Last week SEC Chair Gary Gensler testified in front of the House Financial Services Committee in a hearing titled ‘Oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission.’ The hearing was a forum of discussion over the heavy-handedness of the SEC’s handling of the crypto industry.

Gensler has spent his tenure being a thorn in the side of the crypto industry, creating a regulatory environment that has led to a recent spurt of crypto businesses fleeing for more friendly jurisdiction.

Coinbase, arguably the largest and most visible company in the industry, has taken the mantle of being both a leader in pushing pro-crypto regulation, but also to move public opinion.

Coinciding with last week’s hearing, Coinbase launched their #StandWithCrypto campaign, asking Americans to speak-up to regulators about crypto regulation.

The Campaign Messaging

The #StandWithCrypto campaign took a multi-message approach. The company has two targets – regulators and consumers. So it seems they made a decision to approach this problem with two main commentaries.

The first, aimed at consumers, is discussing crypto utility. The key insight they highlight is that money movement is slow. Crypto fixes that. The second is meant for regulators, where Coinbase illustrates the US consumer’s frustration with the existing financial rails.

To illustrate, the Coinbase team released an ad that shows an armoured bank truck stuck in NYC rush-hour traffic, with a paint job that reads, “Money shouldn’t have a speed limit. It’s time to update the system.”

To further drive the message home, Coinbase includes data to back up their thesis. Printed on the truck, they display the following statistics:

• 87% of Americans want to update the financial system

• 52 million Americans own crypto

The campaign’s website further illustrates these findings, emphasizing that 20% of US adults owns crypto. The goal here is to establish this cohort of Americans as a significant block of voters, digging into demographics and the non-partisan nature of the crypto industry’s participants.

“The crypto owner is a critical voter.”

This website is a case study in and of itself for how to properly build a beautiful and informative page as a campaign companion. Big fan.

The Campaign Execution

Stand With Crypto quietly kicked off the day before the hearing with a cryptic tweet, teasing something coming the following day. The day-of, Coinbase sent their messaging wide.

The ad you saw above went live on social media. Coinbase, along with 50+ founders from 15 key states were boots-on-the-ground in DC — all to advocate for pro-crypto policies.

In the Wall Street Journal, Coinbase bought the back-page and multiple quarter-page ad placements to promote their message.

At the same time, the Coinbase PR machine was getting their founder and CEO Brian Armstrong in front of the camera to further promote the message.

On the ground, Coinbase brought out the branded armoured truck, set up for photo-opps and hand-out campaign-clad cans of cold brew.

Online Reception

The crypto community has historically been critical of Coinbase. For some, it’s the company’s product decisions. For others, it’s semantic crypto culture war nonsense.

But over the last two years, the company has been making strides in not only improving their industry perception, but also significantly improving the quality of its brand efforts. And the #StandWithCrypto campaign is a testament to that.

Key Takeaways

The campaign was pretty widely seen as a success. The Coinbase marketing team took a difficult project and made it extremely effective with a relatively low-effort execution.

My key takeaways–

1. Strong messaging backed-up by data is a great way to hook in your audience AND provide them with evidence that what you’re saying is true. The information on the truck, cold brew cans, and landing page really drive this home.

2. The key to hooking consumers is by finding a ubiquitous insight and digging in on that. For Coinbase, this was the money movement point. It really sucks that it takes 5 days to move money from one account to another. Crypto fixes this.

3. PR is a powerful tool. Getting your spokespeople in front of reporters can make or break your campaign. It’s also extremely important to make sure your talking points and campaign messaging are aligned, for maximum efficacy.

4. Experiential marketing can be an extremely effective part of brand marketing, especially when it’s coupled with a wider campaign effort.

5. Swag can create viral UGC moments and shouldn’t be ignored. I want one of those cold brew cans.

Props to Kate Rouch and the rest of the Coinbase team on a great campaign.

You can learn more about Coinbase’s ongoing grassroots effort to build up the crypto community’s political base at standwithcrypto.org.

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