{"id":14697,"date":"2021-09-05T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-05T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci028c53f7b000242e"},"modified":"2021-09-05T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-09-05T18:00:00","slug":"bitcoin-is-a-brand-what-it-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/bitcoin-is-a-brand-what-it-means","title":{"rendered":"Yes, Bitcoin Is A Brand. Here\u2019s What That Means."},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div><p>Just as the Apple brand is to tech, McDonald\u2019s is to burgers, Nike is to sneakers and Coke is to cola, so is the Bitcoin brand to cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhoa\u2026 hold the phone!\u201d you say. \u201cBitcoin isn\u2019t a brand. It&#8217;s a currency. Currencies aren\u2019t brands!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Well, that\u2019s a traditional way of looking at it. And Bitcoin is anything but traditional.<\/p>\n<p>Think of it this way: blockchain is a technology. Coins are an asset on the blockchain. Bitcoin is a brand that brings its unique selling proposition to blockchain.<\/p>\n<p>To be clear, Bitcoin is not an ordinary brand. It\u2019s what I call a User-Generated Brand (UGB). Because Bitcoin lacks a centralized brand owner or chief marketing officer, it is molded by a large ecosystem of foundation members, technologists, investors, miners, commentators, thought leaders, innovators, journalists and more. Nevertheless, as a UGB, the cumulative effect of its<em> <\/em>brand assets<em> <\/em>stand for something.<\/p>\n<p>Still skeptical? Consider this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bitcoin has a story centered around a movement to right the wrongs of centralized finance. And it has a founder who embarked on a hero\u2019s journey to solve for it (more on that in a moment).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>It has cult-like brand qualities. After all, when was the last time you saw someone wearing a t-shirt with a dollar or euro symbol on it? Or see 12,000 people descend on a city like Miami to spend days doing nothing but talking about a currency\u2019s evolution and future.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>It has an identity. The \u201c\u20bf\u201d iconography is as ubiquitous nowadays as a thumbs-up emoji.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>It is synonymous with the category. People sneeze into Kleenex, not \u201cfacial tissues.\u201d In prior decades we \u201cXeroxed\u201d pages to make copies. Ask an outsider to name a cryptocurrency and they\u2019ll say, \u201cBitcoin.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>It has a premier marketplace position. Being a first-mover and dominant player bestows significant competitive advantages \u2014 not the least of which is high awareness and brand loyalty, leading to powerful <a href=\"https:\/\/river.com\/learn\/bitcoins-network-effect\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">network effects.<\/a> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>It has a unique selling proposition. Notably, a limited supply of coins, which thus increases its appeal as a hedge against inflation while creating a new form of property.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Moreover, what makes the Bitcoin brand so intriguing are some other less cut-and-dry factors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Its founder is pseudonymous and disappeared without a trace years ago. I\u2019d argue that the mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto just adds fuel to the narrative and mystique. As we in advertising like to say: when people are talking about our brand, that\u2019s a very good thing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>On any given day you can find one so-called expert predicting that the price of bitcoin will reach $300,000 by the end of the year and another forewarning a dip under $20,000. Aside from its obvious interest to investors, ongoing debates like this only fuel the fire of brand engagement from both the pros and newbies alike. Such divergent views get people talking and \u2014 you know the drill \u2014 when people are talking about our brand, it\u2019s a very good thing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Okay, so you\u2019re onboard: Bitcoin is a brand. A User-Generated Brand. Next question you may be asking is: so what? Consider these:<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Contract<\/strong> \u2014 A great brand, at the end of the day, is a promise (a \u201ccontract\u201d) that the sum total of it what it stands for and how it behaves will provide confidence and comfort that if you put your faith in it (by purchasing, investing, advocating, etc.), you\u2019ll be rewarded. For all the reasons stated above, Bitcoin is in an enviable pole position, particularly as it relates to wooing institutional investors and their allocation committees who, once fully bought in, would represent a true tipping point in the race to bitcoin adoption. To propel this forward, as a UGB, it is incumbent on the community\u2019s most vocal believers to not just talk amongst themselves (as they are apt to do) but to the masses in ways that<em> <\/em>will elucidate that promise to<em> <\/em>them<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Community<\/strong> \u2014 A great brand feeds off the passion of its most active users. In fact, passion is the fuel that ignites any brand\u2019s fire. So while Bitcoin, as a UGB, may not have a chief marketing officer, it does have an army of de facto marketing officers (many of whom read this magazine). Collectively, they believe that Bitcoin and its underlying technology is a true force for good in democratizing finance and have many forums for sharing that point of view. For them, it\u2019s important to spread the word: Bitcoin\u2019s primary purpose is not about making money, it\u2019s about making a change. And, as with any movement, the rubber meets the road when its story can be told in calm and simple terms, using analogies that everyone understands.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Coattails Versus The Contrarian<\/strong> \u2014 Project founders, foundations and decentralized autonomous organizations of every size and shape have a decision to make: regardless of their technical or functional relationship, do they ride Bitcoin\u2019s coattails or cast it off as a fine but flawed product that is ripe for disruption? It will vary from case to case for sure, but contrarians should be forewarned: brands with the community, contract, passion and purpose that Bitcoin has are formidable. While a small group of insurgents may rejoice at the thought of dethroning the king, most of these contrarians\u2019 efforts will be rejected entirely by the Bitcoin community, as proven by previous hard forks. <\/p>\n<p><strong>The Conventional Wisdom<\/strong> \u2014 Dominant brands are typically expected to act in conventional ways. In fact, it can be argued, it is the shackles of category conventions that box them in, allowing challengers to erode or overtake their position. So is Bitcoin a conventional player in an unconventional category? Hardly. Conventional behaviors come with time and a sense of dominance that is considered an impenetrable moat. This leads to a risk-averse, defensive posture and possible stagnation. But Bitcoin is still in its infancy and is at the center of a tsunami of innovation. To the UGB community that is pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo I say, \u201cRock on!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To summarize: to some, the very thought of traditional, centralized marketing in the Bitcoin space is antithetical to the category. As with any radical change in conventions and norms, this is to be understood. But, even as a User-Generated Brand, the marketing of Bitcoin most certainly is influential in ways that will certainly evolve over time. As advertising veteran Regis McKenna famously said, \u201cmarketing is everything, and everything is marketing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Today, while metrics such as Reddit subscribers, social comments per hour, Twitter followers, website traffic and community size dominate the discussion of brand health (and are closely watched by investors), there will certainly be other, perhaps more influential metrics, as the roles, bullhorns and motivations of key voices \u2014 decentralized and centralized \u2014 in the ecosystem evolve.<\/p>\n<p>As it does, you can be sure that Bitcoin will be at the forefront of this evolution. Because if it looks like a brand, acts like a brand and works like a brand, then it is a brand. That it\u2019s a UGB simply means that you can\u2019t expect the same rules that governed branding and marketing over the past 25 years to hold.<\/p>\n<p><em>This is a guest post by Rich Feldman. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or <\/em>Bitcoin Magazine<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are certain aspects of Bitcoin that resemble a User-Generated Brand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2780,"featured_media":3928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1470,1548],"class_list":{"0":"post-14697","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-ideas","9":"tag-marketing"},"author_data":{"id":2780,"name":"Rich Feldman","nicename":"rich-feldman","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/rich-feldman-headshot-2-1-96x96.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/bitcoin-code.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2780"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}