is advertising for ICOs unethical?

[miklesm]

Advertising is very important for every project, but it is usually spent not more than 20% of collected funds on Marketing, so this is acceptible. To be honest, I have never seen a project spending 90% of funds on advertising.

[GREENch]

To properly manage the money the project must first have an experienced CFO (Chief Financial Officer). Otherwise, the project may have financial problems (as an example of a NEM project)

[Baimovic]

it is very ethical because with us advertising the ICO, the ICO will be better known by many people and it will help sell coins so that the ICO has more potential to succeed and that will also increase our chances of profit in investing in ICO.

[Boombull]

It is a normal thing to do but I think the percentage fund for marketing shouldn't affect others things that need funding for the project. A project can only be known through advertisements but marketing is just a one part of developing a project

[dfktynby1004]

Many projects are wrong and begin to attract investors in substandard and outdated ways. Now it is very easy to find an investor if you are ready to offer a decent product. And even if the crypto community helps, the project is doomed to success. But the organizers today are only concerned about private investment, because large investors need proof of work.

[shoreno]

I do not think they spend in millions on advertising, most icos safeguard themselve by launching different bounty and promotional campaigns where they do jot have to pay in cash and out of pocket rather they pay in a small percentage of company tokens which is the right marketing plan for new projects even if some projects advertise online i do not think their budget goes over several thousands you are just exagerating the advertising expenditure.

Yes they dont pay cash but they only pay on tokens however some ico campaigns do also pays in mix btc plus their ico coins ,  or eth and other top cryptos plus thier ico coins  . to be able to do that they will have to use thier own cash or the cash that they have collected thru their presale    . in that way , they can attract more promoters and gives thier ico campaign a good reputation  among others that is only paying a token  . they will also be using a cash to advertise on other sites  if ever they want to be serious on promoting their project

[Bitcoinjheta]

Advertising is very important for every project, but it is usually spent not more than 20% of collected funds on Marketing, so this is acceptible. To be honest, I have never seen a project spending 90% of funds on advertising.

We never know what strategies they have applied by the team owners and financail officers, maybe that is one way of giving a big amount so that it gains a lot of customers purchasing in return it boost the product and company world wide.

[mickey_miner]

I've noticed many ICOs have to spend a lot of money on promotions and advertising.

For example, let's say an ICO raises 10 million dollars but has to spend 9 million on promotion.

Therefore, they only really raised 1 million for the project.

Isn't this unethical?

If you're starting a company and looking for investors the traditional way via stock equity, you would never spend 9 million or even 5 million or even 2 million in order to raise 10 million from investors.

This begs the question, what ratio of promotion cost versus funds raised for ICOs is ethical?

And how do we know if an ICO is using an ethical ratio?

Where did you get this information? This is an unimaginably large amount of money to advertise the project. I think that only obviously failed projects can allocate their budget this way.

[JuanPaulo]

No need to regret advertising money. Especially if the advertising gives the project to earn much more money than was spent on it.
But if the advertisement did not bring any additional income, then it is bad and you need to punish those who made such mistakes.

[andika2018]

I've noticed many ICOs have to spend a lot of money on promotions and advertising.

For example, let's say an ICO raises 10 million dollars but has to spend 9 million on promotion.

Therefore, they only really raised 1 million for the project.

Isn't this unethical?

If you're starting a company and looking for investors the traditional way via stock equity, you would never spend 9 million or even 5 million or even 2 million in order to raise 10 million from investors.

This begs the question, what ratio of promotion cost versus funds raised for ICOs is ethical?

And how do we know if an ICO is using an ethical ratio?

I dont think they marketing budget until 90%. Mostly marketing budget not more than 10%. Mostly ICOs budget for development project and developers team. I think it still normal if the marketing budget not more than 10%.

[freedomgo]

No need to regret advertising money. Especially if the advertising gives the project to earn much more money than was spent on it.
But if the advertisement did not bring any additional income, then it is bad and you need to punish those who made such mistakes.

It's not only about the money, you can make money if what you are advertising will succeed as most of the time they will pay.
However, you also to ensure that what you are advertising is legit and will help the crypto space grow, otherwise, it's not worth to enjoy the reward if the project will give bad reputation to the crypto market.

[levvv]

It is a way, to make the ICO get public awareness, not unethical at all.
Because there are many scam ICO's in the past, some social medias ban ICO advertisement.
There are many ways to advertise ICO, but nowadays investors prefer to investing in IEO, advertised on the exchanges.

[Nolimitz84]

This has always been and always will be. Very little is spent on advertising and project promotion in relation to the funds raised.Just in addition to advertising, any project also has costs:legal,team salary,rental of premises,payment for utilities.please note that all these costs are borne by the project before the ICO.Generally guys 10% on advertising costs is normal.

[moynul2050]

Actually it's not that much to advertising for ICO. You can just hire bounty managers and let them control the bounty and the advertising. I don't know beside the bounty, like google ads or social media ads, it will takes more cost. It's worth actually to advertise ICO for the ICO owner.

who definitely advertise by using services from bounty managers and bounty hunters, DEVs can pay them with tokens that they sell and can be paid after they get the money, it will be different from advertising on Google or others, they have to make more payments by using $

[imstillthebest]

It is a way, to make the ICO get public awareness, not unethical at all.

it depends on what kind of ico you are promoting  . if you knew to your self that the ico that you promote is legit then there is no problem with that but if you are aware that an ico is scam or shady and you are still promoting it then that is wrong .

 you will only helping the scammers to earn more income while they wont pay you at the end  . you are also helping other incoscent people to got scammed  . if its done in the forum  , you are risking you account and reputation  .

[Mr.Spreadthehamster]

We are not fully aware of the distribution of funds in the budgets of the ICO. But if we know that a project spends less on developing its product than on promoting it, then perhaps the team is not professional enough, does not work effectively, or hides its true intentions. Therefore, to participate in the project is not worth it.

[fullhdpixel]

I dont think they marketing budget until 90%. Mostly marketing budget not more than 10%. Mostly ICOs budget for development project and developers team. I think it still normal if the marketing budget not more than 10%.

That should be the first step in writing off a project that one is researching on for participation if they claim that they are spending such amount of money on campaign, and you are right about the fact that any project with success mindset would not even spend more than 10% of their capital, although majority of them are so used to padding the budget to make the project worth the amount they are requesting for.

Most projects will focus more on spending money to develop and produce a quality product and if they have a quality product to showcase to the world, then they don’t need to spend so much more on campaign, since the product has a way of campaigning for itself through references if it is a good one.

[South Park]

I've noticed many ICOs have to spend a lot of money on promotions and advertising.

For example, let's say an ICO raises 10 million dollars but has to spend 9 million on promotion.

Therefore, they only really raised 1 million for the project.

Isn't this unethical?

If you're starting a company and looking for investors the traditional way via stock equity, you would never spend 9 million or even 5 million or even 2 million in order to raise 10 million from investors.

This begs the question, what ratio of promotion cost versus funds raised for ICOs is ethical?

And how do we know if an ICO is using an ethical ratio?

While there could be many arguments that could be made about why promoting a particular ico could be a bad idea, I think you are wrong in your points, most icos do not really spend money at all when it comes to their marketing, they make the promise to bounty hunters to pay them in tokens which have no value yet and in most cases this is only 1% of the total supply of those coins, so an ico gathering 10 millions is in fact only spending 100k in its promotion.

[bitgolden]

Hello there, I think you have a grasp of what actually is the point of their marketing. If youre the CEO would you spend huge amount of promotions just to set youre project. They have budget for that and most stated their proposal but only fool will spend that much for an advertising. 9m$ is huge enough to develop a good project rather spend it on the platform for more development than petty advertising to gain investors eye. Anyway there is always a good advertising where you dont need to spend that much. Used bounty, with a strict on implementing promotions. Many hunters will join to it as long youve paid them later on. Cheaper and less hassle!

I strongly believe that there will not be a single project that can have this type of claim, it is absolutely not possible and unethical, I full understand that advertising can be quite very expensive, especially when you make use of some top media means like CNN, other media and news station, bill board’s advert and co.

When it comes to cryptocurrency, we know that the only means of campaign is virtually through social media, which hunters are the ones doing majority of the advert, so when we see bounty hunters allocation, then we have seen the money allocated for promotion, wherein the highest allocated to hunters is 15%, so it will be a big lie for any project to make such claims.

[starblocks]

Crowdsales generally tend to allocate a much lower percentage of their overall budget to marketing and a significant amount of this is typically spent on creating and advertising the initial offering with not enough reserved for future uses like building brand awareness and increasing adoption so avoid investing in any projects that don't have a properly developed marketing strategy