Thread by @gauravsabnis

It's #SuperBowl Sunday! While much of Twitter will be recycling the same old jokes of "lol that is handegg" & "lol 'world' champions?" and noticing opportunities for Modi vs Mamata jokes with Rams v Bengals, the will also be talk of how this is #CryptoBowl.
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Something like a fifth of all ads in this #SuperBowl have been bought by crypto exchanges or allied services. Pushing ad rates to historic highs of $7mn in 30 seconds. Up from $5.2mn in 2019. A 35% jump in a period that including pandemic caused economic woes. That's crazy.

The previous such comparable jump was about 20 years ago. When SB ad rates jumped from $1.5mn in 1998 to $2mn at the next one, dubbed the #DotcomBowl because dotcommers flush with cash pumped money to get people to take them seriously.

Many are drawing parallels. You can see why

Twenty years later or even just two years later, the #DotcomBowl ads became a running joke & cautionary tale. They didn't have much more of a message than "hey, everyone is into websites these days so here we are also a website selling something". Not exactly focused positioning.

The thing is, even though history has shown the investors & advertisers in the #SuperBowl to have lost a lot of money, a LOT of money, history has also vindicated most if not all actual business models being attempted. We do now buy a lot of stuff online. And growing.

Pets dot com became the face of the dotcom fail but Chewy is a 7 billion dollar thriving and growing company that does exactly what Pets dot com was trying. It just took them years to get the business model and the messaging right. And to "educate" the consumer.

While the parallels between #DotCom bowl and #CryptoBowl are obvious, I think it's even harder for crypto. Because what is the message exactly?

An ad is not a short film meant to entertain tho many do. It's meant to push a message. Usually raise awareness & "educate" consumers.

I put "educate" in quotes cos it's not literally education but rather brands telling consumers things that they might worry about or just don't know. For instance early smartphone ads in the Superbowls 13 years ago or so. Telling people what a smartphone can do.

The message was very simple. A sleek phone on which you can access social media, internet, YouTube, games etc. Similarly all the echo and Google home ads telling you what all a home assistant can do. GM & Ford saying we going electric y'all. Simple crisp messages in 30 seconds.

This clarity wasn't quite there in the dotcombowl cos other than the vague concept of "we on the internets y'all", there was no crisp specific message.

Now let's come to Crypto. It suffers from way more confusion and a much stronger identity crisis. What is being sold exactly?

If it's Blockchain as a concept, okay cool. That itself is a bit of a tall order to explain in short ads but okay.
Why exactly ftx or cryptodotcom specifically? No idea. At this point it looks like they are just selling a "get rich quick" scheme.

While people keep talking of how Blockchain will change the world and it might, the ones who want to sell crypto as a product don't necessarily understand themselves what that product is supposed to do for consumers other than make them a lot of money if they invest.

So okay, you hire Matt Damon, demographically appropriate to appeal to moneyed middle aged folks and young people. That gets people talking about Crypto. But to what end? Just to make more money. That's not a product marketing approach. That's a Ponzi scheme approach.

Is Crypto a "currency" like the dollar or just a fungible financial asset with great future earnings potential like the Moderna stock or is it a service provider like Schwab or E-Trade? Whatever your answer is, how do you advertise it if you can't quickly explain what it is.

If Crypto is truly a new kind of currency, why is so much money pumped into advertising it? The #Dotcombowl didn't have the then brand new actual currency Euro saying "convert your $ to € and you'll become filthy rich", did it? That's not what currencies do.

Even though crypto pushers' talking points are all about privacy, security, invulnerability to hacks, decentralized power etc etc, the main message is still "invest in crypto and get filthy rich quick".

At least pets dot com was selling something real and tangible.

So when you watch the #CryptoBowl ads at tonight's #SuperBowl, try to ignore the glitz & hype & celebs. And try to answer a simple question. Whom exactly are they a threat to? iPhone was a threat to Blackberry,Nokia, Amazon was a threat to Borders, Netflix a threat to Blockbuster

Tesla a threat to GM. Bai a threat to Naked. Avocados from Mexico a threat to Avocados from California. Robinhood a threat to Fidelity.

These companies rely on convincing millions to abandon specific other products/services and buy theirs. That's commerce 101.

In that sense, all these crypto exchanges etc, what exactly are they trying to convince consumers to give up and move the money to crypto? Investments in stocks? Different brokerage? US dollars? But you're saying it'll replace the dollar while making money still in dollars? 🧐

Indians reading this thread might remember Home Trade. See this ad. Very slickly made. Filled you with admiration for Sachin. And said everyone wants "more".

What did Home Trade sell? No one was sure. Everyone just said it was gonna make ppl rich.

A predictable disaster & bubble is building worldwide that will destroy a lot of people's lives, this whole "crypto" branding of Blockchain as a high return investment instead of just smarter tech for financial infrastructure.

And #CryptoBowl will feature in the autopsies.

Arguably THE biggest success story of #SuperBowl advertising is Avocados. Sure, that's because a lot more people are buying the avocado but more importantly a lot more people are eating the avocado. Buying is pointless unless you eat, right? Eating keeps the buying going.

What exactly are you "eating" when you buy crypto if you get my drift? Where's the meat? What does crypto give you in the short term that a US govt backed or regulated financial instrument won't give you? Just rapid returns or losses and Elon Musk's giggles.

As you watch tonight's crypto ads, remember that you're watching ads whose only purpose in the very near future will be stock footage in inevitable Netflix documentary series about the Crypto crash.
#SuperBowl #CryptoBowl

Once I read that Madoff and El Chapo hung out in prison often. Comparing the two, I realized that at least Chapo gave his customers an actual high. What did Madoff give anyone other than imaginary highs?

What exactly is crypto giving you other than the high of high returns?

At the end of the day, remember that all these crypto ads are still valued at 7 million US dollars and not 165 Bitcoins. And that's why they are a waste of dollars in my opinion.
#CryptoBowl

I know people who got extremely wealthy by investing in Apple or Amazon 15 years ago. They got wealthy cos both Apple and Amazon shipped billions of boxes of stuff people buy and use.

I know people who got extremely wealthy by investing in Bitcoin. Shipping what exactly? Carbon?