Catapult Brand Update #1

[Inside_NEM]

Translations:
• Japanese: LINK.
• Spanish: LINK
• Mandarin: LINK.
• Italian: Here.
• Russian: Here

Dear Community,

Many of you have supported NEM since early on – thank you. Some of you are newer to the community and are curious about learning more about the tech and what differentiates it from other blockchain protocols on the market today. You’ve probably read documentation on GitHub or Qiita, downloaded the Nanowallet, built some projects on NEM, or perhaps you’ve gone into Slack, BitcoinTalk or the Telegram channels Red or HelpDesk to get a sense of how things work around here beyond the typical POCs. Almost all of you, most likley, have heard about Catapult.

Today the goal is to share a new way to look at Catapult from a different lens than the one you may be used to. It’s a glimpse at what the future of Catapult could look like in Q1 2020.

This is a culmination of ongoing research, insight from community and partners and also an outside perspective on how Catapult might look with a new focus and refinement.

NEM and Catapult have differences in code so the approach we’ll be sharing with you is through the lens of Catapult as a new brand. A key part of this work our group has been collaborating on is to establish a ‘brand narrative,’ setting out Catapult’s ambition, brand characteristics, value proposition, and target audience in a way that differentiates Catapult as a competitive leader and makes Catapult relevant for all our audiences - but particularly the enterprise audience.

It’s a lot of information and naturally, you’re going to have questions – that’s what we want. We want you to participate and join the discussion in this forum post below.

Thanks in advance for all your support,
The Brand Steering Committee

–

1. ABOUT THE CATAPULT BRAND STEERING COMMITTEE AND PROCESS
Earlier this year, an MOU was signed between the NEM Foundation and David Shaw (Director of NEM Studios) to do market research, brand exploration and help create a go-to-market strategy for the launch of Catapult protocol.

To better support these efforts, a Catapult Brand Steering Committee was comprised of Alexandra Tinsman, David Shaw, Lewis Farrell, and Nate D’Amico as a reliable source of counsel to weigh in on strategies for Catapult Branding. In November, the committee expanded to also include Jeff McDonald and Dave Hodgson.

CATAPULT BRAND PROPOSAL AND DECISION PROCESS

• The Catapult Brand Steering Committee has been working on an initial brand proposal that we’ll be sharing with the community, ecosystem partners, and core team for feedback. ( Skip to the bottom of this post for a detailed brand work back schedule.)
• Feedback is absorbed along the way and balanced between what is wanted and what is possible across various stakeholder groups, and then the Catapult Brand Steering Committee creates a brand proposal.
• A single summary proposal encompassing the brand recommendation will then be drafted and put to the Core Team and Community for a decision. If it is rejected, then it will be reworked, but this may impact Q1 2020 launch, and that must be balanced to avoid as a priority.

2. ABOUT THE BRAND AGENCY
An important part of helping Catapult fulfill its potential and vision was to pull in brand professionals with a proven track record for transforming and elevating world-class brands. Please say a warm hello to the lead team at Better Way, the brand agency helping us bring Catapult to the enterprise market.They bring decades of experience shaping products into evergreen brands.

Katie Barber, Strategy and Program Management
Katie is a digital strategist with 20+ years of experience for many high profile brands, including Microsoft, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Legal & General, and United Airlines. She specializes in delivering strategic planning across multiple platforms and formats to drive business goals, engagement, and brand perception.

Dan Rowe, Creative Lead
Dan has spent 20 years advising government, companies, and boards on brand & marketing strategy with clients including Nokia, Miniclip, Accenture, Playstation, BNP Paribas, Cable & Wireless, IKEA, Sky, and Telefonica. His roles include being the Creative Director of Planetactive, co-founder and Creative Director of Dave and Calling Brands, and Partner at Engine Group.

Dan Bobby, Strategy Lead
Dan has spent 25 years in building, developing, and advising companies and Boards on brand, marketing & business strategy. He specializes in building brands as strategic assets with experience in B2B, Technology, and Professional Services. Roles include head of strategy of Wolf Olins, CEO of dave, a Board Director of The Engine group, and most recently CEO of Calling Brands. Clients include Orange, KPMG, IKEA, ITN, Accenture, Nokia, Experian, and Cable & Wireless.

3. ABOUT THE CATAPULT BRAND GO-TO-MARKET PROJECT
The NEM Foundation tasked the brand agency to help with the following areas:

1. To define and agree on the core philosophy that sits at the heart of the Catapult brand platform. To clarify the core elements that sit at the heart of the proposition – why it exists, what makes it unique, how it delivers, who it is for – and articulate those benefits to enterprise customers and other stakeholders.

2. To bring the narrative to life – verbally and visually – to inform the launch.

Interested to learn more? You can read more about the agency’s approach in the Brand Steering Committee Kickoff Presentation HERE.

ABOUT THE MARKET RESEARCH
The agency started the project by doing extensive market research on NEM and the blockchain landscape. This research included:

• Desk Research
• Competitor analysis – communications and brand
• Internal interviews
• External Interviews

Interested to learn more? Check out the discovery and market research that was compiled.

• Discovery Presentation HERE.
• Competitor Social Media Presentation HERE.
• Competitor Creative Presentation HERE.

The discovery process was helpful and some of the actionable findings from the market research and interviews included:

• NEM’s reputation as a brand has been affected by negative press. (Ex. Coincheck Hack)
• The current NEM brand has little traction with Enterprise clients.
• Blockchain competition is well poised. (Check out how the competition has been positioning themselves in the marketplace.)
  
  

The takeaway is that we see this as a huge opportunity to take an active leadership position within blockchain and for business thanks to Catapult, which we risk not realizing with the current brand NEM.

4. A NEW FUTURE IN ENTERPRISE WITH CATAPULT

Catapult presents itself with being a strong enterprise protocol platform, and we knew we needed to think about how we start to develop a brand and brand strategy that enables us to go on a journey and a roadmap as an organization as we develop additional elements to the technology over the longterm.

Specific details emerged from the market research that showed us what strengths Catapult has in the enterprise landscape. These became the “building blocks” that we decided to take in for how we will talk about the brand moving forward.

5. CATAPULT STRATEGY AND MESSAGING
We want to position Catapult as having a point of view and being contextualized in and around the world – and especially in the world of business. We believe the lack of trust between people, businesses, organizations, and in society is being exposed, creating barriers to and destroying potential value and allowing fewer large companies to maintain dominance at a time where collaboration and working together are key to growth.

We see that while increased connectivity through technology is meant to bring us closer together, in reality, it fuels isolation and protectionism. For businesses, despite their connectivity, they are now less certain of who their dealing with and the integrity and honesty of those players in their value chain.

At Catapult we believe that everything has value and everyone should be valued. Corporations, organizations, communities, and individuals have ideas, business opportunities, and innovation that can create collective value for themselves and others within the ecosystem.

We believe that the next evolution of business will be about fair value exchange.

The ability to ascribe value to anything that individuals or organizations own – and exchange it fairly – will create a level playing field that removes barriers to entry and allows full participation in markets and business.

Business needs a secure and trusted value network where everything has a value, and everyone will achieve the return they deserve for the things they make and own.

Technology & blockchain has an essential role to play by establishing collective value through trust at the heart of the exchanges of ideas, innovation, and information between individuals, businesses, and communities.

We believe that Catapult can be the secure and trusted value transfer network for business. Catapult, as an organization and a technology, will provide the means and ways of making the creation and realization of value possible.

In the following future updates, we’ll be sharing more details around brand strategy and go deeper into topics including:

• Brand Ambition, Belief, and Philosophy
• Brand Strategy
• Brand Names (Including Ticker)
• Bringing the Brand To Life Creatively
• The Brand Proposal First Draft
• The Brand Proposal Final Draft (With Feedback/Updates)
• The Catapult Brand Go-To-Market Plan
• The Catapult Brand Go-To-Market Toolkit
• Strengthening Catapult’s Culture and Community

6. TIMELINE
We want to hear your constructive feedback and we aim to do our best to provide you with progress updates and check-ins.

To help keep you in the loop, here’s a handy timeline on the project deliverables.

Thanks for your continued support,
Alexandra Tinsman
on behalf of the Catapult Steering Committee

[GodTanu]

NEM’s reputation as a brand has been affected by negative press . (Ex. Coincheck Hack)

Really? Isn’t it the fault of the NEM Foundation?
Do you throw away name recognition?
Want to throw it away?

I look forward to being reborn as a CAT Foundation & CAT Studio & CAT Venture.

[Inside_NEM]

Hi God Tanu,
I understand your perspective. It might bet good to look at the market research deck that highlights the challenges the NEM brand has faced from many views - not just Coincheck or even NEM Foundation. There’s a ton of information in this update and the Japanese translation for the post should be soon. Also, I want you to know that I have not heard of anyone proposing “getting rid of the NEM brand”. There’s no reason why both brands can’t exist together. We’ll talk more about this in an upcoming post about what a proposed ecosystem model looks like for the brands.

Thanks for the feedback.

[tresto]

I would like to give feedback only on “Brand Names (Including Ticker)”. Other than that, I think that the Branding Committee should decide arbitrarily.

We are able to free to spread in our words what is NEM (Catapult) . If there is a good part in your branding policy, we will use it.

I think it’s ridiculous to change the name of the platform due to negative image due to negative events such as coincheck hacking. Perhaps those who give such an opinion are people who don’t feel strongly interested in NEM.

Bitcoin has a lot of hacking experience, did Bitcoin change the name? No.There was no need for it. We should be strong. There is no need to change the original belief of “New Economy Movement” so easily. At least I don’t want to change.

The Branding Committee set up two “catapult” options in the first question of the previous survey. I felt this was inductive. I felt that they would want to rebrand to Catapult.

Of course, the name Catapult is already known in part, and branding as a new core engine is ongoing throughout the community.

But think carefully. “Catapult” is a name for a new core engine(server). It’s strange to use the name of the engine as the name of the new “car brand”.

Mijin is spreading as “mijin v2 catapult, a privatechain product that uses NEM technology”. When the name NEM changes to Catapult, the context becomes strange.

I did a questionnaire on Twitter. There were 356 responses. The result is this.

Question: Which direction do you think the new name is good for?

1:Continue NEM (change old one) / 27%
2:New name including the letters NEM / 32%
3:Catapult / 32%
4:Something that is neither NEM nor Catapult / 10%

My opinion is that “new name including the letters NEM” is the best. Because it becomes a new name that has inherited the will of the past.

The ticker should be something other than XEM to avoid trading confusion. It can be anything.

(The following is a Japanese translation)

私は"Brand Names (Including Ticker)"についてのみフィードバックしたいと思います。それ以外はブランディング委員会で独断的に決めたらいいと思います。

私たちは私たちの言葉でNEM(Catapult)が何なのかを広めるのは自由です。あなたたちが決めたブランディング方針に良い部分があればそれを使うでしょう。

私はハッキングなどのネガティブな事件に起因するイメージ悪化を理由として、プラットフォーム名をリブランドすることは馬鹿げていると思います。おそらくそのような意見をする人はNEMに強い思い入れのない人々だと思っています。

ビットコインはハッキングを多く経験してますが、名前を変えましたか？その必要は全くありませんでした。私たちは強くあるべきです。最初の「New Economy Movement」という信念をそう簡単に変える必要はありません。少なくとも私は変えたいと思わない。

ブランディング委員会は、先日のアンケートの1問目で「catapult」の選択肢を2つ設定しました。これは誘導的だと感じました。あなたたちはCatapultにリブランドしたいのだろうと感じました。

もちろん、Catapultという名前は一部ではすでに知られており、新型コアエンジンとしてのブランディングはコミュニティ全体で進んでいます。

でもよく考えてください。catapultはそもそも新しいコアエンジンの名前です。エンジンの名前を新しい車のブランド名にするのは違和感があります。

mijinは「NEMの技術が使われたプライベート製品のmijin v2 catapult」として広まっています。NEMという名前がCatapultに変わるとその文脈がおかしくなります。

私はツイッターでアンケートをしました。356の回答がありました。その結果はこれです。

質問：新しい名前はどの方向性がいいと思いますか？

1:NEMを継続（古い方を変更） / 27%
2:NEMという文字を含む新名 / 32%
3:Catapult / 32%
4:NEMでもCatapultでもない何か / 10%

私の意見は「NEMという文字を含む新名」が最も良いと思います。新しい上にこれまでの意志を受け継いだ名前になると思います。

ティッカーは取引上の混乱を避けるためXEMではない別のものにすべきです。それは何でもいいです。

[tresto]

Please clarify this first. What do you mean by “for enterprise”?

Is it a private chain? If you are strengthening the introduction of private chains for the enterprise rather than the public chain, I feel strange a little.

I understand that Catapult can hybrid. Does NEM Foundation think this way?
“Someday, it would be nice if companies could use the public chain too. Now We want to increase our profits by selling private chain products.”

If so, I may feel a little uncomfortable with you. How much do you consider adopting a public chain for company?

[c0nan]

i miss the part that explains how a new name will attract more business. also miss the part that explains what businesses wont implement NEM because of an exchange robbery. Can you share the sources please!

[Helly]

That sounds very good. What is the name of NEM? The only thing that worries me is how long will the capital supply last for the Foundation so they can continue to work. I hope the money is spent wisely and NEM development is secured for the next 2-3 years. Hope very much that if catapult really big partnerships will follow.

[nzminer]

I completely agree
NEM can remain part of a much larger ecosystem.
Catapult needs much better branding than an acronym that came out of bitcoin talk 5 years ago, which no one really even can relate to or understand its meaning. Not to say that NEM can’t remain as discussed as a separate product of something much, much larger.
It’s not because of the coincheck hack why new branding is needed, but as mentioned, a new product with new code needs a new name that enterprise can identify itself with. I’m sorry to say that NEM is not going to be an attractive name to the target audience we want. Things have moved on much more from when NEM was first suggested back in 2014 and we need to look at the bigger picture.
This is why I’m in full support of a new branding for the catapult chain, while I know not everyone will agree, I feel it’s the right decision.

I also am happy with putting the branding agency in charge of coming up with a brand name, they will have the experience in this regard IMHO and if possible, they probably can come up with a few candidates that the community can vote on if desired.
I’m excited to see what proposed logos and branding is suggested:)

[jason.lee]

It’s not because of the coincheck hack why new branding is needed, but as mentioned, a new product with new code needs a new name that enterprise can identify itself with.

I agree with this. The branding agency had done a good amount of research with a competitive analysis and hence the strategy and messaging will be a key factor to our future success. It could be the same (NEM, Catapult etc.) or something different but we should stay open.

@c0nan, I don’t think we can make the assumption that a new name will attract more business or enterprise won’t implement NEM because of its past. The point is that the committee had done an audit on what the competitor’s landscape looks like (see below) and will be proposing more details on the brand names, strategy, brand proposal and more.

• Competitor Social Media Presentation HERE .
• Competitor Creative Presentation HERE .

We’ll wait and see what the options are first but there is definitely clear progress with a roadmap and milestones ahead.

Well done to the committee, my only comment is that I wished that things would have moved much faster. But that being said, the details outlined are in the right direction and there must be a lot of background work done to get to this stage. Looking forward to what is yet to come!

[cryptonit]

a rebranding of nem ecosystem with catapult as new mainchain

yes

abandon history dont build on top of our past

no

in the end it must be clear this is the new mainchain of nem ecosystem and that we are a proud new version of a former top5 coin on its way back towards beeing an essential element for blockchainbased future

[Stinghe_Dorian]

This is like sugarcoating a turd. A lot of things have to change, not talking about the name.

[Paul]

Can you provide a concise list of things that have to change? Otherwise, I don’t see the point of your post.

[Stinghe_Dorian]

Communication, Transparency, Governance, Community Management,

[LauraBKK]

I must say, of course that I disagree with your statement. That being said, I am very sorry you feel that way, and I may have missed where these things have been neglected, and as such could you please cite some examples of where communication/transparency/governance, and community management has not met standards?
We always strive to do the very best we can, so appreciate actionable feedback.
Lastly, could we mind our language here please?
Thanks so much

[MrNorberg]

Correct and accurate branding, a logo is 50% of the project’s success.

Let me explain the situation right away. Some people believe that branding, logo - it does not matter: the developers, people who work with the code 24/7 and speculators who are eager to sell their XEMs, bought for 1 dollar and above.

You may have the best code, product, but without strong marketing, branding and logo, you have emptiness.

We live in a world of brands and logos. When we look at the logo, we are subconsciously substituting the name of the brand. The “apple” symbol is the Apple Corporation in the head. Once again, the Apple Corporation, not the parameters of the chip, RAM and other important technical characteristics.

Let’s return to the examples of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, an easy name, a simple logo and association with the mystical Satoshi Nakamoto. Title, logo, history (history will not be spoken about yet, it is a more complicated topic, although it attracts everyone too).

Ethereum, an association with smart contracts and a young prodigy who moved from Russia to Canada. And no one cares that contracts work with bugs, people lose money using them, and Buterin is only one of the creators. Title, logo, history.

If we all want the success of the Catapult, we should not shout out, but listen constructively to everyone. Title, logo and history.

There is a story, 3 anonymous developers, a new idea code-named “Catapult”.

It remains to be done with the name and logo. It is not necessary to give up the past history, sometimes it is positive and negative, people tend to remember the negative more.

We all have a great opportunity to “revive the bird phoenix of ashes” or finally drown in the mud.

P.S. We can shout “I want the name NEM” to the floor of the rattle, but then take all the risks. Now people’s first association with the word NEM is theft. And people don’t know it was exchange hack, not blockchain. I’m not talking about bankruptcy, ponti “who has my coin” or anything else.

We all have the opportunity to start all over again, and believe me, many projects dream about it now. It would be foolish not to take this chance.

[garm]

Yes, a few difficult decisions are pending.
I’m actually torn back and forth.
On the one hand we have already had in the past
more often the discussion about a new name for NEM, on the other hand NEM stands despite the Coincheck theft,
for a blockchain that has been stable for almost 5 years.
As bad as the coincheck theft was,
so he has shown that a good blockchain is unchangeable. Even with such a dramatic event.
Unfortunately too little attention was paid to this aspect (marketing).

PS:
What I would like to see for the future is that the foundation is driving the development more actively and not as a driven one of
the core developer acts.

[fvm]

Firstly, thanks for the update. I agree with some people that there is little to discuss about at this point as this is just an introduction; at the beginning phase of a new Brand Identity. So, I’ll just give a small feedback, instead of a point of discussion.

The Catapult Discovery Research is an interesting read. Though, I feel like it stops right where things get more excited – What are some of the Catapult’s capabilities, and how Catapult will find its place in the market. I’m looking forward to reading more of this.

Secondly, regarding the brand name: in my opinion, we should see something still related to the name “NEM”. Don’t let unfortunate events or foolish deeds done by external parties deter from going forward with “NEM”. Bitcoin has had a lot of those and still kept the name Bitcoin. Look at Mt. Gox hack, Bitcoin Cash or SV forks, etc. If “NEM” can raise up (rebirth) from that, it will become stronger.

Should you think we really need a new brand and that now is a really good opportunity to do that, I hope you can come up with a good brand name and identity.
“Catapult” is just a code-name of a product and is something from a medieval world; how would you make a good impression out of that?

Besides that, the name “Catapult” in the software industry is not unique. Just google “Catapult Software” and there is a list of software and even blockchain-related results. To name a few:

• Catappult (catappult.io): An App distribution platform with its own blockchain and AppCoin.
• Catapult Soft (catapultsoft.com): An FTP server and client.
• Catapult Software (catapultsoftware.com): A company that provides software for clients in the electricity, water, oil & gas industry.

Lastly, and a bit nit-picking here, I think the Catapult Timeline on the project deliverables picture above has some errors in it:

• There are two number 5 and number 6 for both Naming and Creative timeline.
• Week 6 happens in the 14th month (instead of 12th)?

These kind of little errors and inconsistencies can also be found throughout the documents that are linked in the post above. For example, the number of people being interviewed (external and internal) is inconsistent, etc. Small things.

Thanks again for the update. And looking forward for the next update.

[DaokaTrade]

Our company in Japan conducts some Projects with several companies using NEM/mijin. ex) KINDAI, trading company, etc.
These projects started after the CoinCheck hack.
Certainly, this incident temporarily gave a negative impression.
However, it was overcome by the efforts of those involved.

Tech Bureau Holdings has adopted several projects with mijin v2 (Catapult).
They use same brand name ‘mijin’

NEM is safe and easy blockchain.
Catapult continues NIS1 concept.
I think there is nothing wrong with continuing to use the name NEM in Catapult.
I prefer to use the name NEM in Catapult.
Because Catapult continues NIS1 concept.

Coincheck hacks occurred in Japan. But NEM is used most in Japan despite this incident.
Would you consider this fact?

(The following is in Japanese)

私たちの会社はNEM/mijinを使って、いくつかの会社とプロジェクトを行いました。例) 近大やとある商社など
これらのプロジェクトはコインチェック事件のあとに始まりました。
確かにこの事件は一時的にネガティブな印象を与えましたが、関係者の努力によって克服されました。

テックビューロホールディングスではmijin v2(Catapult)がいくつかのプロジェクトで採用されました。
彼らは同じ’mijin’というブランド名を使用しています。

NEMは安全で簡単なブロックチェーンです。
CatapultはNIS1(現行NEM)のコンセプトを引き継いでいます。
CatapultでNEMの名前を使うのはなんら違和感がありません。
私はCataputでもNEMの名前を使うのを好みます。
なぜならCatapultはNIS1(現行NEM)のコンセプトを引き継いでいるからです。

コインチェック事件は日本でおきました。
しかし、これらの事件にもかかわらず日本は最もNEMを使っています。

これをどう思いますか？

[fvm]

Coincheck hacks occurred in Japan. But NEM is used most in Japan despite this incident.
Would you consider this fact?

That is a good point. And a testimony that NEM is still loved regardless of the incident.

[Stinghe_Dorian]

Sure, all is good thank you! Keep Up the good work.