Editor's Note: This article discusses how the Eclipse team avoids blindly following the trend of the encryption industry by creating Turbo, the mascot, to strengthen brand recognition. They have abandoned the 'fast track' strategy, focusing on the uniqueness and sustainability of the brand. Drawing design inspiration from animation, they create differentiation through high-quality content, while refusing to tokenize Turbo as a Non-fungible Token or Token, in order to maintain the long-term value of the brand. This approach highlights the team's emphasis on marketing innovation and long-term impact.

The following is the original content (for the purpose of reading comprehension, the original content has been edited).

As marketers, our responsibility is not to be the most technically savvy person in the company, but to be the best storyteller. However, the reality is that the stories we tell are often dull and lack coherence.

My favorite stories come from movie series. Good movies can not only stand alone, but also integrate with each other to create an epic story. For example, my recent favorite is the 'Dune' series. Each movie is fascinating on its own, but together they construct a grand narrative. In addition, the directorial skills of Denis Villeneuve, the visual effects, character development, music, sound design, and CG effects are simply flawless!

Of course, I'm not saying that we need to create a movie-like masterpiece for encryption companies, but where is our narrative? Looking around, there are endless product integration announcements, podcasts, and various boring content, and there is no coherent story to connect them. Obviously, we are just making a fuss.

Excellent storytelling requires careful and clear intention, yet too many of us take a 'shotgun' or 'random' approach. This may work when trying to run a paid advertising campaign, but it's a foolish practice for brand building. Your marketing can't just be a few blog posts and scattered internet memes, especially when there's no unified theme. We can and should do better.

Building a quality brand is like boiling a pot of water. When you put the kettle on the stove, it doesn't immediately boil (widely known) from room temperature (typical brands). You need to keep heating (marketing) to gradually raise the temperature. If you consider factors like altitude (lack of momentum in company development), the boiling speed may be slower. So, how can you make the water boil faster? Here, intentional marketing is like that pinch of salt. If you invest enough thought and preparation in marketing communication and packaging, brand awareness will increase faster and last longer. You should constantly ask yourself, what role does this particular advertisement play in my brand story?

To be honest, all encryption marketers have great room for improvement in this industry. I believe that our marketing leaders (including myself) are not performing well in the following two aspects: A. Adjusting core information too easily according to industry trends B. Being too easily influenced by various feedback from the CEO and the team

Our industry generally suffers from a collective "attention deficit", influenced by the constantly changing trends (such as political themes, animal themes, specific chains, etc.) driven by meme coins/trading. At the same time, the rational encryption community on Twitter is always attracted by mainstream narratives one after another. In the past year, several major topics within the industry include:

Modular vs. Integrated

Application chain theory vs. Application-specific sorting

Solana vs. Ethereum

The problem is not that we are trying to make the project relevant to these discussions, it is a wise move to attract attention by using hot topics and redirecting them to our own. But our problem is that we have sacrificed the core consistency of the brand too much in order to cater to these narratives.

You cannot have answers to all the debates in every industry, nor can all topics be long-lasting. While trends and feedback are important, brands should maintain consistency and steady development. Consideration can be given at the appropriate time, but more attention should be paid to the long-term construction of the brand.

Of course, high-quality feedback is important, but you also need to know when to refuse. Everyone has the right to express their opinions, but not every opinion is equally important. For example, our CEO 0xLitquidity and I have had multiple discussions on market plans. When he tells me that he wants to see a specific type of dApps appear on Eclipse, I would ask for details, but ultimately respect his judgment because he has 10 years of experience and I trust his business acumen.

But when it comes to marketing, that's my expertise. I have rejected Vijay's marketing suggestions more than once because they didn't align with the overall narrative of the Eclipse brand. Sometimes, I even insist on increasing the budget to drive certain key initiatives. It's not opposition, it's my responsibility. I was hired to run our marketing engine well, not to be a "yes person".

Similarly, I also value the feedback from the team very much, which often brings me inspiration. For example, much of the content of 'ASS' we recently released came from the team's creativity, not from me, which did help us win a lot of followers. But I still often reject some of their suggestions, because I am not only looking to win followers in the short term, but also responsible for long-term brand building. This authorization is crucial for maintaining consistency in the brand voice, and ultimately, if the brand performs poorly, the responsibility lies with me, not the team.

I know this is very abstract, so I will detail the creative and evolutionary process of our mascot TurboTheCow to explain these ideas more clearly.

Image source: BlockBeats

Many people ask whether Turbo should create its own mascot, and the simple answer is - probably not. To better explain the reasons, let's first review the birth process of Turbo.

Before I joined, Eclipse's core team had already been discussing 'Thicc Sequencers'. However, even after the team released a well-performing financing announcement, Eclipse still struggled to gain sustained market follow. At that time, Vijay contacted me, and we began to seriously discuss the possibility of me joining the company. On the day of my formal interview, I mentioned that the 'intern trend' was already outdated. Many projects were following the trend of creating intern accounts to enhance interaction and attract more follows (Eclipse was also doing this at the time). However, the problem was that only a few teams could do it well, and it became increasingly apparent that the marketing team was blindly following the success of others.

This is one of the biggest problems with this industry marketing strategy, the leadership is unwilling to take risks and unwilling to spend money because of a lack of belief. So when they see others doing well, they choose to imitate rather than innovate. The logic behind this is that they believe that investing resources in already proven success is safer, but the problem is that these strategies are successful because they are unique and carefully considered. Blind imitation usually does not work. If you are not the first to do something, then you must do better than your predecessors to stand out.

I don't want to fall into this trap, nor do I want our brand to become another example of a failed encryption company. Eclipse must be unique. Therefore, I have decided to completely abandon the intern account that the company previously tried to establish and try a different strategy: create a mascot that can resonate with people even if they don't know what Eclipse is.

At this time, our marketing team brought a Highland cow to an art gallery in New York City, which triggered a viral spread. Not only did influencers outside the encryption community take photos and check in at Eclipse, this was my 'enlightenment' moment. Highland cow = solid sorter, Highland cow = mainstream communication. In this way, we have organically and cleverly associated this animal with our brand. Therefore, the Highland cow has become our mascot, not imitating others, but creating brand stories in real time.

Once the animal is decided, it's time for the design and naming phase. Prior to Eclipse, some of the promotion focused on 'speed,' but speed itself is no longer appealing. TPS (Transactions Per Second) is a thing of the past, and no one cares anymore if your blockchain is even a tiny bit faster than others (which is also why we won't make speed the core of our brand). However, I don't want to completely give up on speed, after all, Eclipse is indeed very fast. During the ideation process, I realized that the best way to showcase our speed is not through direct promotion, but through indirect implications, and preferably without associating with other encryption projects. So I started looking for inspiration from outside the encryption community.

Most people may not know that my inspiration actually comes from anime. When I found the website and animation designers, I asked them to integrate two core inspirations, 'Akira' and 'Speed Racer,' into our brand's visual identity. This inspiration, unrelated to encryption, is what makes our brand and Turbo unique.

After multiple design adjustments, we finally determined the new logo, brand color, website design, and the image of Turbo. A bold lemon green style with the hero character in the visual center. A cute, 2D and 3D fusion Highland cattle, driving a sports car and motorcycle, symbolizing both speed and our "thick sorting machine". The animation quality is also significantly higher than other mascots, making our design stand out. In the end, we chose "Turbo" as the name of the mascot, adding the finishing touch.

However, the problem arises as everyone at Eclipse is very excited and wants to offer suggestions, which is the classic 'too many cooks' issue. I quickly realized that in order to maintain the momentum of development, it was necessary to protect the creativity of TUR. Despite my appreciation for the team's enthusiasm, I have repeatedly declined some suggestions.

For example:

The team hopes to immediately invest a large amount of funds to increase the content output of Turbo. I am not sure if this is a reasonable expenditure until more data is collected to make a decision.

Finally, I decided to invest in TUR, based on the following three pieces of data:

Our Turbo-related content posted on Twitter performs significantly better than other content;

The community's unprecedented support for Turbo has led to a large number of artistic works, internet memes, and related content created by the community, which convinces me that we have indeed created something unique;

Even those who have never paid attention to Eclipse are now connecting with the team because of TUR.

Team members suggested using Fiverr to produce a large amount of Turbo content. I firmly refused. We are a lean team of less than 30 people, and our advantage lies in quality, not quantity. Sacrificing quality for quantity would make Turbo lose its uniqueness and not stand out from other mascots.

Team members hope to financialize Turbo and create it as a Non-fungible Token or meme coin. Absolutely impossible. We are building a permissionless ecosystem so that the developer community can try it on their own, but the Eclipse core team will not launch Turbo's Non-fungible Token or meme coin. The reason is that if we invest in these and they perform poorly in the end, it will burn the reputation and momentum we have accumulated. In addition, this will greatly distract the attention of our product/engineering team. Turbo is a brand asset with the potential to resonate more with ordinary users than Eclipse.

The above content is not intended to boast, but to demonstrate the Depth of thinking behind us. Turbo has resonated with our audience and has become one of our most successful marketing tools. So when you ask me whether we should have a mascot, it is not a simple yes or no question.

The answer depends on whether you are willing to truly invest in creating a meaningful brand mascot. Drawing an animal casually will not bring actual effects to your brand. Boiling water takes time, and I feel that many people hope to see it boil immediately.

[Disclaimer] The market is risky, and investments should be made with caution. This article does not constitute investment advice. Users should consider whether any opinions, viewpoints, or conclusions in this article are suitable for their specific circumstances. Invest at your own risk.

This article is authorized to be reproduced from: 'Rhythm Blockbeats'

Original author: nate, Eclipse growth leader