The opportunity: create a more memorable TradingView brand to increase brand distinction, awareness and recall.
What I did: defined the narrative based on the American Dream, implemented this through all copy and guided visual identity, including brand ambassadors.
The results: over 400% growth, cementing TradingView as the traders’ brand.
Further reading
Why do people day trade? It’s true, some people do grow fantastically wealthy from doing it, but many also lose considerable amounts of money attempting to crack the code of the markets. If the sole aim was material riches, Lamborghinis and Rolex watches and the like, surely there are easier, less risky ways for people to reach this goal?
These were the questions I first came to face as Chief Marketing Officer when I started building a brand for TradingView, the world’s most popular trading and investing website, used by tens of millions of people worldwide. As background, the company had been going since 2013 and in that time had developed a dedicated following of hardcore traders who loved its expansive feature set (it really is incredible) and generous free and paid plans. But its brand needed updating.
Everything was pure utility, stuff that didn’t ladder up into a wider concept. And the challenge with this was that, while adored by its following, the platform was largely dismissed by pretty much everyone else, put off by the cold appearance of the site, filled with its complex stock charts and technical terminology. In short, it was creating friction to more people getting absorbed into engaging with the markets.
Objectives and research
The aim then was clear: unlock long-term growth by creating a compelling brand that spoke to this underlying motivator that so strongly seemed to drive trading behaviour, while at the same time being open and accessible to everyone who’d not yet fully set off on this journey.
A few exceptions aside, Japan being the most prominent outlier, the driver of trading behavior turned out not to be money at all, but rather freedom. Surveys and qualitative conversations with traders quickly unveiled that, yes, people want to make money, but they want to make money on their terms more than anything.
They want to be able to go to the beach, chill out in the morning and then open the laptop in the afternoon and not worry about a boss breathing down their neck. They want to own a house and provide for their families, and not stress they might lose a job and then be unable to provide for them. In essence, they trade for liberty, and they trade for freedom.
Building the brand narrative
If all this language sounds familiar, that’s because it is; it’s the basic building blocks of the American Dream, the notion that anyone, from any background, and through stint of their own efforts can enjoy the material freedom to live the life they want to live. This, then, became the underpinning vision of the world TradingView would like to see, but how does the company help bring this to reality?
Always an informed decision.
TradingView is the only platform in the world where you can get all the information you need to make informed trading and investment decisions, no matter what country you’re in, or what assets you want to trade, in a completely unbiased format. The company isn’t a broker, it has no need to create dark patterns to encourage trading behaviour – its offering to the world is information, so that, whatever your risk tolerance, you’d have the best possible information and low or no cost in which to make the best possible decision to increase your lot.
We manifested this counter-cultural, anti-Wall Street, libertarian philosophy in the tagline:
Look first / Then leap.
Looking was what you could do with TradingView, but the leaping, that’s on you. After all, a life lived on the sidelines is no life at all. This tone of voice soon pervaded all our comms, led via a very centralized system of ongoing editing for every single piece of copy new and old on the website, coming directly to me. So we had the voice, now we needed the look.
The aesthetic
Working with the most excellent John Grant and the design agency Pentagram, and of course the founders, who were involved daily, we created a striking interpretation of modern Americana to carry through the notion of the American Dream. Deep blacks, whites and electric blues combined with the elegant san serif font Euclid Circular B to create a sporty, bold brand reminiscent of American darlings like Nike.
A complete (and at the time divisive) logo change brought everything together. And finally, we added into the mix ambassadors like world-renowned free climber Alex Honnold: who is perhaps the most perfect example of calculated risk and reward to pursue both complete and utter freedom, and spectacular achievement through effort and hard work.
The results
Despite the bear market at the time of writing, TradingView continues to do phenomenally well, garnering consistent growth, approaching nearly 40 M monthly users in 190+ countries. While I was there, we experienced 400% growth, a $3bn valuation, and reams of positive fan engagement. It’s clear the company is on a special track to winning the hearts and minds of market enthusiasts globally, and I’m really proud of the role I played in accelerating that.