The recent public 'debate' between Elon Musk & Michael Saylor over at Microstrategy and various other large crypto asset stakeholders regarding the eco and green aspects of crypto has resulted in some kind of large BTC miner conference that set some eco goals for the blockchain as a whole. Clean energy is essential for blockchain and Hive does a good job by default, however, in case you checked out Michael Saylor's announcement and were baffled at seeing him mention Hive...
... There's something I should point out. ;)
When this Hive blockchain was named, I and others in the marketing world pointed out that the phrase 'hive blockchain' was already used in this space and by a large mining corporation who are well known. We were shouted down by those who did not understand the implications for the digital marketing of 'this' Hive.
We will now forever have a contest of perception and actual Search Engine keyword domination between our Hive and the other Hive. In this case I am willing to bet that plenty of people will assume that Saylor was talking about 'our' Hive blockchain and might be wondering what exactly is going on.
If you open the @ HiveBlockchain link in his tweet, you will quickly see that he is referring to the 'other' Hive blockchain: https://twitter.com/HiveBlockchain
Marketing is about differentiation and that means BEING DIFFERENT and having your branding reflect that. This is for a reason, but hey - common sense is not for everyone it seems! :)
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
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I was one of them. Term Hive is too widely used in everyday life and thus unrecognizable like a brand.
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I just looked back through the Discord discussion at the time and the general counter was that it would be the dApps that would be marketed, while Hive would be a 'background technology'. That's fine in principle, but in reality the dApps tend to not have the kind of funds that the blockchain itself has available. Additionally, Hive itself - being the technology - IS what inspires people in a lot of ways. People aren't queuing up to buy Bitcoin because there are nice UIs to buy it - they are buying it because of it's underlying technology/blockchain. I appreciate that dApps can market under their own brand, but there will always be a general conflict in communication and branding due to the existing use of Hive in the same industry.
Just because VW car parts are used in Seat cars, doesn't mean that the branding of VW is irrelevant and that they can rename VW to BMW. lol
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Yikes. That is... less than optimal.
Still, it gets me thinking. Interesting branding and PR challenge here...
"What are effective ways to create fulfilling market differentiation in a product that shares a name with another brand in it's space? Is it possible without changing the name? If so, what methods are recommended? Has it ever been done in the past? Is it even legal for two brands with near-identical names to exist in the same industry, or does one of them have to change, legally?"
Food for thought, great post, thank you.
(Also might be of interest to @lordbutterfly and his Ignite marketing efforts.)
'This' Hive blockchain is an actual blockchain, whereas the other 'Hive Blockchain' is a company mining completely different blockchains - so to some extent the argument was that these projects are not directly competing in the same market. However, they are competing in search engines and in public mindspace, just because of the same name being used.
The general approach appears to be to try to market the dApps as a priority, which does to some extent overcome the problem - but from an investment perspective, the name is still clashing.
In general, brandnames are only reserved within certain sectors, based on a trademark being issued/owned: https://lisamerriam.com/shared-brand-names-for-different-products/
I am not aware of a trademark being issued for this Hive Blockchain, but I am also not seeing any evidence of the other Hive Blockchain having registered a trademark either. Additionally, the other Hive Blockchain seems to only work in mining, which is something that this Hive Blockchain doesn't do. I am not a trademark lawyer and also not in the US - but afaik the absence of a direct clash at this moment, means that the two projects can co-exist legally. If this Hive wanted to introduce mining there could be a problem - or if the other group wanted to launch their own blockchain, there could also be a problem. My 2 satoshis.
I understand. Pretty sure the similarities between them are way closer than either company would prefer, which is enough to initiate litigation attempts sooner or later, as far as I know. Whether successful or not is another story, lol.
Regardless, I agree with your post's assessment that it's an undesirable situation, even if only for SEO purposes, and figured I'd share some of the PR/branding questions that came up if I were to navigate such a situation myself.
Thanks for the insights! 🙏
Even if it was not for Hive Blockchain Technologies, naming this blockchain Hive was a crucial mistake.
There are other symbolic issues with the word 'hive', yes. However, even a controversial concept such as a 'hive mind' can be mitigated with intelligent marketing. I am interested to see what Ignite marketing achieve with Hive, having been paid a large amount of money from our worker proposal system to do so. I see they have a press release out now and are about to run twitter/fb ads. It seems they are approaching the situation by promoting dApps instead of promoting Hive as the main focus.
If they are worth their money, they will suggest a rebrand first thing.
it was in the millions? how much suddenly after over a year is now going into marketing?
the same names with no new blood and seems that unfortunately the price reflects that hence people flocking to communities imho
I first thought "hivemind" immediately on the name and looked it up and bingo it was the first hive , from what I've read Hive's social and blogging /content creating is way on the back burner as is onboarding people who would do that, they want investors to put money in to get APR, it's a bit too 'banky' for me and agree with your astute and rather obvious observations that some just don't grasp
.......when you kill off or starve off or run off or bore off the old schoolers and middle class things can implode, people at the top keep forgetting who the hell put them there or migrated over here and invested etc.
there's a real echo chamber/ tone deaf thing going on but then again some just dgaf op/ed
The name is a definite problem.
Hivemind is a name people also need to research...
There are about 2 other entities with the name Hive.....honestly it’s urrghhh!
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Mmm I didn't see this tweet exchange yet but I remember when Hive first launched there was backlash from Hive Blockchain mining firm. That's like one of the first things you check when setting something new up - uniqueness of name and if it will clash with other businesses out there?
Still, if that brings more people to this Hive then it can't be a bad thing?
Yeah, though it's unlikely to bring anyone to Hive here imo.
Hmm, yeah, probably wishful thinking! A real shame, could have come up with a unique name for the new chain but it is what it is...
I wanted it to be named after peaked. Hive just makes us sound like a bunch of non-thinking mouth breathers.
fyi:
First cvoid vaccinated UK senior dies from stroke
I don't think they are doing a very good job of hiding in plain site, considering they have just agreed to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a high profile marketing campaign that names Hive in some of the biggest news outlets.
The initiative was voted in by the hive blockchain stakeholders, which to some extent requires support from those involved in the original branding too.