"Super Bowl crypto ads are as predatory as celebs hawking cigarettes" - The Guardian
CRYPTO HEADLINE DEEP DIVE
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"Super Bowl crypto ads are as predatory as celebs hawking cigarettes" The Guardian
The Super Bowl 56 spectacle was one for the ages, the LA Rams were victorious over the Cincinnati Bengals, Mattress Mack lost $4 million dollars while Drake pulled off a big time BitCoin bet. The half time concert showcased the ageless Dr Dre alongside Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J Blige and Kendrick Lamar in a hip hop extravaganza. A historical event for all the right reasons, but not if you were to read about it in the press.
Cryptocurrency has really come to the forefront over the last few years and if you believed what you read in the press, you'd believe that it was going in a dangerous direction.
Mainstream Media seem to have pooled gambling and crypto investing together by discussing both in negative light knowing the negative connotations of betting. To the casual person who has had some exposure to cryptocurrency via MM, gambling and crypto are one in the same.
Super Bowl 56 has been tagged as "Crypto Bowl" and compared to the "Dotcom Bowl" of 2000, but is it fair and why are Mainstream Media angling it as a bad thing?
Was It Really "Crypto Bowl"?
The Guardian likened Super Bowl 56's commercial run to the 2000 "Dotcom Bowl" which was famous for advertising several early internet companies and hints at them contributing to the Dotcom bubble of the late 90's and early 2000's. If you were to cast a lazy eye over this claim, you'd likely believe the insinuations, especially as several of the companies that advertised during Super Bowl 2000, are now defunct. Companies such as pets.com and E-Stamp.com didn't have any sort of long term success and are no longer trading. Take pets.com as a perfect example for MM to use as FUD fodder - they began trading in November 1998 and ceased business in November 2000. With hindsight and context of the time, this would almost be considered the equivalent of a pump and dump company by todays reckoning.
The Guardian claim Crypto adverts "are as dangerous as predatory celebrities hawking cigarettes" which compare the appearance of celebrities (Lebron James, Larry David specifically)in the crypto commercials to well known figures of the 40's, 50's and 60's advertising positive cigarette sentiment. This plays on the well-known effects of cigarette smoke as well as the hollow celebrity profile which sees a vast amount of todays household names, backing products they don't believe in for cash. On the surface, headlines and articles of this type will achieve their goal of generating fear and diminishing trust but with more people beginning to turn away from MM, it may well help people distinguish what is and what isn't trustworthy in a news sense.
The adverts in question were provided by arguably the biggest crypto exchanges right now including Coinbase, Crypto.com, Etoro and FTX. It's worth saying that out of the 72 commercials run during Super Bowl 56, 3/4 adverts were arguably the most impactful and news generating. Take the Crypto.com commercial which saw Lebron James fielding questions from his younger self. Knowing what LeBron has gone on to achieve, the advert does hint at crypto investing being something that could be fruitful without outright promising it.
The Coinbase QR code advert was described as "generational" by experts and observers, it saw a QR code bouncing across the screen, changing colours while a simple jingle played along. With the rise of QR code utility, viewers knew exactly what to do and raised their smartphones with no less than 20 million hits in the space of 30 seconds, resulting in a short app crash for Coinbase. A small hindrance for a potentially massive upside which looks to have paid off with the app jumping to number two in the App Store after the Super Bowl spot.
Dotcom Bowl Vs Crypto Bowl
Waking up to Twitter, the Tuesday after Super Bowl 56, there seemed to be a lot of negativity on my usual "Moonboy" timeline. There were prominent discussions about crypto being a Ponzi scheme and somehow, everyone I came across agreed. Although there are arguments to agree that cryptocurrency might just be a Ponzi scheme, there are also many who believe this not to be the case. With information to back both sides, it's difficult to separate fact from FUD.
Looking at the headline and cross referencing the claim against the commercials, it's hard to make a case for this. Yes, there were commercials advertising cryptocurrency exchanges but to brand the game as "Crypto Bowl" would be a stretch if we were to look at the numbers.
Out of the 72 commercials that were run during the Super Bowl, only four were specifically related to Cryptocurrency. That accounts for only 5.55% of all the advertisements, so from a numbers perspective, it wouldn't make sense to make such a claim. As well as that, there were only two gambling commercials throughout the procession compared to 17 junk food and alcohol adverts. This could have quite easily been called "Junk Bowl" but that wouldn't grab the headlines quite so well.
Rather, it's more likely the impact the commercials had which really caught the attention of the media and the reason for the branding, being that the news was awash with the bouncing Coinbase QR code from the moment it ended.
If the crypto exchanges that advertised are to go on and replicate companies from the "Dotcom Bowl" it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Looking at the company roll call from 2000, 9 out of 14 companies who bought advertising space, are either still alive and thriving or were absorbed into bigger companies and still exist, in spirit at least.
In Conclusion
Mass adoption of cryptocurrency and block chain technology is inevitable, as inevitable as the world adopting the internet back when "Dotcom Bowl" ran their adverts. It's understandable that Mainstream Media would prefer to err on the side of FUD considering we know who their paymasters are. One thing that the last few years of press coverage has helped people to recognise is that not all news is accurate and usually depends on what angle it's aiming at achieving. The fact the article compares online betting websites to crypto exchanges says everything about the surface level assertions and is a danger to those who will be left behind, kicking themselves for listening to warnings like this without doing their own research. Rule number 1 in crypto is to do your own research and without imparting financial advice, that is what #HODLFOMOFUD would agree with.
#HODLFOMOFUD RATING - FUD article
NUMBERS;
72 individual adverts during Super Bowl 56 (LVI)
including
2 betting adverts (Draft Kings & Caesars Sportsbook) 2.7%
4 Crypto Specific adverts (Coinbase, Crypto.com Etoro, FTX) (5.55% of Adverts)
2 Investment (Greenlight, E Trade) 2.7%
11 Junk Food adverts (Red Bull, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Doritos, Uber Eats x 2, Oikos, Lays, Pringles, Taco Bell, Hellmans Mayo, GrubHub) 13.8%
6 Alcohol adverts (Budweiser x 3, Michelob x 2, Cutwater) 8.33%
Super Bowl Year 2000
Top 5 Commercials & their fate;
E Trade - thriving
pets.com - defunct
Nuveen Investments - thriving
Budweiser - thriving
EDS - defunct
9/14 Companies who advertised are either still active or were purchased and rebranded/ absorbed into the parent company.
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