Bitcoin Forum

So the other day I was thinking if there was anyway of marketing bitcoins to teenagers we would be pretty golden for bitcoins.

So for example, someone like Cody Simpson we could have Cody Coins site . At first, we would do a Cody Coins faucet and each teenage girls would come and get like say small bit of cody coins. Hopefully, there would be a way to spend these cody coins ( after some accumulation or something)  maybe at coinDL for a cody simpson track or t-shirt or something. The point being all of sudden bitcoins could go mainstream in pop culture . In the ideal world teenagers would begin to snatch up cody coins and help propel it virally through twitter and facebook of what they have.

I don't know this is pretty far out there but I can see how this would play into a few different variations like  Beiber Coins lol  ....thoughts?

edit: I think this would be a good market to target as a lot of household disposable income goes to this type of audience and teenage "buy in" already happens as its the most sought out target market in the world.

What makes these coins "Beiber coins" instead of just bitcoins?

Yes, I know what you mean. Basically,  the site would be branded as "Cody Coins/Bieber Coins"  the site actually might have to be an online wallet type site that is branded toward Cody Simpson or Bieber for example ( meaning the site would have Cody/Bieber all over it)  as the teenagers wouldn't know the difference between bitcoins and CodyCoins even though its bitcoins at the end of the day. All they know is they are getting bits for free and teenagers like to have things associated with their favorite stars and even better they can actually spend it on real goods. This make better sense?

Well, I do think we need to expand our market past this white male geek demographic.  A celebrity endorsement would be nice, but I'm not sure that a teenage pop icon is the right spokesperson.  Sure, it would get a lot of attention, but what are the girls going to do with their coins after the promotion's over?  They would always remember it as a marketing gimmick unless the marketers took care to make sure they had plenty of ways to integrate it into their life.

I wonder if a facebook faucet would be a good idea?  It would work like a typical facebook game, you get rewards for letting the app spam your friends and convincing them to sign up.

I disagree. Anytime you can expand the usage of something it is good thing. Don't get me wrong I like the white pasty male geek demographic!  ;D

I never even thought about a celebrity endorsement not a bad idea. This was more just a general website for girls to feel they have something.

This wouldn't be a promotion. This is just a place for the teenage girls to pick up some cody coins or whatever the celeb they want. It would be come a novelty within a novelty for them and yes they could spend ( just have to brainstorm ).

Good question.  I'm sure someone around here has thought of this?  :o  hehe....

You could talk to some celebrities about making a deal with Casascius to get actual physical coins with their likeness or band logos and embedded with bitcoin value. It would work best when the band/celebrity has a philosophy that aligns with Bitcoin.

Being an old fogey I'd probably go for StonedCoins (with a tongue on front).

I said "do" not "don't".

You mean Cody Simpson wouldn't even be involved with this project?  Well, I'd hope his managers aren't petty enough to sue over the use of his likeness, but that seems kind of sketchy.  You're really not giving a lot of credit to the girls if you think using a famous person's name is enough to make them like something.  :)

Well, it's great to talk about expanding into new markets, but the market has to be ready for the product and the product has to be ready for the market, and I don't think that's been achieved with bitcoin + the type of teenage girl who would go for this. :P  There are some fairly easy-to-use e-wallets and hybrid wallets, but protecting bitcoins still requires a little technical knowledge and a lot of common sense.

But, if you already have some ideas for bitcoin businesses for this demographic to spend their coins on, why not focus on developing those first?  It might be worthwhile if the businesses exist.

@BkkCoins - Ooh, that's an interesting idea.

Haha like the "stonedCoins" good idea. Yes, I can see your point about aligning with a celeb .  Hmm...

No, I hear your point.  I think aligning a Celeb would be a better idea like BkkCoins said. I was just throwing this out here to get some feedback and introduce a new way to spread bitcoin. It doesn't take much for teenage girls to be come fanatic about something :P  it's actually built into their "brains" . lol....

How would this work? Would you be asking teenage girls (or more likely their parents) to exchange USD for bitcoins and then exchange them for merchandise? Or would you be giving away the coins?

For this model to become profitable, or even just break even, you'd basically have to become an online currency exchange. It would probably be easier to convince Mt. Gox to start selling celebrity endorsed Yubikeys.

If you're willing to operate at a loss simply to increase Bitcoin awareness, you'd better be prepared to give up astronomical amounts of money to convince your target market that it's better to obtain the merchandise through you instead of simply buying it at the mall or downloading it from itunes.

Terrible idea.


I'd give you a free idea which might actually work:
Make a free2play mmorpg or social networking site in which you can earn and spend bitcoin, themed for your particular audience.
Bonus points if you find a clever way of combining the two.

Then of course that would be a lot more work, but you aren't afraid of work are you?

I am sure they would want to know about it first and to give their permission to use their name. If you contact Hollywood people - that group is more than likely going to be against it.

I'm not following everyone's logic here where the person needs to be contacted? Am I not allowed to make a fan site?  I suppose your saying a "profitable" fan site ? Then what happens when I put google adsense on my fan site currently or something is that making a profit?

The forum has a lot of teenagers (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=100294.0). There are the people who follow trends most closely, and among which Bitcoin is a means of expression. What we really need is an elderly population to use Bitcoin.

You are partially right. I just see teenage demographic as a game-changer. Just don't know how to get there or at least working on it ;)

As with anything else its the parents that "buy in" to what their teenagers do.  At first, would be giving bits of bitcoin away. This way it becomes a novelty within a novelty. The girls can claim to their friends they have Cody Coins thus drawing them in. You could even have a "limited supply"  and  once that is gone they would have to purchase them.  And yes  they could use them to buy merchandise, songs etc., or just send amongst each other.


I think becoming a "online wallet" makes more sense and do advertising. Obviously, the model would have to be worked on. I was just seeing if its even a good demographic to be targeting.


Yes, aware of this but the trade off could be pretty big. Good feedback thanks!  ;D

I see where your coming from.  Not afraid of work no!!  :o

Just watching out for you and bitcoin  :)

I have seen some singers who refused to let some politicians use their music.. I do not know the legal stuff on whether or not you are allowed to make a fan site. I do not know about google adsense either. Sorry for not having a lot of answers for you, but after seeing what they did to Kim Dotcom, me personally I would be careful. But that is just me.

Then I suggest you grab it and run with it....

lol ok ...didn't know I needed your permission first ;)

You get girls to post sexy "jail-bait" pictures and guys send them tips. The girls can have a wishlist of stuff they want (say amazon.com) and as they accrue bitcoins they can redeem them for their stuff from the site operator. This way you don't have to teach teenage girls dumb enough to post pictures of themselves on the net how to deal with bitcoins, just male nerds.

 

lol...interesting take. I don't want to go to jail.  Why does it have to be "jail-bait" pictures? lol

This is stupid, sexist, and borderline illegal.

Again, I don't think teenagers are a target market. They are usually poor, and enough of them use Bitcoin anyways. Target the elderly instead.

^^this^^   plus we already have DeCrypto and GGB doing that.

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSlbWr9JufrXAJL_lhSTft-efE7XWuHNuPK4ipQC5zffqb0y1xVQi-WAYSh

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=37520.msg858051#msg858051

Search this forum for Justin Bieber to find more relics. (Hmmm! JB + Relics = Chen ~ I got to see if I can make the connection  ;D)

~Bruno~

As far as the issue of using celebrity names without permission, even assuming for the sake of argument that there would be no legal issues, wouldn't it be better to have the celebrity on board anyways?  That way they could promote the product during interviews on talk shows and such.

The advantage of targeting teenagers would be that they may become lifetime users.  Maybe a better way to reach them would be through the classroom.  Could we convince business/economics teachers that satoshis make good "play money" for classroom exercises?  I think there are some possibilities there.

According to that poll, there are three, all of them male.

I'll just leave this here. http://posadoll.com

Which is 5.6% of the voters at the moment.

Even assuming that represents 5.6% of the forums population, they're still a relatively small minority.

There are more middle-aged people than teenagers in developed countries. Yet, more teenagers use Bitcoin.

Bitcoin's community is indisputably young, possibly one of the youngest of close-knit communities (ignoring child-targeted communities such as Neopets or Barbie). What we need is for the wealthy rich to join in.

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSlbWr9JufrXAJL_lhSTft-efE7XWuHNuPK4ipQC5zffqb0y1xVQi-WAYSh

haha good stuff Bruno!

True good point. I mean in the ideal world this would be the way to go.


I think you bring a convincing point there in these would become lifetime users. Yes, the classroom is another way I think there was some user on this forum who was doing that.  Good suggestions!  ;D

/me rolls eyes

This fulfills this need yes.