The Super Bowl is now called the 'Crypto Bowl' because the new financial companies T.V. They spend millions on advertising
In a video posted to Twitter on Wednesday, Miami Heat basketball star Jimmy Butler said, "On February 13, you'll hear from some big names asking you to get into crypto. But they don't know you or anyone else." your finances. Only you Believe in yourself. And do your own research."
Problems? The video was an advertisement for Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. Sino-Canadian Binance CEO Chang Peng Zhao is now the world's richest crypto billionaire and is ranked 15th on the list of the world's richest people with a fortune of $73.4 billion, ahead of estimates from Bloomberg.
Binance's Butler video from February 13 acknowledged the fact that large sums of money were used to secure ad space during the upcoming Super Bowl, and what some are now calling the 'Crypto Bowl'.
Bahamas-based FTX and Hong Kong and Singapore-based Crypto.com, which, according to CoinGecko, is among the top 10 cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, have paid millions for 30-second commercials over the next championship game. Additionally, Canada's Bitbuy worked with Miami heat guard Kyle Lowry for the Super Bowl commercial, the first time a Canadian crypto company has partnered with a professional sports star.
The exchanges that purchased Super Bowl Spots did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Super Bowl broadcaster NBC sold all of its commercial time for the upcoming game: The network asked $7 million for a 30-second ad, up 27% from last year. Forty percent of this year's advertisers are startups.
"The Super Bowl moment has a unique value that doesn't exist anywhere else," says Dave Sutton, CEO of Top right Marketing Consultancy. And for startups like cryptocurrency exchanges, which are seen as less established and traditionally risky, Super Bowl advertising can deliver invaluable returns on investment (ROI), marketing experts say.
The Super Bowl is probably the "best vehicle" for smaller, lesser-known brands to build awareness, says John Antil, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Delaware who focuses on Super Bowl advertising. Like all brands, crypto businesses need to build customer awareness, engagement, and trust. But the widespread understanding that cryptocurrency is risky means the latter is particularly important, and appearing at an established and expensive event like the Super Bowl enhances legitimacy and credibility, says Andrew Simon, global creative lead and PR and chief creative officer. . Marketing Consultant Edelman Canada.
An ad during the championship creates immediate awareness, says Simon. With the potential to reach more than 100 million viewers, "The Big Game is a high-risk [and] high-reward competition for the brand... to get as many viewers as possible in the shortest amount of time," he adds. Sutton. .
Still, marketing professor Antil says there's "considerable debate" about whether Super Bowl ads are worth it. "No one has yet figured out a way to measure the ROI of a Super Bowl ad. It's very difficult to convert most components of a broadcast into dollar value," he said. This year, at least five or six cryptocurrency companies will appear in Super Bowl ads. "Crypto Bowl could be like the 2000 dotcom Super Bowl," he warned. "[2000] Most of the dot-coms in streaming didn't survive into the next year," says Antil.
Some say it could be the Twitter announcement made by Binance that it could keep up with its competitors. Binance is letting its competitors out on primetime ads to build mainstream crypto awareness, but elsewhere it is saving its own marketing dollars to tell its own brand story, says Sutton. This "counterprogramming approach" is smart if played right, says Simon. He says the exchange is positioning itself as an "investor-friendly offering. It's a smart way to tackle the big game and beyond."
And unlike its major competitors, Binance hasn't sought out ostentatious sponsorship deals with professional sports teams, leagues, and stars. In recent months, FTX and Crypto.com have been making headlines for their stadium naming rights deals and partnerships with professional athletes like LeBron James and Tom Brady.
A Binance spokesperson told Fortune that these crypto brands will go “head to head” during the Super Bowl, “hiring big celebrities to attract audiences… without educating them on [the basics] of crypto.” The company's Jimmy Butler commercial is just the beginning of a social campaign that will kick off on February 7 to include anonymous musicians and athletes, who will sarcastically tell customers, "Don't listen to celebrities about your financial freedom. Learn crypto and believe in yourself".
