Bitcoin Forum

I'll just mention this in case the person responsible is reading things and/or others are doing similar promotion.  I was chatting with my mother today and the conversation turned to Bitcoin (I couldn't help bragging about being in the black for a change :) )

Mom said that she had been in a coffee shop in St. Johns (which is a suburb-like-thing of Portland Oregon) and saw some Bitcoin posters.  Her take was that they seemed a little light on technical detail and a seemed to promote Bitcoin as a little to 'ultimate solution-ish' and things just didn't really seem right with it to her.  In other words, her take from the posters was that it had some smell of scammyness.

My mom is fairly bright and although she's not very technical was able to understand the basics of how the block chain is secured after I explained how hashing works (a year ago.)  She is also fairly keen to scams and does not get sucked into them very easily.  She may not be a perfectly typical target for 'consumers', but on the other hand, she shares my suspicion and disgust at the state of mainstream financial system exploitation so she may be typical of people who would have a hope of catching an interest in the solution.

Grass roots means something natural and spontaneous, from volunteers.  This is different from a professional, consistent corporate message.  The message isn't being formulated and delivered from a central source so there will be multiple approaches and varying levels of effectiveness.

I'm guessing the poster wasn't quoting verbatim from this:
 - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Public_relations

I lately spoke to my mother over the phone and she mentioned that she heard some collegues of hers talking about bitcoin, something like: "..buying bitcoins, yes...mumble mumble" Although I was telling her for month about it, she never thought of it as something "real". She was shocked at first, like you dream of something and then the next day it actually happens to you and you think, hang on there!
Now that it stepped into her reality like this, she takes bitcoin much more seriously and begins to wonder, whether it could actually have some potential.

Note: My mother is a civil servant living and working in Germany, away from any tech savvy environment.

Was it one of ours?

http://coinabul.com/index.php/promotions

Nice, where do you post them?

I used to have a printer I know send them to community members. As of late, I've been waiting for more newb-friendly infrastructure to grow.

She says yes, it was the last one (as of this morning) on that page.

I applaud your efforts here and it's more than I've ever done, but I must say that I lean heavily toward the thought patterns of whoever is responsible for the 'official-ish' Bitcoin site (Gornick's link above) and there seem to be some notable opposites between your posters and those suggestions.

For me, the most effective campaign would be one which specifically does not make any significant claims other than that the Bitcoin solution is different than our current solutions, interesting, and legitimate.

Like my mother, I also may not be completely typical of mainstream consumers, but, again OTOH, I'm not sure that that mainstream consumers are group who are likely to be drawn to Bitcoin no matter what the marketeering.  And if they are they could probably be turned around by a story or two in the MSM about Silk Road or whatever.

I personally have changed my opinion on how to market Bitcoin.

I think that there are a lot of niches that can use Bitcoin effectively, and those are the groups we should target. I'm brainstorming a new logo complete with new marketing in another thread if you'd like to help out!

Thanks,
-Jon

I guess the poster was printed out on a home printer....

why would a coffee shop scam their customers?
  customers loss 1.50$ and never goes back there again
  coffee shop goes out of business

i think she should take some bitcoins with her next time shes in the area.


SYLBB - Support your local bitcoin businesses  :)

i wish i had a bitcoin coffee shop near me

I didn't get the sense that the business itself had anything to do with Bitcoin (like accepting them in trade for java or whatever) but it may have.  I think it was more that it is kind of a open place which allows various people with various interests to do stuff (like pin up posters.)  But I was not there.  If I have occasion patronize the place I'll find out more.

Both my mom and I would probably be more drawn to and swayed by a poster which was clearly pumped out on a home printer than a big professional looking one FWIW.  Again, we may be atypical in this respect however.

I'm interested to help out, what's this thread you're talking about?

Why not do some free market research for Bitcoin -- show her the other posters on that page and ask her what she thinks of them? Which one would make her most likely to trust bitcoin? What message do they send to her? :-)

She's busy with some travel opportunity which just came up, but I bet I can speak accurately for her.  She'd probably be least turned off by the one she saw.  She's has a visceral negative reaction to conflict, force, etc or general displays of 'power'.  So even though she detests the current banking system, she'll not be responsive to the idea of 'fighting' or 'destroying' it or whatever.  This is one area where she and I differ and it might be associated with gender differences to some extent.

No need to fight.  Switch to healthier options and let it collapse. Share the wealth you gained during the switch to help the innocents trapped inside when it collapses.

This might be a good line of PR. "Do your own thing". It's a complex world out there, I think many would welcome a chance to simplify things a bit and put some distance between themselves and global politics.

That would be a message which would resonate with me personally and likely others as well.  It has the advantage of also being probably fairly tenable and a downright good idea for protection oneself.

Even that attitude might be a turn-off to some.  A lot of people (including myself to some extent) have a certain amount of empathy for the poor fuckers who would be caught up in a collapse, and it is insufficient (although imho somewhat accurate) to blame their fate on their own stupidity and/or laziness.  I'm personally am not swayed by an argument that I could be a super great guy by sharing any wealth I may have accumulated in part because in the back of my mind I have some suspicion that if the rubber met the road, there is a limit to how much of this I might actually do.

Additionally there are a lot of people who are of an age where they are either gaining some benefit from the status quo (esp, social security, pensions, etc) or are within earshot of doing so.  No matter what their feelings about the sad state of our financial systems and society, somewhere in the subconscious of most normal people is the hope that they'll be able to capitalize one the benefits of the current system...or at least not live out their golden years on a diet of cat food.

That specific poster was created back during the heat of the Occupy Movement. I'm not a very agressive person, but like I said, you need to make a different poster for each group of people :)

Coinabul my wife loves your posters.  She likes that they are trying to sell you anything.  The viewer doesn't walk away saying "I got to buy Angry Birds now".  It isn't a call to action.  It does help build mindshare.  IMHO I feel that is very important.  Your posters are interesting enough that someone will actually read them.  Maybe they don't believe it, maybe they don't completely understand it but they now know Bitcoin exists.  When they see an article or TV show or ad IN THE FUTURE about Bitcoin they are already prepared.  They have some awareness of the topic and thus are more likely to be drawn into the story, report, or ad. 

It is powerful stuff.   Companies spend billions to build mindshare.   Does anyone think naming a stadium the  AT&T stadium or sponsoring the olympics makes someone say "due I NEED to get me some AT&T right now"?  Of course not.   It does keep the AT&T brand in the top of the consumer's mind though.  AT&T is everywhere.  The subconcious message is "wow if everyone knows & trusts AT&T I guess I should too".

No need to fight. Good point.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=91068.0