You know that cryptocurrency is making it big when some of the largest trading platforms – such as Crypto.com, Coinbase, eToro, etc. – spent $7 million for 30 seconds of airtime to grab the attention of the viewers during one of the biggest media events of the year. Indeed, “Crypto Bowl”, as fans are calling it, was an impressive display of marketing ingenuity from an industry that is already known for generating a lot of buzz.
Crypto companies worked with celebrities as advertisement figures – from Lebron James and Kevin Durant to Matt Damon and Larry David. It was Coinbase’s ad, however, that truly deserves a shoutout. In a throwback to the old school bouncing DVD logo screensaver, with a 90s video game audio track, Coinbase used a QR code which gave users $15 in free bitcoin if they create an account before February 15; it also entered participants in a $3 million giveaway. With an estimated audience of 117 million viewers, the ad instantly went viral and caused the site to temporarily crash.
Coinbase reported “more traffic than we’ve ever encountered,” which meant it needed to “throttle traffic for a few minutes,” Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee said in a tweet. “We had over 20M hits on our landing page in one minute. That was historic and unprecedented. We also saw engagement that was 6 times higher than our previous benchmarks.”
Even Bud Light got in on the action, featuring the first ever NFTs and DAO in a Super Bowl commercial (which came days after Bud Light entered into the non-fungible token space with Bud Light NEXT NFT).
Coinbase’s advertisement shot to the top of AdAge and Adweek’s lists of the best Super Bowl 2022 commercials. On LinkedIn, marketing experts called it “brilliant”, saying it “changed the game” for Super Bowl ads.
We tip our hats to Coinbase, and the other crypto currency companies as well, for capitalizing on an opportunity to engage both crypto fans and a broader audience who is less familiar with the industry. While people are debating the effectiveness of the ads, they succeeded at the very least in generating conversation – which is generally a good thing in the crypto market. For instance, Meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu have witnessed their prices soar based almost solely on internet hype.
Between “Crypto Bowl” and other recent crypto-related news – such as Uber eventually allowing users to pay for rides using cryptocurrency and a new cryptocurrency token named Raccoon – we remain confident that this is only just the beginning for the cryptocurrency industry.
Read more about our thoughts on the cryptocurrency industry here.