“No ad agency would have done this ad,” CEO Brian Armstrong claimed. Except… an ad agency claims it pitched the idea to Coinbase.
The Coinbase advertisement that aired during the Super Bowl last week appears to be causing quite a stir on social media in light of new information about its origins. When scanned, the 60-second TV commercial featured a color-changing, bounciful QR code that led users to a promotional BTC giveaway page — seemingly based on the oft-meme’d DVD screensavers of yesteryear.
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, praised his company’s internal team for their work on the ad yesterday in a lengthy Twitter thread, saying: “One of the original ideas we had for the ad was to include a QR code at the end. They finally agreed, and it worked out great – our team did an incredible job pulling this off at the last minute,”
In response to Armstrong’s post, Kristen Cavallo, CEO of advertising firm The Martin Agency, claimed that the ad was inspired by presentations our agency showed your team on 8/18 (pages 19-24) and 10/7 (pages 11-18) with ad concepts for the Super Bowl with floating QR codes on a blank screen.”
Armstrong later clarified in a follow-up tweet: ” “Despite the fact that we did not work with a traditional ad agency, I would be remiss if I did not mention the creative firm we worked with who created the ad, commissioned the song, obtained clearances, and so on. To be honest, it felt like we were all on the same team, so I didn’t realise it until now, thank you! “The name of the creative firm was not mentioned by Armstrong in the thread.
Kate Rouch, Coinbase’s chief marketing officer, presented a different version of the storey, claiming that creative partner Accenture Interactive came up with the idea of inserting a QR code into a popular meme, which was then approved by Coinbase staff. “, said Rouch “Several agencies, including The Martin Agency, pitched us ideas for various campaigns that included QR codes. However, none of our partners’ ideas were conceptually what we were looking for and were discarded.”
Cavallo claimed on social media that Coinbase was “claiming credit and disregarding agencies,” and added to the confusion by saying, “I’m advocating for Accenture as much as I am for the industry.”
The Coinbase CEO's "disregard towards agencies is unwarranted and unfair,” says Martin Agency's CEO, who is calling out the exchange over its Super Bowl ad:https://t.co/e2K99cNBUn
— Adweek (@Adweek) February 21, 2022
Disclaimer: These are the writer’s opinions and should not be considered investment advice. Readers should do their own research.
