Creativity and innovation are the key ingredients in a successful marketing campaign, that’s what the marketing gurus love to ‘holla’ at us. Not forgetting the endless brainstorming sessions in the boardroom to generate ideas. Well here’s one directly from the shop floor. cTrader’s version of the Harlem Shake!
With the FX markets suffering as the product hits maturity and a recent downward shift in trading volumes. A Cyprus based technology firm, Spotware Systems (cTrader), adds a pinch of humour to the serious world of financial markets by participating in the popular Harlem Shake.
With the pressure to succeed in the congested platform space, one of the firms developers, George Moschoviti, was scratching his head while over-dosing on coffee and thought of; Forex = innovation = Harlem Shake!
“I so happened to pass George’s desk and saw what he was doing, it was an instant hit” said Ilya Holeu, Head of Sales and Marketing of Spotware Systems.
Spotware Systems (developed cTrader) is a development firm based in Cyprus, its Trading Platform aims to bridge the gap between the retail and institutional environment by offering a state of the art trading solutions on its ECN trading terminal. “we’re all about innovation” adds Ilya.
Harlem Shake is a comedy dance that exploded on the internet; it’s called an internet meme – something that gets popular via the internet. The Harlem Shake shares similarities with the growth of FX trading over the last decade. Since the inception of electronic trading in the late 90’s financial markets were revolutionised as products such as FX, CFD, spread betting and binary options took off.
Left to right: Simon Bolvig Mark Vice President EMEA Spotware Systems, Ilya Holeu, Head of Sales and Marketing of Spotware Systems, Andrey Pavlov, CEO of Spotware Systems & Michael Greenberg CEO Forex Magnates
Cost per acquisition rates have been spiking and firms in the FX and CFD markets are exploring new ways to enter a trader’s mind frame. The marriage between comedy and trading is a great sign of creativity.
Mark Mathieu, a broker at Tradenext says “this is funny” with a relatively large smile as he watches the Harlem Shake cTrader style!
Sid Shah, Managing Director of Sniro a web development consulting firm in London says “it's great who ever made it, it’s nice creativity and good thinking”.
Andrey Pavlov, CEO of Spotware Systems says “Harlem Shake in a trading platform? Cool. Finally we get to laugh about something other than users requesting a withdrawal from a demo account. But personally I am more excited about the recent release of Email Alerts, Deal Map and Free Chart Mode in our HTML5 cTrader Web.”
The marketing milestone can be witnessed by simply using cTrader’s web based platform:
- Go to cTrader Web (pc or mobile): https://ct.spotware.com/
- Create Demo account (3 fields only with any data) and hit Login after
- In the "Search" field type in "HARLEM"
- And Enjoy
The Harlem Shake episode has seen more than 4,000 videos uploaded on to youtube with the dance being performed. Even celebrities have caught up on the act; NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal was seen performing the Shake in a locker room.
The Harlem Shake hasn’t been fun and glory for all; a team of Australian miners were sacked for performing the dance at work. A report in the ‘West Australian newspaper’ stated that the miners lost their six-figure salaries over the stunt in the Agnew Gold Mine last week.
Going viral on social media can be tricky, at least for cTrader they expect to see an influx of demo accounts.
