Beer, not crypto at the Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the mega sporting event in the US and, with more than 100 million viewers, the premier advertising showcase.
The Super Bowl is the biggest sporting event in the US, and with over 100 million viewers, the advertising showpiece. Those who can afford it showcase their brands there. Last year, crypto companies FTX, Coinbase, Crypto.com, and eToro dominated and spent millions of dollars on banners and ad spots. Even though the size of the bear market and FTX's collapse seemed far off at the time, the presence of crypto reps was already inappropriate.
Like half-baked hype in the club
The belief that mass crypto adoption would succeed through outrageously large marketing budgets seemed to dominate among those players at the time. Why spend $50 million on product development, compliance, IT security, and innovation when you could simply book three 90-second ads for the same money?
The rush of success and cheap money at the time made crypto firms comfortable. The desire for recognition, to have reached the top, was bigger than the actual budget—even back then. If you look at the companies that usually advertise during the Super Bowl, they're the world's biggest companies, not startups from five years ago.
Beer and M&M's instead of Bitcoin
A year later, things look very different. There are no crypto ads at the Super Bowl. Instead, beer ads and snacks like M&M's dominate. Beer maker Anheuser-Busch is the biggest advertiser at the Super Bowl. It seems like a return to basic needs. Beer isn't cyclical, crypto is. Especially since some crypto investors from 2022 have every reason to take a long drink from the bottle.
