‘Never going to explain the world of crypto with OOH’: Why crypto companies are focused on billboards for brand awareness, legitimacy

By jim cooper

Last fall, cryptic messages began showing atop the iconic Columbus Circle billboard in New York City. Along with the temperature and time, the sign at first showed words from a now-famous white paper written by Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym for the creator of bitcoin. Later, it started displaying jokes like: “What do you call a crypto turkey? A HODL HODL HODL.” (A popular crypto acronym for “Hold On for Dear Life.”)

Turned out it was all part of an ad for Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The company bought a three-year lease for the billboard, but it’s been buying out-of-home ads for years in various markets since 2019, when it ran a bus campaign in Los Angeles promising: “Crypto without chaos.”

“Our philosophy with out-of-home is you’re never going to explain the world of crypto with OOH,” said Jonathan Isaac, Gemini’s global head of brand and marketing. But he said you can still introduce a brand to the world and sell products, making it a “fantastically powerful medium for the crypto-curious” and even “urban theater.” Earlier this year, Gemini used OOH advertising again to market a new credit card that rewarded users with crypto while collaborating with NFT artists for a broader campaign called “What’s The Best That Could Happen?”

Gemini is one of many cryptocurrency companies that have been buying out-of-home advertising in cities across the U.S. and Europe to increasingly market to mainstream audiences. High with hype, top crypto companies are looking to reach the masses with the same tricks used before by a wave of DTC brands that used billboards and subway ads to legitimize new categories of products and services. Unlike mattresses and toothbrushes, the crypto category isn’t something as easily understood. It’s also not always as easy to differentiate one crypto brand from the next, or what’s really worth betting real money on buying.

There’s also the question of whether the so-called “crypto winter” will cause companies to slow ad spend as the crypto industry faces layoffs, crashes, regulation and more speculation. But so far, marketers say they don’t plan on making changes to their budgets and that ads across billboards and elsewhere help to explain complex concepts in a crowded category.

So far, the majority of campaigns have been showing up in tech-saturated markets like New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, August and Nashville, according to out-of-home advertising vendors, and costing anywhere from $35,000 to $300,000 for between less than a week to four weeks. Others say crypto companies have paid in the “multimillions” for high-traffic intersections and long-term deals. Other ad buys during events like Art Basel have cost closer to six digits.

“It’s heavy and acute,” said James Heller, founder of Wrapify, which has helped several crypto companies advertise on cars. “The sales cycle for it is, ‘Hey we have $1 million and we need to spend it.’”