Frenzy as Coinbase offers $15 in free cryptocurrency in $20 million Super Bowl ad

A $20 million Super Bowl ad caught the world by surprise by offering everyone $15 in free cryptocurrency. Only it didn’t go all to plan.

Coinbase turned millions of heads with a bold advertisement at this year’s Super Bowl – only it appears the cryptocurrency trading service might have bit off more than it could chew with its simplistic marketing gimmick.

Ad spots at the Super Bowl are among the priciest in the world and generate a serious amount of interest on their own, regardless of the football.

So when word got out crypto platforms were spending up big for a slice of attention from the approximately 200 million eyeballs focused on the big screen, excitement began to build in the trading community for some major windfalls.

Coinbase’s short TV spot, rumoured to have cost the company upwards of US $14 million ($A$19.6 million), showed nothing but black with a QR code bouncing around the screen for the audience to scan with their phones. Users were meant to be taken to a page offering them $15 in crypto, if only Coinbase’s servers were up to the bullrush.

Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee said the website was experiencing “more traffic than we’ve ever encountered” immediately after the stunt went live.

While it didn’t quite match the severity of Optus’ nightmare World Cup streaming debacle in 2018, thousands of users were quick to roast the crypto giant’s faux pas.

Even US whistleblower Edward Snowden chimed in with his two cents, poking fun at the cost Coinbase paid to essentially launch a DDOS (denial-of-service attack) attack on itself.

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The minute-long crypto advertisement was straight to the point, and ignited some serious DVD screen saver nostalgia.

Coinbase spending $16,000,000 on a Superbowl ad to direct people to their website and $0 to make sure that website doesn't crash 10 seconds after the ad starts is so very internet.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 14, 2022

The Coinbase commercial with just the QR code, and no dialogue or context, was kinda bold. They basically said “we only trynna sell to people who actually know what this is.”

— Carmen Rodgers (@CarmenRodgers) February 14, 2022

Despite the technical error, the advertisement itself was praised for its creativity in stripping back its advertising style, as opposed to countless other high-production corporate efforts seen at the Bowl.

The simple bouncing icon, reminiscent of DVD screen savers of the early 2000s, was enough to earn a tick from nostalgia nuts.

Others went even deeper and believed the fact the website crashed only served to help the company in the long run, as chatter about the trading continued on Twitter well after the game had wrapped.

And the website itself didn’t seem too flustered, posting memes shortly after announcing it was back up and running, despite several users reporting they were still unable to get in and register.

I was thinking the same until I saw how many people tweeting about it.

Even though the commercial failed Coinbase probably got the most exposure. https://t.co/JKIbnqSwUO

— Simon Yu (@SimonYuSEA) February 14, 2022

Here’s a social media lesson from the #SuperBowl Coinbase ad: don’t overthink your content!

What they did was clever and low production value compared to anything with actors/effects etc.

Just a simple QR code floating. Spark people’s interest, got clicks & viral attention

— Dhariana Lozano  NYC Social Media Consultant (@DhariLo) February 14, 2022

IMHO if an ad makes you do something or gets people talking, that’s good for your brand. The Coinbase site got so much traffic, it crashed. Bad planning on their end, but it created interest in their brand #SuperBowl

— Brian McClary (@brianmcclary) February 14, 2022

The frenzy came just days after an anonymous “white hat” hacker alerted Coinbase to a “potentially market-nuking” problem within the site.

The hacker, known as Tree of Alpha on Twitter asked to be put in contact with someone up the chain at Coinbase after uncovering what they believed to be a major issue.

“The issue is sensitive and could allow malicious users to send all Coinbase order books to arbitrary prices,” they posted.

Coinbase responded two hours later, announcing they had briefly disabled its new retail advanced tracking option, which serves as a type of “Coinbase Plus” for more advanced traders.

“For technical reasons, we are disabling retail advanced trading. This service will continue to be accessible, but new orders cannot be placed at this time. Existing orders are in cancel only mode,” the service tweeted.

The company, founded by Airbnb engineer Brian Armstrong in 2012, is now the largest US-based cryptocurrency trading website, operating as an entirely-remote business after shutting its San Francisco headquarters in 2021.

New users have until February 15th to claim their Super Bowl crypto.

people cheering for the Coinbase QR Code to corner tap lol pic.twitter.com/SkPfRSHuV5

— Trung Phan 🇨🇦 (@TrungTPhan) February 14, 2022