The Super Bowl is not only the most happening event in American culture, but it also provides businesses immense opportunities of gaining mileage from advertising. On looking closely at the format of the grand event, it becomes clear that despite being a sporting event primarily, it’s an extravaganza of sports and entertainment. Being the world’s most-watched broadcast of a single sporting event, the organizers generate massive revenue from the advertisements displayed during the interval. The interval ensures more fun and entertainment due to the performance by renowned performers, musicians, and celebrities that become a ceremony all by itself. Businesses bank on the opportunity of gaining massive exposure by showing video commercials that can cost as much as $6-7 million for a 30-second slot. Since the returns from advertising during the event are incredibly high, companies like Coinbase are ready to put in their money.
Coinbase uses the opportunity to attract new clients
The Super Bowl was the perfect occasion for the popular cryptocurrency trading platform to take a gear leap forward in attracting new clients. As the cryptocurrency wave attracts more new people, it is logical for the trading platform to make hay while the sun shines. Coinbase released an ad during the halftime that had some retro touches as viewers saw a QR code bouncing randomly in the QR code ad is a style similar to the bouncing DVD logo across the television screen that had become commonplace in the age of DVDs.
Users who turned their devices to the QR code would reach the company’s site. Anyone who joined on February 15, within two days of the Super Bowl ad, would receive $15 in Bitcoin as an incentive. The call to action was so powerful that users received an overwhelming response and crashed the Coinbase app. Many users reported that the app crashed on opening the main screen.
The after-effects of the crash
From a technical perspective, app crashes can happen due to heavy traffic flowing concurrently to any app, and it takes some time for the app to be up again after fixing the technical glitches that caused the crash. However, the app crash can have far-reaching effects on the business as it points to some company deficiencies that dent consumer confidence. In such cases, the company’s reputation slips drastically, and it was no different this time. At 6.23 am on February 13, Coinbase stock dropped to $191.26 instantly, a loss of 1.7% in pre-market trading. The market’s reaction resulted from the company’s failure to live up to the expectations of consumers, which many construed as amounting to misleading people.
The takeaway
The app crash might surprise many people, but Coinbase was aware of the possibility because of the hugely attractive offer in the advertisement that was bound to drive people in droves. And it did happen that way. The loss in stock value was only momentary, but the company could take away much more than expected to make good for the apparent losses.
The company could make a significant impact at the Super Bowl to provide long-term returns.
