is advertising for ICOs unethical?

[zhekinsp]

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?

In the recent days none of the projects were ready to spend money from their pockets to raise funds for their projects,all they were doing is just creating bounties and paying participants on their own tokens so this is unethical in my opinion.

[nikola22]

I don't know what kind of ICOs can spent 90% of funds for promotion. usually for promotion spend 10% or less of raised funds.

[Leah38]

Well some give so much for advertising and promotions but in the end they adjust the budget once their ICO raised a small amount only. Try may either deduct stakes allocations or they remove those who are not worth to receive bounty or rewards at all. Its important for a project to advertise their project because its the only way they could gather investors.

[monalia]

Correct but while they planning for promotion and marketing they are allocating such fund but unfortunately most of the ICO did not reach the success on meeting the softcap as well. When look for hardcap reached ICO. Maximum 2 or 3 from 500 ICO projects nowadays.

Balance all the other ICO are not loyal one and they are here to scam us by looting the fund collected on ICO buddy.

[adzino]

I don't see how ethics is being an issue over here. They raise 10 million and spend 9 million for promoting themselves. Well, this is totally up to them on how they are spending their budget on advertising. As long as they don't end up being a scam, then it is all okay to me. Now this would have been a different question if you asked whether it was unethical to advertise for an ICO that has a high chance of scamming.

[Oilacris]

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?

Impossible. No project owners would tend out to spend almost 90% of its accumulated amount on sale just on promotion/marketing allocation
budget.Most of them will most likely use 2-3% on all total sales.By the way, where did you able to see this kind of allocation? Which project
you are pertaining to?

[rosezionjohn]

Although it's just an example, the numbers are a bit extreme. It's impractical to be spending 90% of funds for advertising. I've never seen an ICO spend that much so far. Maybe the more practical approach is allocating 10% to all forms of advertising.

[Olayinka225]

I won't say it's unethical, sofar the  team behind the project are ready to combat any issues that comes after as to the allocation of fund to the project. Every ICO projects has is ow  project allocation and should be followed duly.

[Eildosa]

As far as I know there are few such companies. Generally everyone uses word of mouth as a promotion of their project. So I didn't hear information that someone spent so much money on advertising.

[rdewilde]

First, spending 9 million out of 10 million on promotions doesn't look idea, in fact it is not possible how can a project spend almost everything on promotions, how then will they be able to deliver what was promised? ICOs only spend a little amount of the token supply for promotions. Also, advertising or promoting an ICO is a legitimate process and I don't think it contravene or go against any laws.

[Sundaey]

Fair enough how sure are you worth of that amount can be spent on advertising or promotion? If you are just saying in case only a dumb ass man can make 10k and spend 9k advertising the project, what is left for him to make the project work.

[Coltpython]

All icos require some form of advertising in order to reach successful sales. I believe the larger percentage of the funding for marketing is from their tokens which is also being put up for the token sale. So they do not really use funds gotten from the token sale itself but they pay for marketing mainly using their tokens

[xclusiveguy]

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?

Advertising for ico ain't bad in my opinion because that is the only way that they can reach out to lots of people,  without marketing they can't meet up to their target,  and I don't think any ico can spend more than 80% of fund raised on advertising their products,  which money will they use in developing their project

[fortunecrypto]

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 have been to a lot of bounty campaign, but I have never encountered an ICO that spend that much, in fact, they only allocate 3 to 6 % of their coin 8% is the highest in advertising their ICO, your post is fake, get the fact first before posting, every bounty hunters knows the fact.

[ariyzt]

spend much money to promote is good but if that mean you spend almost 90% of total ratio from ico funding then its not good. promote is good but for that much ratio i dont think that worth it. better spend on project that you work

[installer]

Unethical is when people are promoting scam projects, that can lead to involving more investors and at the end everybody is left with empty pockets, hunters are going to lose their image and time, and investors will lose their money.

[Alpinat]

I don't know what kind of ICOs can spent 90% of funds for promotion. usually for promotion spend 10% or less of raised funds.

Yes they never spend 10% upwards if you just notice some of the ICO in the year 2017 they are reaching their hard capital and sometimes passing hard capital. If you notice they are just giving out the 3% of the whole raised funds in the promotion and not 90%, They can spend 90% but the project will not improve anymore because of insufficient funds.

[thesmallgod]

Any project that intend using that huge ratio for advert will probably be a scam project which at the end of the day might not even pay the advertisers since most of them always want to pay using token which might not get listed in any exchange in years. Most of the time project dev but high percentage for advertisements just to catch hunters but might not pay the actual amount after the work is completed

[kindbtc]

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.

[Nasonn]

Spending 90% of raised amount on promotions is bad business and I doubt anyone will do that. It just doesn't seem plausible. But advertising ICOs is not bad in its own depending on the approach employed.