PR Week

March 28, 2018

Havas Group is launching a blockchain offering in May to support businesses and entrepreneurs trying to break through in the burgeoning space.

Havas Blockchain will launch with a focus on supporting initial coin offerings, or fundraising rounds for cryptocurrencies, but the Paris-based agency will be highly selective in its clientele.

“Let’s be honest, it’s what the co-founder of Ethereum [Vitalik Buterin] said himself: 90% of ICOs are going to fail,” said Fabien Aufrechter, a Havas Paris consultant that leads Havas Blockchain. “So the idea is to go for the 10% that are going to succeed.”

Last year, ICOs raised $5.6 billion, but about half of the 913 attempted ICOs failed. The 435 successful projects raised an average of $12.7 million.

As a result, Havas argues for “sustainable ICOs,” or ICO projects with “strong teams, a clear structure and token model, and a rigorous methodology.”

Its first project is an ICO scheduled for spring 2018 for Talao, a platform that connects freelancers and corporations, a statement said. Aufrechter said the agency won’t take on more than seven clients every year, pursuing “quality over quantity.”

Havas has adopted a practice Aufrechter called “bounty.” Essentially, the agency offers tokens to people who obtain PR actions, such as getting retweeted by two people. Since “the price of the token is based on repetition,” advertising for the token will increase its value as more people buy it.

“It’s a brand new kind of communication and it’s interesting because you can be very fast at [creating] communities,” Aufrechter said.

Read the full article here.