Bitcoin Forum

I started thinking about the true differences between a closed source centrally controlled financial network and Bitcoin. To me, Bitcoin is superior in almost every way that I can think of except one. Having no single entity or board of directors in charge prohibits certain corporate departments that most businesses rely on to increase market share. The Bitcoin Foundation attempts to fill the gap between decentralization and corporate enterprise but falls far short of the mark. Even within the collective group of Bitcoin supporters their is no consensus of exactly what actions should be performed by TBF. Democracy is no way to run a business.

Main stream advertising is the big thing that I see naturally missing from the Bitcoin equation. All businesses have failures. All businesses lose money, have employee fraud, are robbed, lose product or fail to deliver on time occasionally. The difference is when that happens they advertise the problem away and bombard the public with positives about the product or service in an attempt to erase the recent negatives.

My questions are:

Can we come up with the funding for a real ad campaign using national media in key countries through donations alone?

If it's possible to fund the ad campaign would it also be possible to debate the content of an ad campaign in a democratic system and successfully pick something to present in a 30 second ad?

Do you think presenting the positives in a prime time TV sound bite on national media would make a difference in the user base?

Should TBF be the organization that communicates with the media networks or should it be an independent elected council devoted to advertising?

What should be the primary media focus? Television commercials? Movie theater previews? Billboards?

Which country to start advertising in (which one will have the most impact compared to the costs of advertising)?

What is our target audience (the time you send a message, and the channel you transmit on matter with price and target audience)?

What is the real cost of advertising?

What will we say in the advertisements to draw attention to people, dispel myths and change opinions?

Can we use the existing websites or do we need something new based on the ad campaign? More simplistic? Aimed at a group of users?

I think you're a bit off. There aren't advertisements and marketing committees for all "closed source centrally controlled financial institutions." Some of them, yes, but not for the actual currency and commodity, yes?

You're comparing bitcoin to one facet/version of that. You also compare it to a business, which is news to me - doesn't seem like apples to apples comparison.

Feel free to start your own effort, I just don't see how much traction you could possibly get being the foundation outside of the major foundation that steers the actual software/protocol ... best case scenario is you get the 'major players' involved and its just the marketing arm of TBF, essentially adding a useless layer to TBF. I think part of the allure to bitcoin is that there is no central outreach effort, and just people supporting it are getting the message out and the quality messages float to the top.


There is no "should" regarding communication of the media networks. TBF nor anyone else 'owns' bitcoin as 'their business,' tinfoil hat theories aside, and we've seen plenty of alleged scammers and self-proclaimed experts spewing shit out of their mouth at the media.

Right, that's what I'm thinking too. If a major financial business decided to copy the Bitcoin concepts like JPM is attempting to do. They would advertise it to death in order to kill mainstream support for Bitcoin and create users for their financial transfer system. Governments don't always advertise. They do but usually as a "public service". I think counterpoint type advertising could help Bitcoin but it can't be done because we don't have a marketing department.

No, they shut up and hope no one notices.
If someone notices, they shut up and hope that nobody cares.
If enough people get angry, then they might try to appease them.

There is enough publicity. Friggin MSM networks even keep reporting on it.
Drawing more computer-illiterate people in with ads is only going to lead them to getting scammed and more lobbying for regulations.

Ok, most of the big publicity Bitcoin gets is negative. So why not drum up some positive publicity? A few mBTC from each person would be enough for at least some minor adverts. If computer illiterate people can't use it Bitcoin business steps in and fixes that.

Sounds like a good idea to me.  In the UK there was in internet campaign to put banners on buses telling everyone that it was ok to put "No Religion" on the Census form, rather than put the cultural default of Church of England.

It was successful, and got a lot of media attention.

On the news today, there was yet another banking scandal.  Us Brits are fed up with banks.

Interesting, governments do advertise on occasion. Usually their advertising is free because someone calls a press conference.

I propose having a trusted dev or other community member (BitPay possibly) control and transfer the funds in fiat to a media outlet to pay for the adverts.

It wasn't the government advertising.  A group of people were fed up with the church getting recognition in government, when few people attend church anymore. They raised a lot of money for adverts.

Anyway, I dont know about other countries, but people in the UK are seriously fed up with the banks, and the rich bankers.  So an advertising campaign to get Brits interested in Bitcoin, could pay for itself in extra trade volume.

"Hit the bankers where it hurts..... use Bitcoin"

Oh, I thought you meant the government did it. That's really great. Sounds like finance is as important to people in the UK as it is to us. It might be worth it to get some of the UK businesses to donate to a campaign then.

I find it hard to see bitcoin users parting with their beloved coins in order to simply fund a campaign. I also see people doubting the full usage of all their donations towards advertising assuming some of the coins might be pocketed. But on the flip side I think a better idea is people trying to find ways to introduce local businesses to coins, as once that begins to spread the idea of brick and mortar stores adopting bitcoins will become more realistic.

we can make our own advertisements, we can write open letter to companies and such.

I don't think that bitcoin need advertisement at all. It's not a credit card company or something and it's not actually competing with anything.
People will learn about it sooner or later.

Just the opposite. It's competing with everything from Western Union to government fiat and it has a lot of enemies. You're right about one thing, people will learn about it sooner or later. Would you rather that introduction be positive or negative?

That's a good idea. Personalized advertising does work but not quite as well as broadcast media. I quickly dismiss people that knock on my door to sell me something but a will sit in my livingroom and let commercials bomb my psyche all night long and do nothing about it. Broadcast media has a proven track record of changing behavior and perceptions.

How exactly is competing with western union or government fiat? Is western union or government fiat a decentralized payments network, a protocol and a currency?

I donated to this. The slogan read, 'There's probably no God, so stop worrying and enjoy your life'.

I would certainly donate to a bitcoin ad campaign

I will be including a 'pay with bitcoin' logo on my magazine ads.

Western Union sends money long distance - Bitcoin does it faster and cheaper. Cash allows the instant transfer of value between individuals - Bitcoin does it easier, does not require a suitcase to transfer enormous sums and removes the need for government involvement. Bitcoin has the ability to replace and improve many systems so it naturally will be copied and hated.

So are cars competing with airplanes? Because you use both to travel distances...
One thing that bitcoin will not replace ever is fiat money. Like email didn't replaced traditional mail and like news sites didn't replaced news papers. in fact some of the biggest news sites are now owned by traditional media.

Great, I'm glad Bitcoin has no competition. It should have no problem taking over the world then and no one will fight it.

That was one of them.  The other was to do with the census form.

"If you're not religious, for gods sake say so"

There is a lot of misinformation about Bitcoin at the moment.  Journalists don't really understand it.  I was reading an article yesterday in a major newspaper, that had lots of inaccuracies.  It was saying Bitcoin will never hit the High Street any time soon, as it takes 1 hour for the payment to clear.

An advert with a URL pointing to a site with the facts would be good.

When you write open letters (check my signature for an example) to companies, and one of these companies accepts bitcoin, you achieve three mayor goals.

1) the company and it's owners and employees will get to know and use bitcoin
2) the people who shop there will have an pour tuning to use bitcoin in everyday life (and get to know about it)
3) the company will actively advertise bitcoin (they can just include it in their regular advertising)

As a maker of advertisements this is of interest to me. I have been in the television and radio advertising business creating video and audio spots and have created print ads for newspaper and magazines. I now make signage and vehicle graphics and I do my part to make sure business owners know about bitcoin. I also accept it in my store.
It is not prohibitively expensive to place ads in these mediums and a kickstarter like fund to accomplish this task I think is a fantastic idea.

It would be hard to organize, I but it might pay off.

Things to look at:

Which country to start advertising in (which one will have the most impact compared to the costs of advertising)
What is our target audience (the time you send a message, and the channel you transmit on matter with price and target audience)
What is the expected price needed
What will we say in the advertisements to draw attention to people
Will we draw attention to a specific website, and if so, will we build that website from the ground up?

Etc.

Those are good questions and I used them in the OP. I hope you don't mind.

I thought of one other reason to advertise. Governments are currently attempting to create legislation worldwide to regulate Bitcoin. Swaying public opinion is the best way to ensure positive legislation that will be conducive to business. Elected officials are less likely to bring the hammer down on something the people want. If they do they're committing political suicide.

I think a good way to guesstimate the cost/benefit ratio of an ad is to either:

Estimate the amount of users that watches the channel (if ratings of the shows that air around that time are known.) and the cost of advertising at that channel by the amount of people watching, and the lower the number, the better value you get. Also multiple this number by the ratio of target audience that is expected to watch that channel. (If you target students for example it wouldnt do much good to advertise on a home cooking channel)

Do this for several channels on several countries and see which one has the best value.

Also keep in mind other factors, like how is the economy in a country and how is the government there, and how likely are the people in that country to accept bitcoin?

We are way past the point of needing advertising. The daily media exposure translated to advertising value is enormous.

Sure, coca cola also is past the point of advertising and so is McDonald's.

HaHa Very true! You're never past the point of advertising. One of the problems Bitcoin is facing revolves around bad reporters telling the public the Bitcoin story. I started talking about Bitcoin with someone in a coffee shop because I had on a Bitcoin shirt. The guy I was talking to thought Bitcoin was illegal and it's only purpose was to help sell drugs.

Advertising would dispel myths and replace them with truths.

Same here!

I told my mum about Bitcoin. She had not heard of it.  She asked a friend about it who is supposedly into finance, and was told it was for criminals.

I asked my dad for advice on shipping lots of bitcoin miners around the world (he used to be into international shipping). He asked if what I was doing was legal.

Yeah, I think that's pretty common. My feeling is that the Chinese Bitcoin explosion happened because they aren't exposed to western journalism.