Be a leader, not a follower.
Author: nate
Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow
As marketers, our job is not to be the most technically savvy person in the company, but to be the best storytellers. However, the stories we are telling now are both boring and lack coherence.
My favorite stories often come from movie franchises. I find that the best films not only captivate as standalone works but also tell outstanding stories as a complete series. I have particularly enjoyed "Dune" recently. Each "Dune" film is excellent on its own, but when combined, they form a magnificent epic. Coupled with the outstanding performances of Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and Javier Bardem, as well as Denis Villeneuve's direction, cinematography, character development, music, sound design, and CGI, it is truly impressive.
Of course, I am not saying we need to create cinematic masterpieces for a crypto company, but where are our stories? Aside from endless product integration announcements, podcasts, and random posts, there is almost no other content. Everything is quite dull and lacks any narrative that ties these elements together. Clearly, we are just going through the motions.
Great storytelling requires thoughtful consideration and careful planning. Too many of us adopt a "scattergun" or "let's see what happens" approach. This method may work in the early stages of experimenting with paid ads and their placements, but it is a foolish strategy for building a great brand. Your marketing cannot rely solely on blog posts and random memes, especially when there is no unifying theme among them. We need to do better, and we are fully capable of doing so.
Building a quality brand is like boiling a kettle of water. When you place the kettle on the stove, it doesn't instantly go from room temperature (ordinary brand) to boiling (well-known brand). You need to keep heating it (ongoing marketing) to raise the temperature. If you consider additional factors, such as a lack of momentum (the company lacking drive), the water will take even longer to reach a boil.
So, how can we make the water boil faster? Adding a bit of salt can help. In brand building, purposeful marketing is like the salt in that pot of water. If you are meticulous and thorough in planning your marketing communications and packaging, you can raise brand awareness more quickly, and that awareness can last longer. You should always ask yourself, "What role does this specific announcement play in my brand story?"
To be frank, all cryptocurrency marketers have significant room for improvement in this area. I believe that we marketing leaders, including myself, do not excel in this regard for two main reasons:
A. We are too quick to adjust our core messaging due to the ever-changing industry trends.
B. We are too easily influenced by feedback from various parties (whether from our CEO or team members).
It is well-known that our industry suffers from severe attention deficits. For memecoins and trading, this phenomenon is driven by constantly changing trading trends (such as politics, animals, specific blockchains, etc.). But we also have shifting meta-narratives that completely capture the attention of intellectuals on crypto Twitter. Just think about it, I can list three major meta-topics from the past year:
Modular architecture vs. monolithic architecture
Application chain theory vs. application-specific sorting (ASS, haha)
Solana vs. Ethereum
The crux of the matter is not whether we strive to make our projects relevant in these discussions. It is smart to leverage eye-catching topics and direct attention to ourselves. However, problems arise when we overly chase these narratives at the expense of the consistency of our core brand messaging.
You cannot be the answer to every industry discussion at the same time, nor will all topics remain relevant weeks later. Our colleagues, and even ourselves, often get distracted by industry trends. At appropriate times, these trends may influence your business strategy, but the brand should always maintain consistency and evolve thoughtfully. Relatedly, while high-quality feedback and suggestions are important, you also need to know when to reject certain things for the sake of the brand.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but not all opinions hold equal value. Our CEO @0xLitquidity and I have had numerous discussions about our market entry strategy. When Vijay tells me he wants to see a certain type of dApp on Eclipse, I may raise some questions, but ultimately I respect his expertise because he has a decade of experience in this industry, and I trust his business acumen. Simply put, I defer to his advice in areas where he is more experienced.
In marketing, this is my area of expertise. I have often vetoed some of Vijay's marketing suggestions because they did not align with the overall narrative we set for Eclipse. Sometimes I reject certain ideas because their timing does not align with our other plans. I have also told Vijay, "I will stand firm on this," to push for increased investment in certain projects. I do this not out of defiance, but because it is my responsibility. I was not hired to be a "yes person," but to effectively operate our marketing engine.
Similarly, I also value feedback from the Eclipse team and colleagues. They often provide me with inspiration and great ideas. For instance, most of the ASS content we recently launched was conceived by other members of my team, not myself. This helped us gain considerable attention. However, even though my team is excellent, I still regularly veto some of their requests. I not only want to gain attention in the short term but also want to maintain it in the long run. This requires me to consciously ensure we are moving in the right direction.
This empowering approach is crucial for maintaining a consistent brand voice. Just as only one person can drive a car, only one director can control the direction of a film. If our brand performs poorly, the responsibility lies not with my colleagues, but with me. If there are issues with the Eclipse brand, the first person who should be held accountable is me.
That said, I realize these concepts may be somewhat abstract; it is easy to talk the talk but hard to walk the walk. Therefore, I will share in detail the creation and evolution of our mascot @turbothecow in hopes of helping everyone better understand my point.
Turbo, the Highland Cow
Many people have asked questions about Turbo and whether they should also create a mascot for their projects. The simple answer is—probably not necessary. To better explain this, let's review the history of Turbo's birth.
Long before I joined, the core team at Eclipse had been discussing "thicc sequencers." I will elaborate on this concept later. At that time, although the fundraising announcements released by the team were effective, Eclipse still faced challenges in gaining sustained market attention. It was then that Vijay approached me, and we began to seriously discuss the possibility of me joining the company. On the day of my formal interview with Eclipse, I pointed out that the "intern trend" was outdated. Too many projects were jumping on the bandwagon, creating intern accounts to increase engagement and attract attention (Eclipse was doing this too). The problem was that only a few teams did it well, and it became increasingly clear that many marketing teams were simply mimicking successful cases.
This is a major flaw in industry marketing strategies. Leadership teams often lack the confidence to take risks or invest money. So, when they see others succeed, they only choose to imitate rather than create new unique solutions. They feel that spending money on already proven strategies is safer, but the flaw in this logic is that these strategies succeeded because they were unique and well thought out. Simply copying others often yields poor results. If you are not the first to do something, you must do it better than those before you to stand out.
I refuse to let our brand fall into the same fate as those failed crypto companies. Eclipse must be unique. Therefore, I decided to abandon the strategy the company previously attempted to enhance its influence through intern accounts and instead try something new: creating a mascot that could attract people even if they did not understand Eclipse.
At that moment, our marketers brought a Highland cow to an art gallery in New York City, and the event quickly went viral. Many influencers outside the crypto Twitter sphere uploaded photos with the cow and tagged Eclipse. This was my "aha" moment. The Highland cow not only symbolizes the heft of our sequencers but also has the potential for widespread appeal. We found a great way to naturally connect this animal with our brand. This is why we chose the Highland cow as our mascot, not to imitate other companies. We are creating a brand story in real-time.
Once the mascot was determined, we began designing and naming it. Previously, Eclipse's marketing focus was on speed, but it was clear that speed alone could no longer attract attention. The concept of TPS was no longer fresh, and people no longer cared whether you were slightly faster than other blockchains (which is why we do not promote speed as the core of our brand). However, I did not want to completely abandon speed. After all, Eclipse is indeed fast. In brainstorming, I realized that the best way to showcase our speed was not through direct promotion but by hinting at it indirectly. It would be even better if we could achieve this in a unique way rather than bundling it with other crypto projects. Therefore, I began to look for inspiration from other fields.
Most of you may not know that my inspiration actually came from anime. When I found our website and animation designers, I asked them to create around two main inspirations: Akira and Speed Racer. These inspirations, unrelated to the crypto field, are why I believe our brand and Turbo can stand out.
After multiple discussions and revisions, we finalized the new logo, brand colors, website design, and Turbo's artistic image. We adopted a bold lime green aesthetic, placing the main character in the most prominent position. A cute Highland cow, blending 2D and 3D styles, drives fast cars and motorcycles, aiming to evoke connections with speed and our "thicc sequencer." The animation quality significantly surpasses other mascots I have seen, making our design truly stand out. We named him "Turbo," adding a splash of color to the overall design.
However, I soon encountered a problem. Everyone at Eclipse was very excited and eager to share their opinions. We faced a classic issue: too many opinions. I realized that if we were to maintain our momentum, I needed to take control of Turbo's development. Although I praised the Eclipse team a lot, in many cases, I directly rejected the team's requests. Here are some examples:
A. Team members wanted to invest a large amount of money immediately to create more Turbo-related content. However, I did not agree to such an investment without sufficient data to support it. Therefore, I first collected data and ultimately decided to increase our investment in Turbo for three key data points:
A(1). Our content about Turbo on Twitter performed far better than other published content.
A(2). The community's enthusiasm for Turbo was unprecedented, with a large number of artworks, memes, and other content created by community members convincing me that we had indeed created something unique.
A(3). Even those who were previously uninterested in Eclipse began to actively reach out to us to learn about Turbo.
B. Team members suggested using Fiverr to mass-produce more Turbo content, which I firmly opposed. We are a lean team with fewer than 30 full-time employees. Our strength lies in quality, not quantity. Sacrificing quality to increase the number of animated videos would only make Turbo indistinguishable from other mascots, which would be self-sabotage.
C. Team members also proposed to monetize Turbo by turning it into an NFT or memecoin. I absolutely disagreed. We are building an open ecosystem where the developer community can freely experiment with what they want to do, but the core team at Eclipse will not support Turbo's NFT collection or memecoin. The reason is simple: if we commit to doing it but the results are not ideal, it will consume all the goodwill and momentum we have built with Turbo. Moreover, this would greatly distract our product and engineering teams. I do not want to tie Turbo's performance to some digital asset. Turbo is a brand asset with more potential to attract the general public's attention than Eclipse itself.
I share this not to boast, but to demonstrate the deep thinking we have behind the scenes regarding these issues. Turbo has successfully resonated with the audience, becoming one of our most effective marketing tools. Therefore, when you ask me, "Should we create a mascot?" it is not a simple "yes" or "no" question. The answer lies in whether you are willing to seriously invest in building a brand mascot. If you are just casually drawing an animal, it won't significantly enhance the brand. Water takes time to boil, and I feel many people expect it to boil immediately.
To be honest, Turbo's story is still in its early stages. We have not fully leveraged him or Eclipse's overall brand to achieve revolutionary success. But we have been working behind the scenes to let the creativity mature over time. Turbo will continue to exist, and I am very excited for everyone to see the content we have planned for the next six months. We have some very bold plans. November is just the beginning.
I hope you enjoy all the upcoming Turbo content, as we will continue to build a complete story around Eclipse. I encourage everyone to think of their brand as a story as well. Find ways to connect all announcements and integrate them with the core brand positioning or narrative. Believe in certain things! Make commitments and take bold, well-considered risks. Be a leader, not a follower.
So, what other topics would be helpful to everyone? Brand repositioning? Brand positioning? Agencies (Part II)? Anything else? Please let me know in the comments below.
Before that, let everything fade into the background.
This is no longer just a meme for me. While marketers may not be as technically skilled as engineers, we do not need to be.
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