Mind the decentralized gap

In 2017, you couldn’t go far without hearing about ‘bitcoin’ and ‘blockchain’ - mysterious technologies which were set to revolutionize payments and the underlying infrastructure of our beloved World Wide Web. The media’s headlines came thick and fast, but they seldom did justice to the potential of a decentralized internet - a power which Bluzelle could see coming from a mile away.

Based in Singapore, Bluzelle was originally founded to consult with clients looking to take their existing technologies and migrate them to blockchain applications. The problem was that applications, including blockchain, needed a database to house information - however, databases were still centralized.

Powerful corporations held the world’s precious data - data which is becoming increasingly valuable in the digital economy. This contradictory snag in the system led Bluzelle to a realization - the future of the decentralized internet needed a decentralized database to back it.

Reverse engineering a strategy

Skyrocket wasn’t living under a rock. We knew that blockchain technology was here to stay, and our team was constantly chatting about how it might impact our clients. However, marketing for blockchain companies was still new even if the underlying principles of marketing were not.

We hit the ground running by extracting everything we could from the founders and team at Bluzelle. Naturally, we supported and cross-referenced this with secondary research, which built a strong foundation of knowledge to form a plan. The ICO date was looming, and we needed to balance tactics with strategy to keep the ball rolling. Instead of reinventing the wheel, we took the lay of the land by reverse-engineering organic marketing campaigns which had already seen success.

We employed the use of social monitoring tools like Mention, manually scoured through countless competitor blog posts, used competitor analytics tools like SimilarWeb, and gathered search terms using Google Keyword Planner in order to find out how users were finding and engaging with other ICOs in the market. We then looked inward at Bluzelle’s existing community which was highly active on Slack and Telegram, where we discovered a wealth of brand advocacy and nuggets of gold right under our nose.

We quickly learned that the best projects were those which remained true to the value of their product rather than promising financial returns - the modern investor or user wanted to believe in the team and the vision, and didn’t want to be conned by the cash-grab nature of many competitors. Our content team used this intel to craft the leading value propositions, key brand messages, and community messaging guidelines that would pulse through the heart of Bluzelle’s existing brand online. Shortly after, we witnessed Bluzelle’s Telegram users hit close to 30,000. In the absence of time, compelling messaging can go a long way to connecting with audiences before a full re-brand or web experience build.

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Walking the talk, one step at a time

Following agile practices, the refreshed brand and new site were up and running within 6 months - but that didn’t mean we hit the brake pedal while we worked on them. Bluzelle needed to remain highly active in the blockchain community, engaging their audience online and offline to continue the positive conversations surrounding their ICO. Within weeks, Bluzelle were attending conferences and shows with updated banners, brochures, messaging and presentations which reflected evolved brand identities as we worked on them.

Despite the challenges surrounding banned Facebook and Google advertising (specifically regarding ICOs), Bluzelle continued to see high community engagement by putting care into their advocates - the most valuable type of consumer in the customer cycle. Regular blog posts, email updates, social posts, and ongoing Slack/Telegram community management all followed our updated verbal identity in order to best resonate with their brand advocates - equipping and encouraging them with everything they needed to share our vision with their own networks. This network-effect is one of the holy grails of modern marketing, and is ultimately responsible for a large part of Bluzelle’s success.

For Skyrocket, it reinforced the need to conduct deep research and ongoing discovery, understand users at their core (especially in emerging markets/industries), and craft a brand identity that is so spot-on that customers can’t help but share it with their own networks. This isn’t the last you’ve seen of Bluzelle - don’t be surprised to find their ecosystem powering the data behind your future apps.