Marketing Feedback: Airdrop to Hacked users

Ideas
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With the $Ease token in it’s final audit, the team is preparing all the logistics for the swap. One piece of that has been marketing strategy.

The team has thought about doing an airdrop to wallets that were victims of DeFi hacks for quite some time. Now, with an $Ease token launching, it would be the most opportunistic time do launch such a campaign. However, it’s important to make this an open discussion with the community and collect some feedback first.

To kick of the discussion, these are some key points that have come up in internal communications:

  • Its important to airdrop enough tokens to generate sufficient hype. BUT we also cant over-dilute circulating supply with too many tokens.
  • Do we target specific hacks, if so which hacks?
  • Do we set a minimum loss limit, if so what is that value?
  • Is it worth it with current bear market conditions. Will people care?
  • Are airdrops really a viable method anymore. Now it usually is a race to the floor for people to dump them.
  • If it happens, when should it be scheduled, with token launch? Shortly after? etc.

Looking forward to hearing other’s thoughts!

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As I really like the opinions expressed on our old Telegram channel, I’ll also quote them here, to help explain my personal view and also for us all to be on the same page here.

Our old pre-rebrand community member Adam Cooper has two general points to make and I absolutely vouch for that:

“I think that doing an airdrop to hack victims is a creative idea, but I worry that the recipients of those tokens may not know anything about Ease when the tokens appear. Recipients should know what they are receiving and why. You could require people to visit the Ease website before receiving their tokens, or you could award tokens to the first few thousand users to deposit qualifying tokens in vaults. I would wait until market sentiment improves before undertaking any such campaign. The Ethereum Merge may happen in a month or two, and if the upgrade goes smoothly, that could reinvigorate people and provide an opportunity.”
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and

“Another possibility is incentivizing the partner protocols. As those protocols must stake tokens to improve their Safety Rankings, I would say that they have greater motivations to obtain tokens. What if protocols earned some number of tokens for every one of their users who they refer (and who ultimately deposit tokens into the protocol’s vault)? You could cap the total number of tokens available for referrals. This may result in more organizations promoting Ease.”
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I too very much like the idea of giving partner protocols Ease tokens to strengthen their Safety Ranking for every depositor they refer to Uninsurance!

Codeboy, another die-hard supporter from way back, is of the same opinion:

“Yep that’s right, i think the hacked users should get some background about ease before receiving the airdrop to avoid unnecessary dumping that could be done by making them pass a questionnaire like binance does with tokens about to launch on their platform”
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I must say, I really like these ideas. I see things like this:

To emphasize on DeFi education, the airdrop may be part of a Learn-2-Earn campaign. Maybe a questionnaire as Codeboy suggests, requiring people to go through our website and do at least a shallow dive in the general documentation to “earn free crypto!”. It’s a popular marketing move right now, it may sound tedious, but it will make people work (research), so they’ll basically earn their airdrop. True - Learn-2-Earn may constrain the scope of adoption, but it lowers the chances of dumping significantly. I think we have to make an effort to expose the airdrop recipients to the fundamentals of Ease and potentially attract ecosystem participants, not just speculators.

WHEN is also a crucial question, in my opinion. Ease has a history and we all have invested our interest in it. Moves like changing a token, rebranding and upgrading always raise questions and I feel doing the airdrop simultaneously with the token launch won’t give investors enough time to assess where they stand and how best to organize their dealings.
So, I personally think it’s best for a possible Learn-2-Earn campaign to start with the launch of the token, but the airdrop to be scheduled for some time after that. For example, after all Armor and vArmor holders have had enough time to acquaint themselves with the new tokenomics model and have had time to organize and swap their Armor for the new token.

I’m no stranger to the idea to let even Armor holders benefit from the Learn-2-Earn campaign. Many months ago there were concerns expressed about the somewhat compulsory feeling about the token swap and the gas fees holders would have to pay. So, maybe the Learn-2-Earn can be mingled with a gas reimbursement?

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Thanks for compiling all of these community responses Xaumana :slight_smile:

100% agree that users should know from who and why they are receiving these tokens. An idea we floated today was that we announce an “airdrop page” that is first come, first serve. Where users connect their wallet and if they were a victim of a hack it whitelists them for the drop at a later date. This would:

  • Ensure users need to navigate and interact with the Ease website before getting tokens.
  • Creates FOMO marketing, by limiting the amount of whitelist spots.
  • Allows us to still market to the largest possible userbase still, so we don’t have to limit by amount lost or by specific hacks
  • Still allows us to ensure users receive significant value of tokens in the drop, as we can limit entry through the whitelist capacity instead.

The Learn-2-Earn idea is one that we had not thought of. I am definitely intrigued by it. I think it’s a nice way to allocate tokens to users that fits our brand goal of making DeFi safer for users. If we kept the airdrop idea we could even merge the two concepts. “did you suffer from a hack in DeFi? Go here and complete a safety course to be whitelisted for an upcoming airdrop”

Referral programs are worth exploring too. I’ll bring that up to Robert. We had one for the Armor line of products but it was not widely used. However, it was a user to user model. It might be a more powerful tool as a protocol to user model with Uninsurance.

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Ya, it seems everyone agrees there needs to be some kind of information to claim and I’m with them there, whether that’s just a brief overview of the system (watch a video then they can register?) or something more in-depth. I think Optimism had you read through and answer questions confirming you read a few different pages before being able to claim.

Problems I see with the protocol approach are I’m not sure how motivated they’d be by tokens if they’re not worth huge amounts and it wouldn’t get people posting on Twitter about the airdrop to tell others who may have been hacked.

If we do it with users I guess timeline is the big question in that case. There’s an argument that doing it right as a token appears on markets makes people see the potential rather than current state of the protocol, but I don’t know if that stands against the thought that people want to see a solid and developed protocol in order for them to not sell.

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Yeah, some hybrid between airdrop and a Learn-2-Earn sounds very good, personal opinion :slightly_smiling_face:

Full-fledged Learn-2-Earn program is an endeavor on its own, Ease has enough big things happening all at once. It still is a very good idea for some future time, especially when Ease will already be more broadly recognizable.

Just some element, or filter added to the airdrop in a Learn-2-Earn style, that will explain people more about us - just like Adam Cooper suggests.

While moderating the channels I very frequently get DMed by all kinds of proposals and such. I approach all with maximum good faith, I’m not judging which is a scam and which is legit… But I observe a surprise in all cases. Even people who seem prepared for an innovation don’t quite expect something profoundly different. It’s like “It’s either too good to be true, or it’s just what we’re looking for, but in either case we need more time to research/rethink our strategy”.

I imagine an airdrop to an audience that’s used to and expecting the premiums model coverage would have the same effect. We, the investors and long time supporters, had months to think about RCAs when Robert introduced the idea. I now see the RCA model can be applied to many fields in DeFi and the blockchain, not just insurance, but I needed my eyes opened for me.

The new website is pretty organized imo - it’s easy to navigate, it’s obvious and it’s sincere. It has graphics and vids. Socials are not very active, but anyone who had a question has been answered so far and we really haven’t left anyone with a hanging opinion :blush:

So let this airdrop marketing incentivize people to learn more about us! I support Adam Cooper and Codeboy on that one :slightly_smiling_face:

Also currently waiting for more opinions!

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Hi all!

Great questions here. Overall, I agree with the general ideas that an airdrop for hacked users could be a great marketing technique - especially if it can reinforce the lasting value of the gvToken model and Ease’s existing marketing efforts to grow the tent of DeFi users through education.

To speak to Xaumana’s point about the “it’s too good to be true” effect with prospective users, one important component in a potential learn-to-earn airdrop could be clearer and more definitive messaging about what specific kinds of attacks Ease would cover for these users and how the payout process would occur. Most of the language on the new Ease website is concise, but it’s relatively more difficult for a potential user to understand and trust documentation like the Terms of Ease Coverage. These Terms are clear, but could benefit from real examples. There’s also the element of trust since the DAO also reserves the right to exact decisions of coverage. Even if in just informal marketing material, if Ease were able to say “yes, we would’ve covered this event and here’s what you would’ve potentially stood to gain,” I think it could attract easier TVL onboarding without a user necessarily needing to reach out on Telegram or Discord DM’s as one of their first steps in their decision. This is, of course, a tricky outline to precisely give to prospective customers since the “cost” of coverage is dependent on RCA TVL, stacked risk, DAO votes, etc…

Still, in this sense, I think aligning the Terms of Ease Coverage with the airdrop - to both provide real world examples of the coverage Ease has on offer, and to explicitly showcase the utility of such coverage to users who have suffered such exploits - could be a great way to use the airdrop to clarify Ease’s product messaging and attract an organic base of users who stand to materially gain from the RCA ecosystem. I think there’s definitely potential to clarify Ease’s product offering and build genuine stakeholders.

Of course, as many have said, token depreciation is one of the biggest risks of airdrop marketing. Data from a Messari analyst shows that, statistically, it’s most beneficial for users to sell their airdropped tokens a week after the token is tradable.

To avoid this effect, I think that being deliberate with the timing re the health of the Ease token launch is important too. Passive income, as with gvEase bribing or farming rewards, could be key to planting seeds and providing positive soft pressure to take an interest in the ecosystem, to help mitigate pressure to sell and avoid pure speculation.

Just my thoughts! Thanks to everyone for your contributions here!

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Hey everyone!

I really like the Learn-2-Earn idea, as I think it will also increase the probability claimants will put their $EASE to use instead of insta dumping them, especially when we aim the airdrop at victims of previous hacks that now may be more predestined to use our system.

To further strengthen that effect and increase the probability of airdrop claimants becoming our customers, I thought we might increase the airdrop amount for claimants that put their airdrop to use. If a user is eligible for the airdrop and also has tokens in their wallet that they can get cover for, we might notify them about that, show some sort of throwback to the hack they were affected by, and tell them they would have been covered for that hack if they would have used our RCA vaults. To facilitate their decision to get cover from us, we could offer them a multiplier on their airdrop if they decide to get cover + stake their airdrop. Otherwise, they just receive the regular airdrop amount.

Would really love to hear your opinions about that idea!

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Totally support the multiplier idea in condition of choosing Ease for cover! :+1:

The voucher marketing system has long proven itself. Exchanges do voucher giveaways for trading/deposits all the time, it’s a known move everyone will recognize.

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