Floki Inu resumes controversial ad blitz in London

Dogecoin rival Floki Inu has begun what it calls an aggressive marketing campaign in London, plastering advertisements around the citys train stations and on its famous red buses.

Floki Inu announced the new campaign in an April 23 blog noting that the peoples cryptocurrency will start advertising on the side of 100 buses and on 203 posters in the citys underground train stations starting from Monday April 25.

The new campaign for the memecoin comes after a similar marketing blitz late in 2021 which caused a stir with London assembly member Sian Berry, who sought to ban all cryptocurrency advertisements on the city’s rail and bus networks.

Floki Inus last campaign featured signs which read Missed Doge? Get Floki. In November, Berry posted a tweet likening cryptocurrencies to gambling, adding that public services should not advertise risky schemes.

The campaign received so much negative attention that the UKs Advertising and Standards Authority (ASA) intervened, banning the ad in a ruling on March 2 as it exploited consumers’ fears of missing out, trivialized investment in cryptocurrency and took advantage of consumers inexperience.

Related: UK politicians say cryptocurrency is not an investment

However, Sabre, the pseudonymous moniker for Floki Inus Director of Marketing emphasized in the announcement that the team has no intentions of standing down despite the regulatory push back:

In a sense this second London campaign is an even bigger win for Floki and the crypto industry as a whole than the first, as our team has fought for the right to advertise our groundbreaking project to the public.

“Some wanted us banned here entirely, and the anti-crypto agenda continues to come thick and fast through smear campaigns and misinformation. The Floki Team will always stand our ground no matter what,” they added.

Earlier this year in January, the ASA continued with a raft of bans on crypto firms advertising in the UK. The regulator halted two advertisements from Crypto.com which promoted the ease of purchasing Bitcoin and earning yield rewards as they did not state the risk of the investment.

In mid-December 2021, six crypto firms were hit with ad bans by the ASA for taking advantage of consumers inexperience and also failing to demonstrate the risk of crypto investing.