Cryptocurrency has an image problem. After a wave of momentum and buzz, including a Super Bowl 2022 full of crypto ads, the collapse of crypto network Terra and exchange FTX’s bankruptcy last year sent the market into disarray.
The fallout means that for the average consumer viewing crypto today, “the prevailing feeling is mistrust,” said Fran Docx, strategy partner at U.K. agency 20something.
So when Token.com, which calls itself a “crypto disruptor,” enlisted 20something last year to relaunch its brand globally, it faced a major challenge: how do you win over audiences in these murky waters, as the buzz surrounding Web3 has quietened?
“There’s this big, lofty idea of what we think is the token economy or what will come eventually–but nobody understands half of what people talk about with crypto and Web3,” Isabel Ron-Pedrique, Token.com’s head of design, told Adweek. “How can we make this future token world humanized to regular people, who don’t want the heaviness of jargon and complexity of technology?”
Launched in Brazil in 2017 as a stealth project, Token.com largely existed in beta form. It turned to 20something to build a more accessible brand that would help crypto finally break into the mainstream.
Inspired by the space race
To do this, Token.com needed to not look like any other crypto brand. Other brands in the industry are “perpetuating these problems” of mistrust and inaccessibility, said Docx: “They have these inscrutable, complex images, dark colors and everything in acronyms. There was an opportunity to create something that felt like light had been shone into the space, without dark or shady corners. It’s crypto in technicolor.”
Token.com’s new visual identity looks more like a social app than a digital trading floor. The agency’s aim was to “make everything super simple, snackable and easy to understand. Everything is wrapped up in storytelling,” Docx said.
20something’s design team drew inspiration from another technological turning point–the 1960s space race. Their branding for Token.com is a modern interpretation of designer Rutherford Craze’s MD Nichrome typeface, which is based on the typography of paperback science fiction books from the 1970s and early ‘80s.
Through the imagery and characters depicted as Token.com investors, they “embraced a storytelling technique reminiscent of that era, one that inspires people with a vision of what tomorrow’s world could look like,” 20something senior designer Rory Stiff said in a statement.
An emotional investment
With the rebranding, Token.com also introduced the tagline: “Invest with intent.” That line reflects Token.com’s mission “to shift mainstream audiences’ relationship with crypto investing from stab-in-the-dark lottery numbers towards values-led investing in projects and ideas they care about,” according to the company.
What might that grand vision mean for the average person? A Token.com user who buys a token could invest in a small local business, or trade tokens from sectors such as gaming, climate initiatives and sports.
It’s a new way of investing–from a cold, complex and faceless exchange–to allowing people “to participate in projects. It’s way more intentional,” Docx explained. “It’s all about having emotional investment in a project’s future and following a story.”
With this launch, Token.com wants to reach both “crypto curious” newbies and seasoned experts, said Ron-Pedrique. The brand envisions building a community where “there’s this symbiotic relationship between the two types,” she continued. “We’ll create that space for social investing, and newbies will come here to learn.”
A vision of the future
Token.com’s purpose tracks with the wider vision for Web3, the next phase of the internet that would incorporate blockchain technologies and token-based economies. Much of the buzz surrounding Web3 that electrified the marketing industry last year has worn off, but Docx and others contend that these technologies will “become normalized.”
“There was this massive burst of enthusiasm and interest in [Web3] that was necessary to get the word out and get people to start learning about it,” Docx explained. “What we’re seeing now is [brands wrestling with] how to subtly integrate those ideas and technologies into how businesses work and the way we communicate with consumers.”
Embracing Web3 will mean “shifting from a linear transaction, where a brand or company builds a product, markets and sells it, to a reciprocal relationship between brands and consumers,” she continued. “The consumer will no longer have a one-time transaction–they’ll actually be investing in a brand and wanting to follow its progress.”
But Web3 brands still have a long way to go before reaching that idealistic future, according to Ron-Pedrique.
“If we don’t first do the job of making things understandable, easy and fun, then we cannot get to the meaningful idea of investing with intent,” she said. “The token economy will be a massive culture shift. There are so many narratives working against the space, so it’s important we clarify the essentials.”
