I say, not as I do” type of situation.
How do you measure success?
One of the most important aspects of these initiatives is measuring success (beyond floor price). I would look at:
Discord message volume pre/during/post activation and by uniques
Twitch stream participation pre/during/after activation
How many profile pictures and banners changed to the blackout theme
How many emojis were added after usernames
#whereisblue hashtag volume
I would monitor this activity (I’m sure the team is monitoring many other metrics) as the story continues to unfold. There may even be a content multiplier moment like BAYC has done with Dookey Dash at a later point 🤔
The Cool Cats community will eagerly await next steps. Respect to the team for going all-in on this blackout activation!
Another X to mint example
A couple weeks ago, I highlighted Hacker Haikus, a text to mint project by @prettyblocks. Well, he’s at it again with Plz Bro, a speak to mint project.
Plz Bro made minters basically read out a TLDR version of a terms of service, which is hilarious.
On top of that, prettyblocks used the text messages he received from Hacker Haiku to create the NFTs for Plz Bro, which he calls “speech-to-text-to-mint”. Here’s an example:
Doubling down on the Hacker Haiku prediction I made, we will see more X to mint mechanics. BAYC calls Dookey Dash a skill-based mint, which is accurate. However, if we abstract a layer, it’s a play to mint mechanic. And prettyblocks has shown us what text to mint and speak to mint could look like.
On top of that, we will see variation and augmentations of this, inspired by the speech-to-text-to-mint:
A project could create a multilayered NFT where the user needs to take an action to mint it
To add another layer to the NFT (eg: 2D to 3D), the holder needs to take another specific action
To add another layer to the NFT (eg: no sound to sound), the holder needs to take another specific action
A clearer example of this are programs like Coca-Cola Rewards and Box Tops for Education, which are scan-to-donate programs. (not scam lol)
We’ll see who comes up with the next X-to-mint mechanics. This is a wide open field.
See you next week!