Coinbase’s first Super Bowl spot invites everyone to experience the cryptoeconomy first hand. CMO Kate Rouch shares why she’s excited about the company’s goal of introducing a billion people to the cryptoeconomy and the power of community.
COINBASE: This year’s Super Bowl is being dubbed the “Crypto Bowl” given the number of ads from crypto companies. What does this mean for the crypto industry?
KATE: There have been a lot of comparisons to the dot.com era and speculation that many of the crypto companies advertising in this year’s Super Bowl will inevitably fail. We don’t think about it that way and judging from the early response we’ve seen, Super Bowl viewers don’t either. The ethos of crypto is about new models of ownership, creativity and community — building each other up, not tearing each other down.
The number of crypto ads at the Super Bowl is yet another signal that crypto is bursting into the mainstream, and at the center of the cultural zeitgeist. What a proud day for crypto!
COINBASE: There were reports that the spot was so popular that some users experienced delays. What happened?
KATE: Our engineering teams load-tested our site to handle millions of simultaneous hits. The volume we experienced was astounding in comparison to our projections. We saw over 20M+ hits on our landing page in one minute — volume that was historic and unprecedented. We also saw engagement that was 6 times higher than our previous benchmarks. Understandably, this volume led to us temporarily throttling our systems. Hats off to our engineering team for getting the site back online so swiftly, and allowing us to welcome more people to the cryptoeconomy.
COINBASE: What do you think about all of the brands making their own version of your ad? Your ad has become a meme!
KATE: We liked them all. I’m amazed to see the creativity from brands like Avocados From Mexico, FTX, Intuit, Irish Spring and Mr. Peanut who quickly jumped on the chance to create their own version of the ad. Crypto has a loyal community who communicate in memes, so it was important to me personally to see that the community had fun with this moment.
COINBASE: Why is the Coinbase campaign titled “WAGMI”?
KATE: Coinbase — which is the largest US-based crypto exchange — has long focused on helping everyone — from total beginners to advanced traders — access cryptocurrency with an easy to use, safe and secure platform. We are on a journey to create a fairer open financial system for the world. That journey starts with every person taking a very first step — trying crypto for themselves.
Our ad helps the millions of Americans who are curious about crypto get started — completely on us! It is not about an outdated winner takes all model, but instead embraces the core ethos that “we’re all going to make it” and can all benefit from the cryptoeconomy
COINBASE: How does your campaign work?
KATE: It’s simple. Every single new user (whether they were watching the Super Bowl or not) who joins Coinbase by Feb 15 will get $15 in Bitcoin in their Coinbase account. They can also join existing users for a chance to win three $1M grand prizes.
We are committed to investing tens of millions of dollars in this program to help people learn about crypto. We’re not limiting it to a handful of winners, or even to Super Bowl Sunday. People will have two full days to sign up and get $15 in bitcoin.
And this is just the beginning. We’re planning over $100M of similar incentives to help people access and participate in the crypto community throughout the year.
COINBASE: What was the inspiration behind the QR Code ad?
KATE: We heard a lot of messages from advertisers during the Super Bowl today, and we wanted to try something different.
Our core inspiration for the ad was the curiosity and intimidation we know many people have about crypto. We wanted to pique their interest by doing something different, something that’s never been done in the history of Super Bowl advertising — a playful, low production nod to a popular Internet meme that invites action and discussion both in the living room, and on social media. We are a remote first company. Our CEO and his co-founder met on Reddit. Traditional highly produced Super Bowl advertising just didn’t feel inspiring to us. We wanted to show up in a more authentic way to our brand. We hope people found it in turn surprising, confounding and delightful.
Most of all, we hope it inspired them to take their first step into crypto.
COINBASE: How does Coinbase think about community?
KATE: At Coinbase we’ve watched our 73+ millions users empower one another to create a better life for themselves and their families by buying and trading crypto. Coinbase is the trusted bridge to the cryptoeconomy today, and we are committed to become the place people also go to actually participate in the newest use cases for crypto. NFTs, DeFi, DAOs and many of the newest spaces in crypto are decentralized and community driven. Coinbase is embracing this decentralization and excited to help onboard millions of new people to these communities.
