đ crypto bowl 2022
Crypto went all out for Super Bowl LVI. But will it be enough?
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The Big Story
Super Bowl, the annual playoff championship game of the National Football League, is one of the few events where viewers actually look forward to watching commercials. While this year saw the same ol' tradition of booze and car giants promoting their brands, a new class of companies made itself known in the grandest way possible.
Super Bowl LVI was all about crypto.Â
During Sundayâs broadcast, crypto firms forked over almost $7 million for 30 seconds of television airtime in hopes of winning over mainstream viewersâ attention and trust. This was by far the most expensive ad spends in Super Bowl history.
Take, for instance, NBA legend LeBron James' ad for Crypto.com, where he talks to his younger self about the future. Or comedian Larry David's 'Donât Miss Out' ad for FTX dismissing life-changing technologies as they were being invented. Both commercials hinted at not taking chances on the next big thing, which they believe to be crypto.
But it was Coinbase's minimalist 'Less talk, more Bitcoin' ad that emerged as the most popular of all. The campaign, which was a clever take on the iconic bouncing DVD logo meme, received so much traction that it temporarily knocked out its app. (Coinbase reported a staggering 20 million hits on its website in just one minute!)
Even tech companies didnât want to miss out on this crypto-hyped action. Amazon's 'Mind Reader' spot for Alexa featuring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost demonstrated the popular virtual assistant's mindreading capabilities. Meanwhile, Meta, which spent nearly $10 billion building its vision of the metaverse, promoted its Quest 2 VR headsets. The ad features an animatronic dog and its pink-tentacled monster friend, separated in their physical reality but reunited via the headsets.
A blast from the past?Â
The ad spending by crypto and tech firms is reminiscent of the 'Dotcom Super Bowl' of 2000 when 14 tech giants purchased around 20% of the advertising real estate, paying an average of $2.2 million per spot. A few years later, their stocks slumped, and many ended up either defunct or were acquired by another company. Today, only four of those firms remain operational.
Experts believe that crypto might suffer a similar fate as the majority of ads heavily marketed FOMO instead of selling the actual vision for crypto. âHow are you going to explain non-fungible tokens in a way thatâs understandable and portrays some of the risks attached to it?,â asked Columbia Business School professor R.A. Farrokhnia. But most importantly, these companies failed to mention the practical uses of crypto and other blockchain-based technologies and how transformative they can be in improving people's everyday lives.
This is probably why despite spending millions making such flashy, celebrity-studded commercials, the prices of popular digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ether flatlined shortly after the ads aired. In fact, the total crypto market was down nearly 2% on Monday but has since recouped its losses.
The ultimate success of these mega commercials is entirely dependent on how the non-tech audiences accept the narrative offered by crypto companies. Regardless, their message remains clear: crypto is hot and everyone should buy it. Those refusing to do so will miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.Â
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