According to Ogilvy Spain CEO Jordi Urbea, most crypto brands disappear not because their technology is weak, but because they cannot create distinct brand identities. Speaking at the Ibiza Tech Forum 2026, Urbea explained that crypto advertising has collapsed into one template, where you can swap the logo and the message barely changes. The data supports this assessment, with between 150 and 300 new coins launching every week and roughly 10,700 remaining active, yet Bitcoin and Ethereum hold close to 75% of the total market value. This creates a situation where thousands of near-identical projects compete for a shrinking slice of attention.
Urbea emphasizes that most companies disappear because they couldn't explain the difference between one brand and another, rather than technical failures. This aligns with startup failure data from CB Insights, which found that no market need is cited in about 42% of company failures, with marketing and go-to-market problems accounting for a significant additional share. In the crypto space, more than 53% of all tokens launched since 2021 have already failed, with 2025 being the deadliest year on record. As Urbea noted, people with amazing technology and amazing ideas don't have the capacity to explain it, creating a communication gap that leads to market failure.
The CEO attributes the industry's sameness to imitation, where teams copy whatever seems to work for a rival. According to Urbea, people repeat the formulas that work for others, 'follow the leader and repeat', but by the tenth message, brands disappear. Marketing science supports this view, with Byron Sharp and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute arguing that brands grow by being distinctive rather than merely different, as buyers choose fast and rarely study fine detail. This explains why copying rivals erases distinctive assets, voice, colors, and language that allow brands to register with consumers.
Urbea's solution involves creating your own space, language, and way of working instead of borrowing formulas. Research from Kantar analyzing 40,000 brands shows a strong link between relative uniqueness and consumer willingness to pay, with distinctive brands commanding higher margins and lower price sensitivity. The CEO warns that in a market of copies, the only safe move is to be impossible to copy, as automation floods every channel with more content. For crypto founders, this lesson mirrors classic marketing wisdom where identity is what keeps a brand alive, even as technology opens doors.
