Crypto brands are repositioning themselves in the wake of FTX and the Market Tumble

Now, companies across the sector are using marketing and public relations efforts to defend their brands, distance themselves from questionable players like FTX and, in many cases, present a friendlier face to investors and regulators alike.

“The problem they face is a massive drop in confidence as holders of assets that have value,” said Tom Wason, global principal at Wolff Olins, a brand strategy firm that has worked with top crypto brands. Companies in the sector are trying to keep growing — or stay afloat — while reassuring both crypto stalwarts and government agencies under pressure to rein them in, he said.

Their marketing needs to evolve in turn, according to Mr. Wason. He compared last year’s series of Super Bowl ads to those for dot-com startups in the 2000 Super Bowl, “where VC money [was] being burned for consciousness.”

Rethinking the approach

Well before the FTX bankruptcy in November, crypto marketers’ ad spending had dropped considerably. After that, companies had little choice but to revise their strategy.

Recently, trading company OKX scrapped its plans to buy an ad in Super Bowl LVII as FTX began to dominate the news cycle. “Consumers respond better to sustained campaigns that emphasize transparency and trust,” said Haider Rafique, OKX’s global chief marketing officer, of the firm’s decision to stay away from this month’s Super Bowl. Ad Age first reported news of OKX’s decision last week.

But most used brands Coinbase Global Inc.
and eToro Group Ltd. increased spending to $2.8 million and $1.9 million, respectively, on TV ads in December, according to measurement firm iSpot.tv. While the amounts are lower than a year ago, they have risen from paltry sums in the recent past.

Their messages have changed to fit the landscape.

Within days of FTX’s bankruptcy filing, Coinbase responded with a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal headlined “Trust us.” It also debuted a new tagline, “Ignore the noise. Keep building,” in an ad in December that played up attributes of trustworthiness — as a publicly traded, regularly audited company — and ran headlong into the negative news cycle.

Coinbase aims to convey its confidence in crypto “while maintaining our position as the most trusted brand in the space,” Chief Marketing Officer Kate Rouch said.

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

“One of people’s biggest fears is that people who participate in crypto are here today, gone tomorrow, and they may or may not have taken your money with them,” Bittrex Global Chief Executive said.

Oliver Lynch.

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

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

EToro will continue its marketing efforts throughout this year, according to the US CEO

Lule Demmissie. “We feel like this is the time to do it. You show up when things are a little tough for people,” she said.

Trying to avoid infection

A few exchanges have acted as if nothing has changed in the crypto arena, implicitly distancing themselves from the miasma that has engulfed the sector.

In November, Binance Holdings Ltd. launched its first brand campaign, kicking it off with an NFT collection featuring soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. The promotion was launched after FTX’s bankruptcy filing on Nov. 11, but was developed before that, Binance said.

Future marketing will focus on the products the firm offers, rather than distinguishing Binance from FTX and other suspect competitors or addressing the increased scrutiny of its own business, said Patrick Hillmann, chief strategy officer.

OKX has continued to buy ads on Twitter and TikTok and is running its introductory “What is OKX?” campaign on CNBC streaming properties to increase awareness of their platform, which is not yet available in the US. The place hearkens back to crypto’s past hipster-fantasy sensibilities, with a centaur, aliens, a wrestler and racing cars among other things. Mr. Rafique said the company’s goal is to focus on responsible investment without directly addressing the recent upheaval.

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

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

CEO Antonio Juliano of dYdX, a decentralized exchange that trades in a type of speculative crypto derivative known as perpetuals, has been working to better define and promote so-called DeFi among the general business community by speaking to media outlets such as Bloomberg News in recent weeks.

In December, the company also hired Rashan A. Colbert, a former aide to Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.), as policy director to lead lobbying efforts and counter the “potential regulatory backlash” prompted by FTX’s bankruptcy, Mr. Juliano said .

“I think that, especially after the FTX collapse, there’s been a real need for it across the crypto space,” he said.

Write to Patrick Coffee at [email protected]