Was that Super Bowl ad worth the money?

The fact that you know exactly which one I’m talking about suggests that yes, it was.

From a marketing perspective, it was a brilliant brand moment. The already iconic Less talk, more Bitcoin campaign offered Super Bowl viewers $15 in bitcoin to join Coinbase by 15 February 2022, which coincidently was #MilesDDay in SA.

The actual ad? A simple QR code bouncing cheerfully across the screen for a full 60 seconds that you could scan to sign up.

Critics called it the worst ad ever and suggested it had been some “Don Draper-ass pitch” by an agency and a waste of money.

Love it or loathe it, the Dons and Peggys of Accenture Interactive must have been ecstatic when the ad won a Super Clio for creative excellence. It had the whole world buzzing and millions of people scanning.

But was it worth the $14-million investment? Especially if you consider that it crashed the Coinbase app shortly afterwards and sent its stock plummeting when markets opened on Monday, 14 February 2022?

What happened next suggests that it was.

Not only did Coinbase’s stocks rally and rise by 4% by midday on 14 February 2022, but it also brought 20 million users to its website in one minute. What brand has ever achieved that? It went from 186th place to second place for downloads in the Apple App Store and became the number one finance app among iPhone users.

What can we learn from this?

• Incentives work – something we’ve seen over and over again in the success of the Vitality Active Rewards programme.
• We are innately curious. I wonder how many people were scanning the QR code to find out what it was?
• We love simplicity. Creativity isn’t about bells and whistles – it’s about being brave and doing something no one else has done before.

Plus, there’s something to be said about the nostalgia that bouncing QR code evoked in all of us who still remember DVDs.

Whether the sentiment is positive or negative, we’re still talking about the Coinbase ad. And that proves that Coinbase succeeded in its quest to stand out as the cryptocurrency brand to beat.

What are your thoughts on the campaign? Worth it or a waste of money?

Here's the video.