Despite the fact this looks like a 386 running Windows 3.0, odds are that the average 386 would explode if it mined crypto.
Famous people telling you that cryptocurrency is an opportunity you don’t want to miss out on is an argument that’s already pretty suspect.
And naturally, that’s a line of thinking an event like the Super Bowl encourages. After all, when’s the next time you’re going to be able to throw so much money at that approach to getting people interested in your key offering?
Which, of course, means that Sunday night was a bit of a coming-out party for crypto among mainstream consumers. Part of the reason for that is that the companies that operate the crypto services are extremely well-funded—Crypto.com, famously, took over the name of the Staples Center, just a few months ago. And the biggest star to currently play in that arena, LeBron James, was more than happy to lend his name and life story to the crypto machine:
Now, the thing is, as you may know, not everyone is skilled or famous enough to be the best at every task laid out in front of them. LeBron is not a particularly great actor, for example. So putting an example of “hey, LeBron took a chance and see where it got him,” feels like a dangerous precedent to argue for.
It was so predictable that a direct competitor of Crypto.com, Binance, launched a campaign encouraging you to be responsible with how you invest … and not to listen to celebrities for advice. (They used celebrities, of course. Fight fire with J. Balvin.)
Equally dangerous, although much more entertaining, was Larry David’s ad for FTX, a company that literally didn’t even exist before 2019. The gimmick is fun—David, a famed contrarian, attempts to shut down a number of important historic ideas, from the light bulb, to the toilet, to the wheel. But ultimately, it says the same thing as the LeBron ad: Don’t miss out.
David, who apparently has never done a commercial before this, must have been paid handsomely (and word is that he worked on an extremely tight schedule to get this out the door), but as everyone knows, the best way to express crypto-skepticism is to not take part at all.
Completely dangerous in a different way was Coinbase’s decision to go experimental, buy a minute of airtime, and use it to float a QR code, DVD-style, across the screen.
On the one hand, Coinbase deserves props for creating an ad that will likely discourage those not already in the know from trying to make the leap. (It also makes for great crowdsourced videos.) But on the other, it breaks a key rule of digital security: Don’t just randomly install a vector onto your machine if you don’t know what it is. One can only imagine how bad that could have gone: Scan in the QR code during the Super Bowl and suddenly you’re part of a botnet.
Really, the biggest failure Coinbase faced was immediate downtime. The anti-marketing approach was so effective that it briefly shuttered the site and became a solid dunking opportunity.
Honestly, I am not really a Super Bowl guy, though I find the marketing stuff entirely fascinating. And this feels like the year of crypto, where advertisers are getting more aggressive than usual to convince you to put some of your money into prospecting.
That’s different from other bubble-led Super Bowl events, in which really the company was making the big risk by running an ad. (Think, how a year ago, some ad-makers were trying to pitch us oat milk.) Now, we’re putting the onus on the consumer. And that seems dangerous.
A direct comparison point to this is the rise of sports betting ads, which have brought in a number of celebrities to promote the idea of spending money on the big game—including Larry David’s Curb co-star J.B. Smoove, who appeared in Caesars Sportsbook’s first Super Bowl ad.
There might need to be regulations on these ads to discourage good people from getting screwed when the bubble pops.
Time limit given ⏲: 30 minutes
Time left on clock ⏲: 5 minutes, 25 seconds
