Article reprinted from: Deep Tide TechFlow
Author: Nate
Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow
As marketers, our responsibility is not to be the most technically knowledgeable person in the company but to be the best storytellers. However, the story we are currently telling is both boring and lacks coherence.
My favorite stories often come from movie franchises. I find that the best films are not only engaging as standalone works but also tell great stories as part of a complete series. Recently, I've particularly enjoyed (Dune). Each (Dune) movie is fantastic on its own, but together they create a magnificent epic. Coupled with the outstanding performances of Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and Javier Bardem, along with Denis Villeneuve's direction, cinematography, character development, music, sound design, and CGI, it's truly stunning.
Of course, I am not saying we need to create cinematic masterpieces for a crypto company, but where is our story? Aside from endless product integration announcements, podcasts, and random posts, there is almost nothing else. It’s all quite boring and lacks a story that connects these contents together. Clearly, we are just going through the motions.
Excellent storytelling requires careful thought and planning. Yet too many of us adopt a 'scattergun' or 'let's see what happens' approach. This method may work in the early trials of paid advertising and its placements, but it's a foolish strategy for building a great brand. Your marketing cannot rely solely on blog posts and random memes, especially when there is no unifying theme among them. We need to do better, and we are fully capable of doing so.
Building a quality brand is like boiling a kettle of water. When you place the kettle on the stove, it doesn’t instantly go from room temperature (ordinary brand) to boiling (well-known brand). You need to apply continuous heat (ongoing marketing) to raise the temperature. If you also consider factors like a lack of momentum (the company lacking drive), then the water will take even longer to reach boiling point.
So how can we make the water boil faster? Adding a bit of salt helps. In brand building, purposeful marketing is like the salt in this pot of water. If you are meticulous and thorough in planning marketing communications and packaging, you can raise brand awareness faster, and that awareness can last longer. You should always ask yourself, 'What role does this specific announcement play in my brand story?'
Frankly, all cryptocurrency marketers have significant room for improvement in this regard. I believe that we marketing leaders, including myself, are not doing well enough in this area for two main reasons:
A. We are too easily swayed by the constant changes in industry trends, adjusting our core messages.
B. We are too easily influenced by feedback from all sides (whether from our CEO or team members).
It is well known that our industry suffers from a severe attention deficit. This phenomenon, particularly for memecoins and trading, is driven by constantly changing trading trends (such as politics, animals, specific blockchains, etc.). But we also have evolving meta-narratives that completely capture the attention of intellectuals on crypto Twitter. Just off the top of my head, I can list three major meta-topics from the past year:
Modular architecture vs. monolithic architecture
Application chain theory and application-specific ordering (ASS, haha)
Solana vs. Ethereum
The key issue is not whether we are trying hard to make the project appear relevant in these discussions. It is smart to be able to leverage eye-catching topics and direct attention to oneself. However, problems arise when we overly pursue these narratives at the expense of the consistency of our core brand message.
You cannot simultaneously be the answer to every industry discussion, nor can every topic remain relevant weeks later. Our colleagues, and even ourselves, often get distracted by industry trends. At the right time, these trends may impact your business strategy, but brands should always maintain consistency and evolve thoughtfully. Relatedly, high-quality feedback and advice are certainly important, but you also need to know when to reject certain things for the sake of the brand.
Everyone has the right to express an opinion, but not all opinions carry equal weight. Our CEO @0xLitquidity and I have discussed our market entry strategy numerous times. When Vijay tells me he wants to see a certain type of dApp on Eclipse, I may raise some questions, but ultimately I respect his professional opinion, as he has a decade of experience in this industry, and I trust his business acumen. Simply put, I listen to his advice in areas where he has more experience.
In marketing, this is my area of expertise. I have vetoed some of Vijay's marketing suggestions multiple times because they did not align with the overall narrative we set for Eclipse. Sometimes I reject certain ideas because their timing does not align with our other plans. I have also told Vijay before, 'I will stand firm on this matter' to push for increased investment in certain projects. I do this not to rebel, but because it's my responsibility. I wasn't hired to be a 'yes person', but to effectively run our marketing engine.
Similarly, I also value feedback from the Eclipse team and colleagues. They often provide me with inspiration and excellent ideas. For example, most of the recent ASS content we launched was conceived by other members of my team, not myself. This has helped us gain a lot of attention. However, even though my team is excellent, I still regularly veto some of their requests. I not only want to gain attention in the short term but also want to maintain it long-term. This requires me to consciously ensure we are moving in the right direction.
This empowering approach is crucial for maintaining a consistent brand voice. Just as only one person can drive a car, only one director can steer a film's direction. If our brand performs poorly, the responsibility lies not with my colleagues but with me. If there are issues with the Eclipse brand, the first person to be held accountable should be me.
Nevertheless, I realize these concepts may be somewhat abstract; it's easy to talk the talk but hard to walk the walk. Therefore, I will share in detail the creation and evolution process of our mascot @turbothecow, hoping to help everyone better understand my point.
Turbo, Highland Cow
Many people have asked questions about Turbo and whether they should also create a mascot for their projects. The simple answer is—probably not necessary. To better explain this, let's first revisit the birth history of Turbo.
Long before I joined, the core Eclipse team had been discussing 'thicc sequencers'. I will elaborate on this concept later. At that time, while the fundraising announcements released by the team were effective, Eclipse still faced challenges in winning sustained market attention. At this moment, Vijay approached me, and we began to seriously explore the possibility of my joining the company. On the day of my official interview with Eclipse, I pointed out that the 'intern craze' was outdated. Too many projects were following the trend of creating intern accounts to increase interaction and attract attention (Eclipse was doing this too). The problem was that only a few teams were doing well, and it was becoming increasingly clear that many marketing teams were simply imitating successful cases.
This is a major flaw in industry marketing strategies. Leadership teams often hesitate to take risks or invest money due to a lack of confidence. So, when they see others succeed, they only choose to imitate rather than create new unique solutions. They feel safer spending on strategies that have already proven effective, but the flaw in this logic is that these strategies succeed precisely because they are unique and well thought out. Simply copying others often yields poor results. If you are not the first to do something, you must do it better than those before you to stand out.
I refuse to let our brand share the same fate as those failed crypto companies. Eclipse must be unique. Therefore, I've decided to abandon the previous strategy of boosting influence through intern accounts and instead try some new methods: creating a mascot that can attract people even if they are unfamiliar with Eclipse.
It was at this moment that our marketers brought a Highland cow into an art gallery in New York City, and the incident quickly went viral. Many influencers outside of the crypto Twitter sphere began uploading photos with the cow and tagging Eclipse. This was my 'aha' moment. The Highland cow symbolizes the heft of our sequencer while having the potential for widespread dissemination. We found a good way to naturally connect this animal with our brand. This is why we chose the Highland cow as our mascot, not to imitate other companies. We are creating the brand story in real-time.
Once the mascot was determined, we began designing and naming it. Previously, Eclipse's marketing focus was on speed, but it was clear that speed alone would not captivate. The concept of TPS is no longer fresh, and people no longer care whether you are slightly faster than other blockchains (which is why we won't promote speed as the core of our brand). However, I also do not want to completely abandon the idea of speed. After all, Eclipse is indeed fast. During brainstorming, I realized that the best way to showcase our speed was not through direct promotion, but rather by implying it indirectly. It would be even better if we could achieve this in a unique manner, rather than bundling with other crypto projects. Thus, I began looking for inspiration from other fields.
Most of you may not know that my inspiration actually comes from anime. When I found our website and animation designer, I asked them to create around two main inspirations: Akira and Speed Racer. These inspirations, unrelated to the crypto field, are why I believe our brand and Turbo can stand out.
After multiple discussions and revisions, we finally confirmed the new logo, brand colors, website design, and the artistic image of Turbo. We adopted a bold lime green aesthetic, with the main character prominently featured. A cute Highland cow, blending 2D and 3D styles, drives fast cars and motorcycles, aimed at evoking connections with speed and our 'thicc sequencer'. The animation quality is significantly better than other mascots I have seen, making our design truly stand out. We named him 'Turbo', adding a splash of color to the overall design.
However, I quickly encountered a problem. Everyone at Eclipse was very excited and wanted to share their opinions. We faced a classic issue: too many opinions. I realized that if we were to maintain momentum, I needed to take control of Turbo's development. Despite the many accolades I gave to the Eclipse team, in many cases, I directly rejected requests from the team. Here are some examples:
A. Team members wanted to immediately invest a large amount of money to create more Turbo-related content. However, I did not agree to such an investment without sufficient data support. Therefore, I first collected data and ultimately decided to increase investment in Turbo, for three key data points:
A(1). Our content about Turbo on Twitter performs far better than other published content.
A(2). The community's enthusiasm for Turbo is unprecedented, and the large amount of art, memes, and other content created by community members makes me believe we have indeed created something unique.
A(3). Even those who previously had no interest in Eclipse began to actively reach out to us to learn about Turbo.
B. Team members suggested using Fiverr to mass-produce more Turbo content, which I strongly oppose. We are a lean team with fewer than 30 full-time employees. Our strength lies in quality rather than quantity. Sacrificing quality to increase the number of animated videos will only make Turbo indistinguishable from other mascots, and doing so would be self-destructive.
C. Team members also suggested financializing Turbo, turning it into an NFT or memecoin. I absolutely disagree. We are building an open ecosystem where the developer community can freely try what they want, but the core Eclipse team will not support Turbo's NFT collection or memecoin. The reason is simple: if we commit to doing it but the results are not ideal, it will consume all the goodwill and momentum we have built with Turbo. Additionally, this would greatly distract our product and engineering teams. I absolutely do not want Turbo to be tied to the performance of any digital asset. Turbo is a brand asset, and it has more potential to attract the general public's attention than Eclipse itself.
I share this not to boast, but to demonstrate the in-depth thinking we have behind the scenes on these issues. Turbo has successfully resonated with the audience and become one of our most effective marketing tools. Therefore, when you ask me, 'Should we create a mascot?', it is not a simple 'yes' or 'no' question. The answer lies in whether you are willing to seriously invest in building the brand mascot. If you are just casually sketching an animal, that won’t significantly enhance the brand. Water takes time to boil, and I feel that many people expect it to boil instantly.
Honestly, Turbo's story is still in its early stages. We have not fully utilized either him or Eclipse's overall brand for revolutionary success. But we have been working hard behind the scenes to let the ideas mature over time. Turbo will continue to exist, and I am very much looking forward to everyone seeing the content we have planned for the next six months. We have some very bold plans. November is just the beginning.
I hope you enjoy all the upcoming Turbo content, as we will continue to build a complete story around Eclipse. I encourage everyone to think of their brand as a story as well. Find ways to connect all announcements and combine them with core brand positioning or narrative. Believe in certain things! Make commitments and take bold and thoughtful risks. Be a leader, not a follower.
So what other topics would be helpful? Brand rebranding? Brand positioning? Agencies (II)? Anything else? Please let me know in the comments below.
Before this, let everything fade into obscurity.
For me, this is no longer just a meme. While marketers are not as technically skilled as engineers, we don’t need to be.
