Coinbase’s chief policy officer discusses the coffee chain’s adoption of cryptocurrencies in “The Claman Countdown.”
Coinbase is launching a $15 million television ad campaign aimed at promoting the virtues of using cryptocurrency in a language that sports fans understand: pizza.
The largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange will run three separate ads on four channels, Fox Business has learned, airing the NBA playoffs starting Wednesday.
The idea behind the ad, which has not yet been reported, is to highlight how complex and expensive traditional payment methods are compared to cryptocurrencies, which allow for near-instant settlements and eliminate the need for so-called “middleman” services such as banks and payment providers.
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“We have this illusion that when we use a credit card or Venmo, things happen instantly, but they’re actually part of a complex pipeline masked by a digital interface,” said Farrier Sharjad, chief policy officer at Coinbase.
To demonstrate this, the tongue-in-cheek ad shows the pizza-making process that today’s system would go without money. When advertising begins, Pizza goes through several stages of approval and approval. The narrator is heard saying: “You wouldn’t like pizza if it was like that.”
In this image taken on March 4, 2022, a representation of the cryptocurrency can be seen in front of the Coinbase logo. (Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo/Reuters Photo)
Advertising is further staged, following pies through parody of ordinary credit card transactions. Several different individuals take bites and slices from the pie, symbolizing middle men who want a piece of the pie. “This often happens when you spend or send money,” says the narrator.
Finally, Pizza passes through a door marked “surcharge” to indicate the credit card fee paid by the customer as part of the transaction.
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The ad ends with the delivery man picking up the pie, turning to the camera and saying: “We should have a better system, simpler, simpler, faster. This is how cryptocurrency works”
The 60-second spot and two 30-second spots will air on TNT, ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC starting Wednesday and running through June 9.
In this photo illustration, the Coinbase logo is displayed on a smartphone. (Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images)
Coinbase’s $15 million new product launch comes just two days after another of its TV commercials, designed to show how much pizza a person could buy with one bitcoin in 2012 compared to 2024 to show bitcoin’s value over time. Since 2012, the price of Bitcoin has increased by more than 500%.
“These ads capture something bigger than just Coinbase,” Farrier Shirzad, Coinbase’s chief policy officer, told Fox Business. “
Cryptocurrency exchanges are spending heavily to run ads during next Sunday’s Super Bowl between the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals. (Image by Chesno/Getty Images/Getty Images)
The ad comes just two days after Coinbase bought another TV ad to highlight bitcoin’s value, which used pizza as a visual to show how many pizzas you can buy since bitcoin was created in 2009.
Data shared with Fox Business shows Bitcoin Pizza has been viewed 3.15 million times on social media.
Coinbase secured a spot in the NBA playoffs after choosing not to advertise during the Super Bowl in February.
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This coincides with Coinbase’s continued pressure in Washington to pass a fair cryptocurrency policy in Congress, despite opposition from key senators such as Elizabeth Warren and SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
