Can the future be read in Super Bowl ads?
I’m not a fan of American football, but I do like the tradition of the Super Bowl, perhaps in part because I’m attracted by the mystique that surround the rituals and traditions of a “new” country like the United States.
The advertising spots are, without a doubt, an important part of that mystique, and for many people they’re more important than the game itself: astronomically expensive, some analysts say the Super Bowl ads are trendsetters, the intersection between ideas that have been around for a while, and that can now captured in a mainstream commercial of thirty seconds or more costing several million dollars.
So what happened this year? In addition to the traditional brands advertised at the event, such as beers or snacks or FMCG products, two categories stood out: crypto-assets andelectric vehicles. We’ve been talking about cryptocurrencies for a while now, and are part of the economic landscape; the companies managing them now want them to go mainstream, with families investing in them. What do companies like Coinbase, Binance, eToro, Crypto.com, or FTX want to happen? By “hijacking” the Super Bowl, they’re hoping that in the average American’s brain, something will click when cryptocurrencies go from being a high-risk, specialist asset, to a long-term, safe, asset.
