Bitcoin isn’t a company. It doesn’t have a marketing department or advertising budget. But companies in the space should learn about appealing to desire.

I want to complain about the way the whole idea of bitcoin is marketed. It’s boring. Too fringe, too technical. And rarely — if ever — do we see images of the wealth and prosperity it promises.

The message isn’t attractive enough, and bitcoin is in a slump.

Bitcoin has low-fee transactions. Instant, irreversible payments. No banks. Global universality. These features are real, but where are the glossy, colorful images of where all that will take bitcoin users?

Libertarians trumpet the economic advantages of such freedom. Again, it’s true, but they’re preaching to the choir (a choir of the minority who actually understand economics). It goes right over the everyone else’s heads.

All that money you lost

There’s an urgent need to combat this image: earlier bitcoin promises don’t match the immediate reality in April 2015.

This is what the mainstream sees at the moment: People who bought bitcoin any time after October 2013 now have far less money than if they’d kept their cash.

Ergo, having bitcoin isn’t making you look rich, cool, or forward-thinking. It’s making you look foolish and poor.

Along with the fringey and incomprehensible politics, it makes bitcoin proponents easy targets for mockery.

It’s gold to commentators like Paul Krugman, who leaps out to write a victory column every time the bitcoin price drops a few more percentage points.

The mainstream media is very price-focused when it comes to bitcoin. It’s the only reason they became interested in the first place. Frankly, it’s the only thing about bitcoin they understand.

If price, returns and wealth are what everyone understands, then that needs to be the bitcoin message. Project it further from the current doldrums and economic theories, into a glossier future.

That message will become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Bitcoin bling

Bitcoin is money. That’s been proven by now. The message should, then, be all about money and what having more money will bring.

Why do you use money at all? How are you going to get more of it, and why do you want more?

Would you use a new kind of money if it could actually make you richer? More powerful and satisfied with life? It’d make you feel intelligent, that you’ve been able to use your skills, creativity and foresight to get more of it than most others.

When non-bitcoiners start envying bitcoin users and their lifestyles, the message will have succeeded.

Showing success

There’s not much we can do about the reality of bitcoin’s price just now. Like the web of the late 1990s, users will have to endure the derision of the visionless and join the talented in developing better services.

In the meantime, bitcoin needs an image campaign to keep everyone engaged.

Bitcoin companies have a duty to go out and market the very idea of bitcoin, as well as their own services. If they don’t, no-one will want to use those services anyway.

Their message must switch from technical to emotional. Don’t just point out bitcoin’s speed, programmability, security and freedom and expect the public to draw their own conclusions — show them images of the riches these will bring.

This clip is the kind of thing I’m talking about. So much impact in just two seconds:

We’re going to need more celebrity endorsements. Bitcoin-based plotlines in movies and TV series. We need the recording artists who’ve experimented with bitcoin, like Nas, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg and Mel B to talk about it more and make it visible.

Associate bitcoin with images of wealth, luxury and glamor wherever possible.

Business leaders are important too. We need to see success stories, people who got rich because they used bitcoin.

And those stories need to be in the lifestyle pages as well as the business sections. We need to feel the results of their success in a way even non-businesspeople can understand.

The advertising industry long ago dropped the technique of describing product features. The public is enticed by results, dreams, imagery. That’s the kind of message a new currency should spread.

April 15, 2015