is advertising for ICOs unethical?

[seleme]

Yes, it is unethical because you are promoting a coin or token that can be a potential scam to get some reward from promoting or advertising it. We all the money but I guess we should find a different way to gain it and not buy promoting ICOs.

Who let the bounty manager or team open a new thread for promoting the scam project. These projects are like mystery box and everyone wants to test it like bounty hunters. Promotng the project doesn't mean you are engaged with it somehow.

[fast2fix]

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?

if icos spend 90% of their money on advertisements then that project is going to fail no matter what, we should distant ourselves from such project. a good ico does not have to spend huge money on advertisements, they can very much succeed with community support.

[BlackFor3st]

Advertising is very important factor in every project. Without advertising, you will not gain anything especially the investors that will help your project to grow bigger and bigger.

What will happen to your project if you will not earn or no one is willing to help and support your project? In short your project is dead if you will not going  to advertise it. Therefore advertising is very important in every project, don't say that it is unethical. You just don't know how important it is.

But too much is unethical. That is the best conclusion.

[pawanjain]

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 don't think that would be happening. Every startup has a planner who plans things and gets them executed. Similarly every ICO must be having a strategy prepared to be executed at the given time.
Every ICO has different goals and the amount to be raised is also different for every ICO. I am sure every ICO allocates a percentage of amount raised and distributes it towards the expenses of developing the project which includes promotion. Lets say if an ICO raise $10M then 50% should go for marketing and promotion, 20% for payments of team, 10% reserved funds, 20% for further developments etc... Just an example though.
It just won't make sense if an ICO is raising $10M and spending 90% of it promoting it.

[AwoCorporation]

if icos spend 90% of their money on advertisements then that project is going to fail no matter what, we should distant ourselves from such project. a good ico does not have to spend huge money on advertisements, they can very much succeed with community support.

I think both are very important. where with community support it is related to the success of the ICO, but in the development of maximized advertising projects can also help in developing other communities. it is useful to build greater market demand, so the market can be stronger.

[Che454010]

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?

How can you precisely say that they have been using such an high amount for promotion and advertisement. I don't think that is the case.
Only if the project is scam then they initially tend to spend a lot or they spend just a fraction.

[jakelyson]

First, you ned solid evidence with the numbers you are provuding. You cannot just pick random numbers from thin air and blurt out they are overspending on ads. That's unethical.

Second, every project or ico have their rights to spend money for ads and information dessimination. How else whould they let others know their existence. I believe every Ico have alloted budget for ads. It is only unethical if they exceed their alloted budget without informing the investors first.

[StephenJH]

Advertising the ICO can be unethical if there is any involved scam in the project. ICOs usually are created by porfessional teams who seek the success of the project. There is no exception here, fortunately.

[LogitechMouse]

~snip

This is the reason why they are doing a bounty campaign. To reduce their expenses in advertising because they are not spending that much money to the bounty campaign. They are spending tokens to advertise their project.

One thing more, please provide a good information of what you posting. I didn't hear any ICO that spent 9m on advertising .

[fosco333]

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?

ANd thats why ICO need financial advisor so they won't spend too much money just for the marketing promotion.
Anyway, promotion and advertisement is not unethical, as long the budget is not too high.
It is a part of the marketing strategy for the ICO.

[kevinex]

Advertising the ICO can be unethical if there is any involved scam in the project. ICOs usually are created by porfessional teams who seek the success of the project. There is no exception here, fortunately.

unfortunately now I don't believe in ico too much. even now some ico projects are also diminishing in demand. where the market is no longer supportive of ICO, because investors don't believe in ico which is not really convincing.

[Samboo]

Every project sets soft cap and hard cap. I think setting soft and hard caps means the limitation of rising funds. Soft cap means for a project to continue it if it reaches soft cap, and hard cap means a limitation of maximum fund-raising. It means if a project reaches its hard cap, it cannot raise more funds. I agree that there is not strict regulations regarding ICO and STO. Regulations are needed.

[SistaFista]

How can you raised enough funds if you are not advertising your ICO ?
Peoples cannot know about your coin if you don't have any promotion planning in the public.
And the good ICO should have fund first, to advertise their ICO and give explanation about their project.

[Altcoinrusher]

I think advertising an ICO is not unethical, rather, what is unethical is that some ICO's have deceiving promotional gimmicks like having a huge amount of bounty pool designed to attract bounty hunters but in the end turned out rip them off by not fulfilling conditions on their own bounty campaigns. This I think is very unacceptable and will have a negative impact on the project itself.

[coin-investor]

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?

Can you give us the name of ICO that spend a huge amount of their own money in advertising, the fact is they are using their own token which is the money they produce to pay people to market their ICO, which is known as bounty campaign, they never spend a single cent here only their effort to create their own token, roadmap website and promotional materials, but they pay zero to their advertisers.

[slaman29]

I don't know about ethics but it doesn't even make business sense for the investors. You are buying value, but if you are putting in a dollar and immediately only get back 10 cents, then you need the token to be valued at x10 from the start of listing just to break even. Sounds absolutely ridiculous to me.

If you're an ICO though, they don't care. 90%? 95% IF the end game is profit for you, everything goes.

[goaldigger]

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?

Legit ICOs are businessmen not kids. Why would they spend 9M for advertising if they only had 10M in their hands. Advertising expense are only costs 20-30% of the fund. They should only do that if and only if they had 95-100% of return of investment. Common sense is the key.

[Altcoinrusher]

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?

Legit ICOs are businessmen not kids. Why would they spend 9M for advertising if they only had 10M in their hands. Advertising expense are only costs 20-30% of the fund. They should only do that if and only if they had 95-100% of return of investment. Common sense is the key.

Some ICO's have such similar figures with regards to promotion, but I think they would not spend a sizable amount on such activities when they have only gathered almost the same as that amount, rather, I think it was already allocated through tokens value, and not the actual fund generated thru the ICO which is somewhat absurd in financial sense. If I'm not mistaken, most of that data can be found on project's tokenomics.

[dupee419]

Nope, your example is completely wrong, if an ICO would likely to make a project then there is a BUDGET for this and I don't think that any ICO would spend 9 million dollars just for advertising and leave a million dollars completely for the project, it doesn't make sense and a good ICO will likely to establish a BUDGET PLAN completely for the expenses that will be used for advertising, bounties, and for the project itself, so I don't think it is considered unethical but we cannot let go of the fact that some ICOs are likely to be this bad and will probably do this if there is no one to take care of the budget.

[rachman mahesa]

Promotional or advertising budgets in every ICO are already allocated. Because a good project is certainly not possible to do excessive promotion to spend the project funds, that is not possible. Because now it's very difficult to get funds from investors. Of course the project also will not arbitrarily issue funds only for excessive advertising promotion or unethical.