Bengals, Rams and Bitcoin: Crypto Ads Invade the Super Bowl

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Who will dominate Super Bowl LVI? Madison Avenue money is on crypto.

The largest US-based exchange, Coinbase Global Inc., COIN 7.24% will operate a spot, according to a person familiar with the matter, along with exchanges FTX and Crypto.com. Canadian exchange Bitbuy has an announcement during the broadcast in Canada.

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Advertising during the grill game remains the most expensive on television: Thirty seconds of NBC airtime can cost up to $7 million. As such, Super Bowl ads often highlight industries that have money to spend. In the past, ads for internet companies and erectile dysfunction flooded the airwaves. Now it’s the crypto exchanges hoping to become nationally known.

“It’s a way to get our name out there,” said FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. “In terms of venues to do this, it’s hard to find a more hyped one than this.”

A two-year manic crypto rally and venture capital investment filled the coffers of crypto companies. Venture capital firms poured a record $30 billion into the sector in 2021, and new public company Coinbase Global reported nine-month earnings of $2.8 billion in its fiscal year.

The crypto industry is new to sports sponsorships, but it spends more annually than airlines, quick-service restaurants and liquor companies, according to IEG, a sponsorship consultancy. IEG expects spending by crypto companies on sports sponsorships in North America to total over $160 million this year.

“This is a staggering increase in spending,” said Peter Laatz, global managing director of IEG.

Many call decentralized finance, or DeFi, the “Wild West of finance.” This growing industry aims to provide automated banking services for cryptocurrencies to everyone, without intermediaries. But DeFi is still in its infancy, which means there are risks. WSJ explains. Photo illustration: Tammy Lian/WSJ

“They seek to educate people because not many people have heard of these companies, and there is still some confusion about what crypto is,” he said.

FTX and Crypto.com were particularly aggressive. Crypto.com ran ads in Formula 1 racing, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and professional basketball. Last fall, he struck a 20-year, $700 million deal for the naming rights to the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Its recent ad campaign features actor Matt Damon.

FTX has deals with teams in the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball, as well as players such as Stephen Curry. In March 2021, he paid $135 million to buy the naming rights to the Heat’s arena in Miami.

The world’s largest exchange, Binance, is launching an ad campaign on Monday criticizing its peers running Super Bowl ads and hiring celebrities to promote cryptocurrencies. Binance will encourage people to learn about crypto investing.

“I think it’s great that the industry is taking over the Super Bowl,” said Changpeng Zhao, Founder and CEO of Binance. At the same time, he said he wanted to make sure people coming to crypto understood the risks involved.

Ironically, Binance’s new ads feature celebrities: Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler and Colombian singer J Balvin deliver this message.

Intuit tried to capitalize on the crypto wave in its latest ad for its TurboTax software. Photo: TurboTax

As crypto companies increase their ad spend, brands have launched crypto-themed campaigns or marketing gimmicks to capitalize on the buzz surrounding cryptocurrencies.

Miller Lite plays an advertisement during the game, but not on the broadcast itself. Rather, the ad will be visible inside a “bar” on virtual reality platform Decentraland, a variant of the metaverse. Manufacturer Miller Molson Coors Beverage Co. TAP.A 3.04% is unable to run ads on the official show because rival Anheuser-Busch InBev SA has long held exclusive beer advertising rights in the game.

The National Football League itself also plays with this angle, offering game participants commemorative non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, tied to their physical ticket.

TurboTax, the tax preparation software created by Intuit Inc., made a splash during the NFL playoffs showing a man suffering from the ups and downs of crypto investing, which caused him a lot of confusion as to whether he is a millionaire or not. TurboTax expert chimes in: “Crypto is complicated, but as a tax expert with experience in crypto, you can hand over your taxes to me.”

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What are your favorite Super Bowl commercials? How do they influence your purchasing decisions? Join the conversation below.

The number of Super Bowl crypto ads is unlikely to top the 2000 dot-com list, when more than a dozen different internet companies aired ads during Super Bowl XXXIV, at the height of the dot-com bubble. . The best known at the time was Pets.com, largely because of its sock puppet advertising campaign. The company went bankrupt several months later, as did some of the other internet-focused advertisers.

While this is a caveat for crypto companies, there are still “Dot-Com Bowl” advertisers, such as WebMD and Monster.com.

FTX’s Mr. Bankman-Fried expects his peers to last as well.

“I suspect there are a fair number of companies that are going to be successful,” he said.

Write to Paul Vigna at [email protected] and Suzanne Vranica at [email protected]

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