Editor's Note: This article discusses how the Eclipse team avoids blindly following trends in the crypto industry by creating the Turbo mascot to strengthen brand recognition. They abandoned the 'quick success' strategy, valuing the uniqueness and permanence of the brand, drawing design inspiration from anime, creating differentiated effects with high-quality content, while refusing to financialize Turbo into NFTs or tokens to maintain the brand's long-term value. This approach highlights the team's emphasis on marketing innovation and long-term impact.
The following is the original content (for readability, the original content has been reorganized):
As marketers, our job is not to be the most technical people in the company but to be the best storytellers. Yet, the reality is that the stories we tell are often dull and lack coherence.
My favorite stories come from film series, good movies can be outstanding independently and also interweave with each other to create an epic narrative. For example, I recently enjoyed the (Dune) series; each movie itself is captivating, yet they collectively build a grand narrative. With Timothy Chalamet, Zendaya, and Javier Bardem, along with Denis Villeneuve's directorial skills—the film's visuals, character development, score, sound design, and CG effects are simply masterpieces!
Of course, I'm not saying we need to create cinematic masterpieces for crypto companies, but where is our narrative? Looking around, there are endless product integration announcements, podcasts, and various boring content, with no coherent story tying them together. We are clearly just making noise.
Excellent storytelling requires care and clear intent, yet too many of us have adopted a 'cast a wide net' or 'throw everything at the wall' strategy. This may work when trying to run paid advertising, but is a foolish approach for brand building. Your marketing can't just be a few blog posts and scattered memes, especially when lacking a unified theme. We can and should do better.
Building a quality brand is like boiling a pot of water; placing the kettle on the stove won't make it boil immediately from room temperature (ordinary brand) to boiling (widely known). You need to keep heating (marketing) it to gradually bring it to temperature. If you also consider factors such as altitude (lack of momentum in company development), the boiling speed may be even slower. So, how can you make water boil faster? Here, deliberate marketing is that pinch of salt. If you invest enough thought and preparation into marketing communication and packaging, brand awareness will increase more quickly and last longer. You should always ask yourself, what role does this specific announcement play in my brand story?
To be frank, all crypto marketers have significant room for improvement in this industry. I believe our marketing leaders (myself included) have underperformed in the following two areas: A. Too easily adjusting core information based on industry trends B. Too easily swayed by various feedback from the CEO and team.
Our industry generally has a terrible collective 'attention deficit', influenced by the frequently changing trends driven by meme coins/trading (such as political themes, animal themes, specific chains, etc.) which affect price trends. At the same time, the rational crypto community on Twitter is always attracted by various mainstream narratives. Over the past year, some major topics within the industry include:
Modular vs. Integrated
Application Chain Theory vs. Application-Specific Sequencing
Solana vs. Ethereum
The issue isn't that we are trying to relate the project to these discussions; it is indeed wise to attract attention using popular topics and direct it towards ourselves. However, our problem lies in excessively sacrificing the core consistency of the brand to cater to these narratives.
You can't have answers to every industry debate, nor can every topic last. Trends and feedback are important, but brands should maintain consistency and develop steadily. It can be considered at appropriate times, but greater emphasis should be placed on the long-term construction of the brand.
Of course, high-quality feedback is important, but it's also essential to know when to say no. Everyone has the right to voice their opinion, but not every opinion carries equal weight. For example, my CEO 0xLitquidity and I have had repeated discussions about market plans. When he tells me he wants to see specific types of dApps appear on Eclipse, I ask for details but ultimately respect his judgment because he has 10 years of experience, and I trust his business acumen.
But when it comes to marketing, that's my expertise. I have vetoed some of Vijay's marketing suggestions more than once because they do not align with the overall narrative of the Eclipse brand. Sometimes, I even insist on increasing the budget to drive certain key initiatives. This is not opposition but rather part of my responsibilities. I was hired to run our marketing engine effectively, not to be a 'yes person.'
Similarly, I also value the team's feedback highly, as they often inspire me. For instance, much of the 'ASS' content we recently released stemmed from the team's creativity rather than mine, which indeed helped us gain considerable attention. However, I still frequently veto some of their suggestions because I not only want to gain momentary attention but also need to be responsible for long-term brand building. This empowerment is crucial for maintaining the consistency of the brand voice; ultimately, if the brand performs poorly, the responsibility lies with me, not the team.
I know this is abstract, so I will detail the creative process and evolution of our mascot TurboTheCow next, in hopes of clarifying these concepts.
Image Source: BlockBeats
Many have asked whether Turbo should create its own mascot, and the simple answer is—most likely not needed. To better explain the reasons, let us first revisit the birth process of Turbo.
Before I joined, the core team at Eclipse had already been discussing 'Thicc Sequencers'. However, after the team released a well-performing funding announcement, Eclipse still struggled to gain sustained market attention. At this point, Vijay contacted me, and we began to seriously explore the possibility of my joining the company. On the day of my formal interview, I mentioned that the 'intern trend' was outdated. At that time, many projects were following the trend of creating intern accounts to boost interaction and attract more attention (Eclipse was doing this too). But the problem was that only a few teams could do it well, and it became increasingly clear that the marketing team was blindly following others' successes.
This is one of the biggest problems with marketing strategies in this industry; leadership is unwilling to take risks or spend money due to a lack of belief. As a result, when they see others doing well, they choose to imitate rather than innovate. The logic behind this is that they believe investing resources in already proven successes is safer, but the issue is that these strategies succeed because they are unique and well thought out. Blind imitation usually does not work. If you are not the first to do something, you must do it better than those before you to stand out.
I am unwilling to fall into this trap and do not want our brand to become another example of a failed crypto company. Eclipse must be unique. Therefore, I decided to completely abandon the intern account the company had previously tried to establish and to try some different strategies: creating a mascot that resonates even if people don't know what Eclipse is.
At this point, our marketing team brought a Highland cow to an art gallery in New York City, triggering a crazy viral spread. Not only did influencers outside the crypto community take photos and check in at Eclipse, but this was also my 'epiphany' moment. Highland cow = robust sequencer, Highland cow = mainstream dissemination. Through this method, we created an organic and clever association between this animal and our brand. Thus, the Highland cow became our mascot, not imitating others but instantly creating a brand story.
Once we determined this animal, it was time for design and naming. Eclipse had previously focused some promotional points around 'speed,' but speed itself is no longer appealing. TPS (transactions per second) has become a thing of the past, and no one cares if your blockchain is slightly faster than others (which is also why we won't make speed the core narrative of the brand). However, I don't want to completely abandon speed because Eclipse is indeed very fast. During the conceptual process, I realized that the best way to showcase our speed was not through direct promotion but through indirect hints, and preferably not linking it to other crypto projects. So I began to seek inspiration beyond the crypto sphere.
Most people might not know that my inspiration actually came from anime. When I found a website and animation designer, I asked them to incorporate two core inspirations into our brand visuals: (Akira) and (Initial D). This non-crypto-related inspiration is precisely what makes our brand and Turbo unique.
After several design adjustments, we finalized the new logo, brand colors, website design, and the image of Turbo. A bold lemon green style with the hero character at the visual center. A cute Highland cow, blending 2D and 3D, driving a sports car and motorcycle, symbolizing speed while relating to our 'Thicc Sequencer'. The animation quality is also significantly higher than other mascots, making our design stand out. Eventually, we chose 'Turbo' as the mascot's name, adding to the appeal.
However, the problem arose as everyone at Eclipse was extremely excited and wanted to provide suggestions, leading to the classic 'too many cooks' problem. I quickly realized that to maintain momentum, I had to protect the creativity of Turbo. Although I greatly appreciate the enthusiasm of team members, I have rejected some suggestions multiple times.
Examples are as follows:
The team wanted to invest a significant amount of money immediately to increase Turbo's content output. I was not sure if this was a reasonable expense until I gathered more data before making a decision.
Ultimately, I decided to invest in Turbo based on the following three pieces of data:
The Turbo-related content we posted on Twitter performed significantly better than other content;
The community's support for Turbo is unprecedented, and the community has created a large number of artworks, memes, and related content, which convinces me that we have indeed created something unique;
Even those who have never paid attention to Eclipse are starting to reach out to the team because of Turbo.
Team members suggested using Fiverr to mass produce Turbo content. I firmly rejected this. We are a streamlined team of fewer than 30 people, with strengths in quality rather than quantity. Sacrificing quality for quantity would render Turbo unremarkable and indistinguishable from other mascots.
Team members wanted to financialize Turbo, turning it into NFTs or meme coins. Absolutely not. We are building a permissionless ecosystem, so the developer community may try it themselves, but the Eclipse core team will not launch Turbo's NFTs or meme coins. The reason is, if we invest in these and ultimately perform poorly, it will burn our accumulated reputation and momentum. Additionally, this would greatly distract our product/engineering team's focus. Turbo is a brand asset with the potential to resonate more with ordinary users than Eclipse.
The above content is not intended to brag, but rather to showcase the deep thinking behind it. Turbo has resonated with our audience and has become one of our most successful marketing tools. So when you ask me, 'Should we create a mascot?' it is not a simple 'yes' or 'no' question.
The answer depends on whether you are genuinely willing to invest in creating a meaningful brand mascot. If you are just randomly drawing an animal, it won't bring any actual effect to your brand. Boiling water takes time, yet I feel many want to see it boil immediately.
[Disclaimer] The market is risky; investment should be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice. Users should consider whether any opinions, viewpoints, or conclusions in this article are suitable for their specific situation. Invest accordingly at your own risk.
This article is reprinted with permission from: (Rhythm Blockbeats)
Original author: Nate, Head of Growth at Eclipse