The Power of Grassroots Marketing
One of the most common complaints I receive on r/Litecoin revolve around the idea that Litecoin needs better marketing. The ideas that have been put forth have ranged from buying a billboard to crowdfunding a superbowl commercial. Although these are great traditional forms of marketing, it's quite complicated to organize and execute for a decentralized community. However, all hope is not lost.
Over the past month, a growing segment of the Litecoin community has been making a concerted effort to take Litecoin marketing into their own hands. It first started with a simple tweet by DaddyCool reaching out to Auntie Annie's asking if he could #paywithlitecoin.
Then the Panther of Litecoin joined the fray by periscoping himself explaining what Litecoin is to an Auntie Annie's worker while trying to pay with his Shiftcard.
Surprisingly enough, Auntie Annie's twitter account started interacting with the Litecoin community! They even tweeted back that they would "think about it" when it came to integrating Litecoin Payments.
This then sparked a fun contest, led by DaddyCool, JMACK, and the The Panther of Litecoin who each contributed 1/3 of a LTC to the best periscope of someone going into a Cinnabon and explaining Litecoin to a worker there. Litecoin Father contributed 2 hats from ProofofHat to the 2nd and 3rd place winners as well. This led to several creative submissions, but this one by Angie was by far the cutest:
This then got the attention of Kat Cole from FOCUS, which is actually the parent company of AuntieAnnies and Cinnabon.
Kat Cole
Focus Brands
And of course, Satoshilite didn't miss a beat by dropping her a DM.
Since then, Charlie has confirmed with me that he has successfully connected her to Aliant Payments, a cryptopayment processor! Now it's still to be seen whether or not Kat Cole will follow through with integrating Litecoin payments. Most likely, this is a just an exploratory inquiry. But if this wild series of events shows you anything, it's that the Litecoin grassroots movement of marketing is very real and very powerful. In a matter of a couple weeks, individuals from the LTC community were able to convince the parent company of two fairly well-known food franchises to engage and be open to the idea of accepting Litecoin as a payment. This serves as a powerful example that passion and creativity can go a long way to spread Litecoin adoption.
So yes. It's true Litecoin could use more marketing. However, I suspect that this new grassroots-led marketing movement is the answer that people have been clamoring for all along.
If you have a neat story of helping to spread Litecoin adoption, I'd love to hear about it! Submit your story here and I'll feature it in either my next newsletter or publication.