During this year’s Super Bowl, Coinbase made the first significant crypto impact with a daring advertisement that featured nothing but a QR code hovering around the screen for 60 seconds.
At the end of the commercial, a Coinbase URL flashed swiftly, leading to a webpage offering new clients $15 in free Bitcoin if they join up within the next two days.
Coinbase needed a time-out
The company’s Super Bowl commercial QR code is linked to a Coinbase Bitcoin giveaway website. The Coinbase commercial seems to be a hit—perhaps a little too much. People reported shortly after the show aired that the company’s website and app had failed.
The outage didn’t last long, as the Coinbase website, including its homepage, was back up a few minutes later. Surojit, chief product officer at Coinbase, tweeted that they had more traffic than they had encountered.
Meanwhile, the commercial has generated a lot of attention on social media, which will no doubt satisfy Coinbase’s marketing team.
Others remarked on the ad’s extremely affordable production expenses when compared to a traditional Super Bowl ad. And, despite Coinbase’s technical disaster, one crypto analyst complimented the commercial as innovative and original:
A lot of people showed appreciation towards Coinbase and their unique ad.
The Coinbase commercial was far from the only one that aired. Rival FTX debuted at the Super Bowl with a commercial starring comedian Larry David, while Bud Light and Turbo Tax both used cryptocurrencies in their commercials.
Other businesses, such as Meta, were eager to capitalize on Coinbase’s move. Shortly after Coinbase’s ad went up, Meta’s Quest account tweeted its own bouncing QR code, which led to the company’s Foo Fighters-led VR afterparty, which is set to take place after the game.
In light of all the crypto haul that happened at the super bowl, Binance went out and put an awareness campaign urging the users to do their own research. They also took a hit at Coinbase’s $15 BTC giveaway with a tweet. Binance wrote to the community not to let $15 get in their way of doing research.