“You don’t know what you’re doing.” It’s a phrase uttered more commonly on the football terraces than (publicly) in the business world.
So imagine my surprise to be attending a conference recently when the CEO of a major digital assets business effectively accused a room full of pioneers of exactly this.
The gentleman in question was emphasising that a great many marketers within the digital assets market had yet to take time to appreciate the needs of the legacy capital markets industry.
This mattered, he said, for one simple reason – growth. Without new capital expanding the pool of liquidity within the digital assets space, businesses operating in that sector will no longer be able to grow, to secure funding, or to expand their offering beyond what they do right now.
It was a painful truth for some in the room to hear. Particularly to those who hold the belief that their services are so disruptive that nobody needs anything from “TradFi” any longer. These people are, of course, wrong.
That’s not to say that recent months have not already shown a trend. We’ve seen wild investment into digital assets programmes in the legacy finance sector that goes way beyond crypto.
Investment banks, custodian banks, asset managers, insurers and other mainstream players in financial services are now proudly stating their intentions and interest in themes relating to tokenisation, web3, digitalisation, partnerships and acquisitions.
For those fintech marketers who recognise the need to attract mainstream capital, the challenge is to understand asset owners, asset allocators and capital market participants who haven’t yet meaningfully taken those bold steps to embracing the new market environment.
Fundamentally, this is very much a marketing problem. For sales, partnerships or investment to take place, there is a critical need to understand the audience.
If digital assets innovators want to attract interest from this audience, they must present their propositions in an appropriate way.
We’ve all heard the stories of crypto bros eating sushi from naked models, but there still remains a disconnect how these two groups – the innovators and the traditionalists – market their wares.
Serious capital – the money of governments, corporations, universities, foundations and pension funds – aren’t going to interact with businesses or events that are marketed like strobe-ridden nightclubs.
They might however, respond to carefully considered approaches which emphasise safety, security, regulatory competence and predictability.
Historically, I may have used such observations to assist Rhotic’s clients but I believe that the innovations that I’ve seen from my researching this market is where the future of finance truly is.
As such, Rhotic is acting on that observation, supporting our clients by bringing together the innovators with traditional players in capital markets through a brand new community.
Capital Pioneer launches in March, in print and online. On 6 October, we will follow that with the Capital Pioneer Digital Assets Summit – bringing together both groups in one London conference.
Here, we hope, innovators and capital markets participants can share ideas, and, once and for all,
build relationships that foster a better understanding of each other’s worlds.
In the lead up to this event, I urge all market participants, whether asset managers, investment bankers, traders, technologists, payments custodians or networks to come together and be a part of this new brand.
While Capital Pioneer is not a marketing title per se, we recognise that the ability to market the future of finance is contingent on each participant understanding the needs of their peers.
Like it or not, capital markets is beginning an almighty transformation and those businesses who will navigate it successfully will be those who appreciate the need to collaborate and appreciate what their peers have to offer.
So, if you’d like to get in front of C-suite decision makers in any subset of the future of capital markets, why not drop me a line. After all, collaboration can benefit us all.