Crypto brands reposition themselves in wake of FTX and market drop

Today, companies in the industry are putting in marketing and public relations efforts to defend their brands, distance themselves from dubious players like FTX and, in many cases, present a friendlier face to investors and regulators.

“The problem they face is a massive loss of trust as owners of assets that have value,” said Tom Wason, global director of Wolff Olins, a branding firm that has worked with the most major crypto brands. Companies in the industry are trying to keep growing — or stay afloat — while reassuring both crypto devotees and government agencies under pressure to rein them in, he said.

Their marketing must evolve in turn, according to Mr. Wason. He compared last year’s flurry of Super Bowl ads to those of Super Bowl 2000’s dot-com startups, “where VC money [was] to be burned for conscience.

Rethink the approach

Long before FTX went bankrupt in November, advertising spend by crypto marketers had dropped significantly. After that, companies had no choice but to revise their strategy.

Recently, trading company OKX thwarted its plan to buy a Super Bowl LVII ad when FTX began dominating the news cycle. “Consumers respond best to sustained campaigns that emphasize transparency and trust,” Haider Rafique, OKX’s global chief marketing officer, said of the company’s decision to stay out of the Super Bowl. of this month. Ad Age first announced OKX’s decision last week.

But the top spending brands Coinbase Global Inc.

and eToro Group Ltd. increased their spend to $2.8 million and $1.9 million, respectively, for TV ads that aired in December, according to measurement firm iSpot.tv. Although the amounts are lower than a year ago, they have increased by paltry sums in the recent past.

Their message changed to fit the landscape.

Days after FTX filed for bankruptcy, Coinbase responded with a full-page print ad in The Wall Street Journal titled “Trust Us.” It also debuted a new slogan, “Ignore the noise. Keep building,” in a December ad in which it played on reliability traits — as a publicly traded and regularly audited company — and ran directly into the cycle. negative news.

Coinbase aims to convey its trust in crypto “while maintaining our most trusted brand position in the space,” chief marketing officer Kate Rouch said.

Bittrex Global GmbH, another crypto exchange, decided to reposition itself with a December campaign describing the Liechtenstein-based company as “the most secure regulated digital asset exchange in the world”, concluding with the new slogan, “Here today. Here tomorrow.

“One of the biggest fears people have is that people in crypto are here today, gone tomorrow, and whether or not they’ve taken your money with them,” said Oliver Linch, chief executive of BittrexGlobal.

It “rings truer than ever” now, he said. Bittrex Global’s marketing has matured since a 2021 campaign targeting so-called equity investors even with the slogan “Don’t let them tell you what to trade”. These days, the company emphasizes reliability, he said, adding, “Boredom is not bad.”

EToro’s “Originality Is Overrated” campaign, which also began streaming in December, uses the platform’s social media-like elements to set it apart, suggesting that crowd-sourced information might still be of interest. curious investors.

EToro will continue its marketing efforts throughout this year, according to US Managing Director Lule Demmissie. “We think now is the time to do it. You show up when things are a bit difficult for people,” she said.

Try to avoid contagion

A few exchanges acted as if nothing had changed in the realm of crypto, implicitly distancing themselves from the miasma that enveloped the sector.

In November, Binance Holdings Ltd. launched its first brand campaign, launching with an NFT collection featuring soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. The campaign was launched after FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, but was developed before, Binance said.

Future marketing will focus on the products offered by the company, rather than singling Binance out from FTX and other suspicious competitors or tackling heightened surveillance of its own company head-on, said Patrick Hillmann, director of The strategy.

OKX continued to buy ads on Twitter and TikTok and broadcast its introduction “What is OKX?” campaign on CNBC streaming properties to publicize its platform, which is not yet available in the United States. The spot harks back to the earlier sensibilities of hipster crypto-fantasy, featuring a centaur, aliens, a wrestler, and race cars, among other elements. Mr Rafique said the company’s aim was to focus on responsible investing without directly addressing the recent upheaval.

Many crypto players have also shifted their spending towards public relations and lobbying in recent weeks, hiring new companies or expanding the remit of their current companies, executives say.

Companies based on decentralized finance, which allow users to trade assets directly with each other on the blockchain rather than using an intermediary platform like FTX or Coinbase, are trying to differentiate their brands from those of centralized exchanges.

Managing Director Antonio Juliano of dYdX, a decentralized exchange that deals in a type of speculative crypto derivative known as perpetuals, has worked to better define and promote what is known as DeFi among the general business community by s’ speaking to outlets such as Bloomberg News lately. weeks.

In December, the company also hired Rashan A. Colbert, a former aide to Sen. Cory Booker (D., NJ), as a policy officer to lead its lobbying efforts and counter “potential regulatory backlash.” caused by the bankruptcy of FTX, said Mr. Juliano.

“I think, especially after the collapse of FTX, there was a real need for this across the whole crypto space,” he said.

Write to Patrick Coffee at patrick.coffee@wsj.com