It's been one year. One year since we acquired the project for 750 ETH ($2,500,000) and began this journey of creating the greatest Web3 IP company. Since we have taken over, our overarching vision of building a household name brand with Pudgy Penguins has stayed the same, but there has been a lot we have had to learn along the way, and we simply could not have done it without the support of our community. If you want to know more about the acquisition, check out the article by CoinDesk here.

This past year has been a wild ride, and we’re just getting started. To be an IP company is to have many departments, all operating at a high level, all the time. Creating brand awareness and products is the most important part of Pudgy Penguins, so let's take a look at what we accomplished since we acquired Pudgy Penguins through content, marketing, products, events, community, and technology.

Marketing

As an IP company, it is very important to create as many touch points as possible for the Pudgy Penguins brand. One of our top priorities is making sure that every corner a person turns, there is a Pudgy Penguin. Whether it be in a magazine or on the Instagram explore page, our marketing funnel is meant to meet the user where they are and then allow them in the most seamless way possible to fall in love with the Pudgy Penguins brand.

Our biggest marketing initiatives in the past year have been Instagram and GIPHY, and the numbers speak for themselves.

Instagram

Our Instagram is a very important part of Pudgy Penguins, as it is an example of the Trojan Horse we aspire to be for Web3 IP. From positive affirmation posts to funny, relatable videos, in the past year, our Instagram has formed a massive audience on its own. And... it is continuing to grow each and every day.

Our average MoM (month over month) growth rate since the start of our Instagram page is 60.21%, which is greater than the average 1-2% growth a normal Instagram page experiences. Here is the breakdown of our follower growth. Also, out of the 7 animated videos and 1 mascot video we have posted in the funny-relatable category, 4 videos have gotten over 5,000,000 views, with one reaching 12,000,000; and the other 4 videos have gotten views ranging from 200,000 to 1,000,000.

GIPHY

A big part of our brand awareness plan is to find ways for people to use the Pudgy IP without even thinking about it. With GIFs, stickers, and memes that people can use and share across various social media platforms, we've been able to expand the Pudgy Penguins' reach beyond just Web3. When people send GIFs on Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms, chances are they'll come across a Pudgy Penguin as one of the choices.

With over a thousand unique GIFs, have reached a combined total of 3.1 billion views, with our most popular one having over 500 million views. Not only have they garnered billions of views, but a majority of the views have come from people who don't know what a "Pudgy Penguin" is; they simply like the IP. With a character and IP company like Pudgy Penguins, the main goal is for everyday consumers to fall in love with the Penguins.

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Here are some examples of our GIFS reaching those that don't even know what Pudgy Penguins is.

Content

In the IP business, content is king. With an IP like Pudgy Penguins, the driving force behind the business is content and marketing. Since we acquired the project, one of our top priorities has been making sure our content infrastructure is laid out so that we can take Pudgy Penguins where it needs to be! From Youtube to Twitter, Instagram, GIPHY, and more, our content machine is not only in motion but poised to bring Pudgy Penguins to the forefront of a global audience!

Here is everything we did content-wise in the last year:

GIPHY

Our highest output in the content department was on our GIFs. In the last year, we produced over 2,600 GIFs, which each got views ranging from 10,000 to over 100,000,000 views each.

3D Animations

The hardest, most time consuming content is our 3D animations. What may seem like a 15–30 second clip takes weeks of 15-hour days to produce at the production level we produce them at. From rigging to environment building to SFX, we produced three 3D animations to announce some of our biggest partnerships and initiatives in the past year. Let’s take a look at these 3D animations!

Sotheby's Partnership

We held an auction with Sotheby’s in October and solidified ourselves in the fine art world. This was the start to a lot of big moments for Pudgy Penguins, and we are ecstatic Sotheby’s built alongside us and the community. Not only did we have an auction at Sotheby’s, but we were also the first Web3 brand to deliver a Soulbound Token by a major company.

LayerZero Partnership

Our second 3D animation was for our partnership with LayerZero when we took Lil Pudgys cross-chain and gave users the choice to bridge between Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, and BNB Chain.

Retail Monster Partnership

A huge focus for us is our toys and making sure our IP is shown to everyday consumers. Our partnership with Retail Monster amplifies Pudgy Toys as Retail Monster is our retail and licensing partner. Retail Monster is here to help put Pudgy Toys on the shelves all around the world while opening the doors necessary for brand adoption.

Building in Public

The phrase "Building in Public" has been something we have been advocating for, for a long time. We believe in transparency and a collaborative process with our community, which is why we released our behind-the-scenes show, Building in Public.

This show is very important to us as it gives insight into the way we operate and what truly goes into building a brand like Pudgy Penguins. We want Building in Public to be a high-quality series that inspires change in the Web3 space and gives more people clarity on what is going on behind the scenes

Episode 1: We bought a brand for 2.5M.

Episode 2: Laying the Foundation

Episode 3: We took over Paris.

Product

With most of our team coming from a background of ecommerce, building products was a big part of our internal roadmap. In the past year not only have we released clothing and merch, but we also announced our toyline in partnership with PMI. Here’s everything to do with product we did in the past year!

Clothing and Merch

In terms of clothing and merchandise, we tested a lot of different styles and lines due to our audiences being different in Web2 and Web3. For holders, we launched the "I am my Penguin" line, which consists of custom 1/1 prints of the Pudgy Penguin or Lil Pudgy that you own. In that line, we have customizable t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and prints. For our holders, this has been a big hit!

For clothing drops, we launched our best-selling Igloo line. The Igloo line featured 2 hoodies, black and pink, and a hat with our Igloo logo on it. Other than our Igloo line, we released a positive affirmations collection, and a Summer 2022 collection that featured 1 hoodie, 5 t-shirts, 1 long sleeve, a trucker hat, and clout goggles.

Clothing and Merch Outlook

The main goal for our clothing and merchandise is to have a line that transcends any audience divide and appeals to all. As we further develop our Igloo collection and drop more clothing, stay tuned for some exclusive and innovative pieces such as the letterman jacket that was teased recently.

Pudgy Toys

Making sure the Penguin IP has as many touch points as possible has been the forefront of a lot of our initiatives, including Pudgy Toys. Our strategy is focused on initiatives that are designed to connect with the broadest audience. From our Instagram with millions of views to our GIFs with billions, we are honing in on initiatives that people can simply relate to. Pudgy Toys is no outlier. 

As you’ve seen in our product updates channel in the Discord, we’ve been showcasing the toys at various toy fairs and making connections with major players in the toy industry. We are grateful to have some of the greatest in the industry in our corner! 

To give some context for the newcomers, we partnered with PMI Toys to produce an extensive toy line called Pudgy Toys. The Penguins brought to life via Pudgy Toys were licensed directly from the community. Their respective NFT holders will not only enjoy seeing their Penguins made into toys, but also receive licensing royalties from those sales. There will be different kinds of toys that are based on both Pudgy Penguins and Lil Pudgys, including vinyl collectibles and plushies. It's worth noting that some of the toy lines will be mass produced, and some will be in limited quantities.

With Pudgy Toys, we plan on onboarding millions of people into Web3, let alone Pudgy Penguins. Besides it being a physical toy, we’ve also developed digital infrastructure to go above and beyond so we can provide an incredible experience.

A significant aspect of our vision is to support the Pudgy Penguins and Lil Pudgys collections. The penguins that are being brought to life via our Pudgy Toys initiative are licensed directly from their NFT holders, and we plan on continuing on this route to incorporate the community in more initiatives in the future. Pudgy Toys are set to launch very soon, make sure you have notifications on for our Twitter as that is where we will begin our rollout and announce dates.

Pudgy Collectibles

A product that has been teased frequently has been our high-end collectibles line. When releasing high-end pieces such as the letterman jacket or our collectibles, our number one focus is providing an experience that matches the stature of the product. In the coming months, there will be more information given surrounding our collectibles line, but for now, check out some product photos we took!

Community

This section is dedicated to our community that has gone above and beyond for the Pudgy Penguins. The Huddle consists of community builders, meme makers, developers, businessmen and women, parents, influencers, basketball players, and more. Having one of the most diverse yet cohesive communities in the spaces, here are some of the highlights of this past year. Like we say: One Year. One Huddle.

SubCommunities

To really be called an ecosystem, it is important that inside the community there are multiple perspectives and personalities that cause diversity, but everyone is pushing in the same direction. A great example of this are our subcommunities and their respectives sub community leaders. Here is a list of the subcommunities that have been started because of people wanting to build for and with Pudgy Penguins and the community.

The prominent groups within the community include:

1. Pudgy Gaming

2. Pengu Princesses‍

3. Pudgylicious

4. Pudgy Fitness‍

5. Pudgy Alpha‍

6. Pudgy Asia

All of the content, events, and projects curated by the  community represent what Web3 is about: coming together and building out of passion. We believe and know that the community’s success is an equal part of Pudgy Penguins’ success.

There is truly no limit to people’s creativity, and seeing our community’s passion, we are always excited to be a part of and elevate community-led initiatives. If you have an idea, and we always encourage people think big, please visit our Discord and submit that idea under our builders channel after verifying for a holders role.

You can find and join the incredible sub communities through the community page on our website at: https://community.pudgypenguins.com/

Community Meetups

We all come to the Discord or on Twitter to talk to the people we met because of Pudgy Penguins or the Web3 space in general, but another staple of our community has been the IRL community-held meetups. From simple coffee shop meetups to full-blown events, this past year has been a year of making genuine friendships with those in The Huddle. Here are a majority of our community meetups in the last year.

One Huddle

As we move to this next year, it is important that we all stick together, as One Huddle. We have one of the most active and impressive communities in the space in all facets like the graphic below suggests, and as long as we are moving forward as One Huddle, we will win.

Events

Meeting people from the Pudgy Penguins community and even outside the community is a very important part of forming a strong brand, a brand led by culture. In the past year we held 5 unique events, and through those events, became stronger as a community. Here are the 5 events we organized in the past year.

Miami Yacht Party

NFT NYC (Event with Shopify + Private event)

Miami Art Basel

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NFT Paris with DeGods

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Technology

For our technology department, this past year has been a year of innovation and experiments. From being one of the first projects to implement soulbound tokens as a way to quantify a person's digital impact in an ecosystem to allowing Lil Pudgys to travel between chains and more, let’s dive into some of our major accomplishments in tech!

Soulbound Tokens

On July 22, 2022, the one year anniversary of Pudgy Penguins being created, we airdropped all of our holders the truePengu Soulbound Token. This was one of the first use cases of a soulbound token, ever. 

After that, we went on to release our penguPins collection, a collection that began the start of us laying the foundation of identity development in Web3. As we talked about in the post, “The penguPins identify a wallet that participates in a Pudgy Penguins initiative. penguPins allow users to publicly quantify their impact and involvement within our community. 

Since penguPins, our most recent development in this vertical was launching the first ever Soulbound Token a major company has released, and this was made possible by the visionaries at Sothebys.

Cross-chain Lil Pudgys

As talked about in our blog post, our endgame as Pudgy Penguins is to build a household brand that hundreds of millions recognize through our cultural resonance and mass appeal. To achieve that, we’re focused on building for the next paradigm of Web3. The first step towards that vision is to make Pudgy assets readily available for as many Web3 users as possible.

There are two big aspects of improving accessibility to the Pudgy Penguins brand and Web3 as a whole. To start, it must be easy for the next wave of users, that are in the hundreds of millions, to interact and become a part of the Pudgy Penguins ecosystem. The second aspect is enabling these users to become a part of our ecosystem without having to worry about the huge gas fees. With less than two million transactions a day, gas fees can shoot up 1,000% or more as they historically have. The current infrastructure simply can’t handle a huge influx of users.

Thanks to cross-chain technology, Pudgy Penguins can get the best of both worlds: provenance and user experience.

The Pudgy Marketplace

When diving deeper into what makes Web3 more adoptable, easier access and safety are key. We partnered with Origin to launch our official marketplace in June to provide a one-stop-shop where users can interact with all of our collections.

To visit our marketplace, click here.

Pudgy Media

Pudgy Media was released in May 2022, a month after we acquired the project. It’s goal is to be a hub for everything in the community. On Pudgy Media we have Penguin of the Week, a list of our subcommunities, all of our blog articles, and more. Pudgy Media is one place where newcomers can learn everything about The Huddle and initiatives that drive Pudgy Penguins forward.

To visit Pudgy Media, click here.

Technology Outlook

If you thought this last year was exciting for tech we released, then you’re in for a year of even more innovation and excitement. We have a lot of game-changing technology releasing in the next year like the digital experience that has been alluded to in conjunction with our toys and our developments in IP licensing. Our goal is to be the trojan horse for the Web3 space, and we’re on the path to doing just that.

Announcements

Let's take a chronological look at all of our major announcements in the last year:

Closing Remarks

In the end, this is just one year out of the many we have coming up. This last year was a year of laying the foundation, building trust, and putting Pudgy Penguins in a place to really win. Pudgy Penguins will be the greatest IP company to come out of Web3, and we couldn't do it without the amazing people in our corner such as the community and our advisors, and we couldn't do it without the core team and community team.

We are stronger together, as One Huddle, and if we stick by that, Pudgy Penguins will prevail.