Transparency manifest. Why the face should be always visible.
When we started the Blockchain Ambassadors initiative, we stumbled upon a small ethical question: do we need to show the faces of our “angels”?
If we were to show them, it would be quite obvious that a startup has hired a model simply to add her face to the team of employees. Then a realisation dawned on us: it’s okay to hire professionals.
Do you really think that there is any difference between hiring a great developer and hiring a beautiful brand ambassador? Of course, developers are more crucial to any software startup, but their relative importance does not mean that PR managers, content managers, creative directors, and the ineffectual masses that promise to promote your brand are suddenly expendable. Brand ambassadors are keeping the same promise has the latter group; they do so gracefully and they do so professionally. It’s okay to pay professionals.
When you buy a t-shirt in any branch of H&M, you do understand that the models you saw promoting the store on billboards were paid to do so. When you are scrolling down paragoncoin.com only to see a photo Jessica Versteeg in the team board, you do understand that you are visiting an ICO that you would usually ignore. But now you’re here, have a look at the website, take your time. Why not follow Jessica on Instagram, with all the ICO details and promotional material? It’s okay, I do too.
Another aspect of this ethical dilemma is also obvious to me. You may be thinking it too. Allow me to say it aloud:
“Are models really the people we want to represent a technologically sophisticated blockchain startup?”
Well, most of our models are very well-educated and have a range of life experience, even mores than myself.
Botanico is here to fight sexual objectification and bias by providing the brand ambassadors with the opportunity to express themselves as part of the blockchain community — perhaps the most geeky community in the world. We hope that the community will embrace them wholeheartedly, and we promise to be as transparent as possible as we strive to distance ourselves from outdated concepts.
Ivan Sokolov
Creative director
