A Coinbase executive said the viral ad for the exchange was invented by his staff. He disagreed
On February 14, Inglewood hosted the so-called Super Bowl, i.e. the deciding game of the US National Football League. One of the traditions of the game is to show new commercials, which are very expensive to broadcast at this time. Be that as it may, cryptocurrency companies have joined the trend and shown quite a few videos. However, there were questions about the authorship of one of them. We tell you more about the situation.
As is tradition, let's start with an explanation. The Super Bowl can be compared to a bank holiday in the US, as the sport is very popular in the country. Therefore, a huge number of citizens follow the broadcast, and airtime is very expensive during this period.
Specifically, according to sources, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase spent around $14 million to show its promotional video - which is a lot of money in such a short span.
As we covered in a separate piece, many cryptocurrency companies, represented by exchanges Coinbase, FTX, eToro, Bitbuy and others showed their own ads during the event. In fact, the FTX platform decided to give some lucky viewers a certain amount of BTC, which was equivalent to the time of the broadcast.
Anyway, the real hit of the show was the Coinbase advertisement. It consisted of a QR code that led to the registration page of the platform, and all the registered users were promised a $15 bonus. The QR code itself moved around the screen in the style of an old DVD player screensaver.
The advertisement created a furor, but it was not the only thing that made it memorable. Finally, because of the influx of visitors exchanger stopped working, that is, the incoming traffic overloaded it banal. This was the reason for jokes inside cryptocurrency community, because as we already noted, the company’s broadcasting costs were huge, but exchange’s servers failed anyway.
The video looked as follows.
However, the video became a hit anyway and attracted a lot of attention. As we have already noted, after the broadcast, the Coinbase app soared to the second position in the ranking of crypto apps in the American App Store. And the download popularity growth of the app was 309 per cent.
Crypto app’s rise in popularity after the Super Bowl ad
Since then, though, the figure has dropped significantly. Here’s its current version.
Coinbase app ranking in the US App Store
Who came up with the Coinbase ad
The day before the head of Coinbase Brian Armstrong said that the idea of a floating QR code was born within the company. Allegedly it happened after the exchange representatives rejected many of the proposed options for a commercial. Armstrong revealed this on Twitter, reports Decrypt.
Coinbase ad at the Super Bowl
However, the replica was not accepted. According to Kristen Cavallo, head of marketing at The Martin Agency, things were a bit off. Here’s her cue.
The idea actually came from a presentation that our agency showed to your team.
Cavallo even pointed out the dates and relevant pages of the presentation that were shown. In the end, she made it clear that Brian Armstrong was wrong.
Coinbase chief marketing officer Kate Ruch intervened in what was happening. She stated that while The Martin Agency did promote the idea of a floating QR code along with other agencies, the idea “didn’t fit the concept that the exchange was waiting for”. That said, Accenture Interactive staff then decided to insert the QR code into a popular meme from the days of the DVD – and here Coinbase management agreed.
It should be noted that the meme with the DVD splash screen is really popular. For example, this joke video, which gained more than three millions of views, is worth of note.
In any case, Ruch’s remark was not in line with Armstrong’s remarks, who noted that “this ad was not created by an agency”. Kate clarified this situation as well.
The interaction with our creative partner Accenture Interactive (AI) was flawless. So much so, in fact, that during the presentation our CEO really thought we were one team.
In the end, as Armstrong later responded, he “didn’t realise the full contribution of the companies” outside of Coinbase. In other words, he acknowledged the fallacy of the first statement.
Overall, Coinbase received a really successful ad campaign. According to Kate Ruch, more than 20 million people scanned the said QR code for 60 seconds. So the exchange definitely got its portion of attention.
We believe that Coinbase's video at the Super Bowl can indeed be considered a success. The cryptocurrency exchange attracted new users and became a news hero - though not always positive. Obviously, the author of the splash page idea deserves bonuses, as the trading platform has clearly achieved its goals.
What do you think about it? Share your opinion in our millionaires’ cryptochat. There, we’ll talk about other topics related to the blockchain and decentralisation industry.
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