Im sorry, but a cartoon figure is not what Vert wants as a mascot if it wants mainstream acceptability. This is not professional. It worked for doge because it was marketed to the internet crowd. I would prefer to see Vtc as respectable and serious. Our competitors are Btc and paypal, not doge.
If you don't consider Doge your biggest competitor aside from Bitcoin then I think you're really missing the point. In the background, they are working on some serious merchant and consumer-related things that will be announced shortly. Paypal is in a different category altogether, and Doge now processes more $ than Paypal.
Your competitors are whomever the consumer has a choice between to give attention, time, and resources to. It is unfortunate that we can't pick our competitors ourselves.
Remember when mobile phone manufacturers laughed at Apple for making a phone without buttons? They didn't think consumers wanted it. Or a computer that wasn't black? (How could that be taken seriously?) If consumers want a cute mascot to go with their cryptocurrency then give it to them. It doesn't matter what we want.
The market will decide, and for what we are doing the market is the average consumer. Merchants will implement what consumers ask for, not the other way around.
We must understand that cryptocurrency is complicated to understand for the average person. It's a complete mystery. Yes, we can be serious about it. But I'm afraid we will not attract the kind of people that will actually make the most use of it.
Your remarks are totally correct. The people decide, we don't. And if you take my statement a few minutes ago, by no later than the mid term, usability determines the value (and profitability for the miners). This is why you could print the biggest shit on the dollar today, people would of course keep using it. Nobody would hold too many DOGE if there weren't any ideas for its usability to be announced... The best way to make it successful would be to create demand for it. If you just put this into the market as another alternative, it is a roulette game at maximum for the Vertcoin to become successful. If you create demand by putting into a favourable position for purchases (faster, easier than other methodes), that will boost it.