Cryptocurrency Advertising Gone Wrong: Top Failures
Date: 2023-12-20 Author: Dima Zakharov Categories: BLOCKCHAIN, IN WORLD
The Power of Advertising in Crypto Promotion
Advertising serves as not only a driving force for trade but also a useful tool for promoting initiatives, especially when it comes to a relatively young financial instrument like cryptocurrency. Flashing on-screen commercials and banners that introduce digital assets or crypto projects help shape a positive image for the crypto industry. Consequently, new participants join the crypto community, and the adoption of cryptocurrencies continues to grow steadily.
Crypto project teams understand the power of advertising and aim to use it to popularize their crypto products. To build trust in their brand, many crypto companies feature celebrities in their advertisements. Celebrities already have a fan base, and people are interested in their lives, love them, and trust them. Companies that create ads with celebrities leverage their reputation to promote their products and enhance brand loyalty.
Judging by the caliber of celebrities that crypto companies collaborate with, it's evident that they allocate significant budgets to advertising. For instance, one of the world's highest-paid footballers, Cristiano Ronaldo, endorses a collection of NFT tokens for the largest crypto exchange, Binance:
Meanwhile, the influential Matt Damon is promoting the crypto trading platform crypto.com:
Many other celebrities, including Madonna and Eminem, enthusiastically support crypto projects.
The Dark Side of Crypto Advertising
In the history of the crypto industry, there have been several instances where advertising campaigns didn't go as planned. For example, Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, faced issues in February 2022 when they ran a minimalist advertisement during the Super Bowl, an event watched by millions.
Coinbase's ad displayed a QR code on-screen, which viewers could scan to access the crypto exchange and receive a bonus. However, Coinbase failed to anticipate one crucial detail: their platform wasn't prepared for the sudden influx of visitors. Consequently, the crypto exchange went offline.
The Coinbase Super Bowl Ad:
It's known that Coinbase spent $16 million for a 60-second Super Bowl ad slot. Unfortunately, a portion of this expenditure proved futile as they didn't ensure the stability of their platform to handle increased traffic. As a result, Coinbase lost potential clients, and existing users questioned the exchange's reliability.
In some cases, issues with crypto promotion stem from concerns about the project's legality. Developers strive to involve celebrities in advertising to enhance the project's image, but this approach carries risks. If the project turns out to be fraudulent, it can damage the celebrities' reputations.
This occurred with American footballer Tom Brady and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen, who endorsed the FTX crypto exchange. Several months after their last promotional video in September 2022, the trading platform collapsed:
As a result, the couple had to apologize for promoting a crypto project that turned out to be fraudulent.
