Why Most Crypto Brands Disappear, According to Ogilvy Spain’s CEO

Most crypto brands disappear because they cannot make anyone feel the difference, not because their technology is weak, according to Jordi Urbea, CEO of Ogilvy Spain. He says sameness, not code, is the real killer.

Urbea spoke with BeInCrypto at the Ibiza Tech Forum 2026. He has spent 25 years helping brands stand out. His verdict on crypto marketing is blunt, and the data backs it up.

Every Crypto Brand Looks the Same

In an expert council interview with BeInCrypto, Urbea argued that crypto advertising has collapsed into one template. Swap the logo, he says, and the message barely changes.

“If you look at the crypto sector and all the advertising, the ads are exactly the same. You change the logo, and it’s the same.”

The numbers explain why sameness spreads so easily. Between 150 and 300 new coins launch every week, and roughly 10,700 remain active. Yet Bitcoin and Ethereum hold close to 75% of the total market value.

So thousands of near-identical projects compete for a shrinking slice of attention. In that crowd, a copied message vanishes on contact.

“It’s very strange to find one company that says, ‘This crypto is completely different.’ The rest are just repeating, message by message. And people say it’s boring, it’s all the same.”

Great Technology, No Story

For Urbea, the failure is rarely technical. He has watched strong projects die for a simpler reason.

“For many years I collaborated with many startups, and most of them disappeared because they couldn’t explain the difference between one brand and another. There are people with amazing technology and amazing ideas, but they don’t have the capacity to explain it.”

Startup data backs him almost exactly. CB Insights found the top reason companies fail is no market need, cited in about 42% of cases. Marketing and go-to-market problems account for a further large share.

Running out of money tops some lists at 70%, yet that is the final symptom. The root cause usually sits upstream, in a value no one managed to communicate.

Crypto shows the pattern at an extreme scale. More than 53% of all tokens launched since 2021 have already failed, and 2025 was the deadliest year on record.

Most of those projects were not undone by broken code. They simply never gave the market a reason to remember them.

The Follow-the-Leader Trap

Urbea believes imitation is the mechanism behind the sameness. Teams copy whatever seems to work for a rival.

“In some cases people repeat the formulas that work for others. ‘It goes well for that company, so I’ll repeat it.’ Follow the leader and repeat. But by the tenth message, your brand disappears, your message disappears, and you’re a big ship lost in the night.”

Marketing science adds a useful twist here. Byron Sharp and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute argue brands grow by being distinctive rather than merely different, because buyers choose fast and rarely study fine detail.

That view sharpens Urbea’s point instead of breaking it. Copying rivals erases the distinctive assets, the voice, colors, and language that let a brand register at all. Without them, recall collapses.

The same logic haunts Web3 marketers who chase trends. When every campaign borrows the same hooks, none of them stick.

Building a Brand Nobody Can Copy

Jordi Urbea has a direct remedy. Stop borrowing formulas and build your own.

“If you create your space, you create your language, you create your own way to work. That is my humble advice.”

The payoff is measurable. Kantar analyzed 40,000 brands and found a strong link between relative uniqueness and the amount consumers are willing to pay. Distinctive brands command higher margins and lower price sensitivity.

Research also shows that fresh, varied advertising lifts recall, while repetition fades fast. A distinct voice is therefore an asset, not a cost.

For crypto founders, the lesson mirrors classic marketing wisdom. Technology may open the door, but identity is what keeps a brand alive.

As automation floods every channel with more content, Urbea’s warning grows louder. In a market of copies, the only safe move is to be impossible to copy.

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