Once scanned, the digital code redirects first-time users to Coinbase’s promotional website, offering a limited time promotion of $15 worth of free Bitcoin to new customers
Coinbase’s app crashed just seconds after screening a unique ad displaying a single QR code bouncing around the screen in its Super Bowl debut.
The 60-second commercial almost entirely showed a colourful QR code bouncing, bringing back memories of the bouncing DVD logo. Once scanned, the digital code redirects first-time users to Coinbase’s promotional website, offering a limited time promotion of $15 worth of free Bitcoin to new customers, and the chance to enter three million dollar giveaway.
But the huge audience for the game – estimated at 117 million people – promptly crashed the app after logging on to check it out, leaving many users disappointed.
The promotion is valid until February 15, but new customers may have issues signing up to get their $15 credit after Coinbase’s app went down, presumably due to the massive influx of traffic from the clever ad.
Since the Super Bowl is one of the most-watched broadcasts on television every year, there is no better platform for companies to introduce fresh advertisements to the world. The game is shown on more than 225 different TV stations, broadcasted on about 450 radio stations and watched in nearly 180 countries across the world.
NBC — which is the official channel broadcasting this year’s Super Bowl LVI game — announced last week that all Super Bowl ad time slots had been filled, with several of them, as short as 30 seconds, having sold out for a record seven million each.
Coinbase spent 150 Bitcoins – an estimated $14 million – for the unique ad to be aired.
The company is a popular cryptocurrency exchange platform that makes it easy to buy, sell, and exchange digital currency. It claims that it makes ‘buying Bitcoin as easy as buying a stock through an online brokerage.’
Cryptocurrency companies are some of this year’s biggest sponsors at the Super Bowl, with several companies — including Crypto.com and FTX — using the big game to promote either their services, NFTs, or other related projects.