Cryptocurrency ads disappear from the Super Bowl, and Jesus Christ emerges

Omnipresent during the 2022 Super Bowl, advertisements for cryptocurrency trading platforms disappeared in the broadcast of this year’s event. Meanwhile, a different kind of message emerged at this Sunday’s event (12): commercials promoting Jesus Christ.

In the last edition of the American football championship final, crypto advertisers paid US$ 39 million (R$ 204 million, in current values) to occupy spaces on television, competing in an environment usually occupied by beer and car companies.

In one of the ads, comedian and actor Larry David promoted FTX, a company that collapsed amid a fraud case and helped stoke fears about the future of the crypto industry.

In addition to FTX, advertisements for eToro, Coinbase and Crypto.com were broadcast to thousands of US households in an effort to promote cryptobusiness from the world’s biggest football game.

In this year’s Super Bowl, however, crypto commercials were nowhere to be found, as reported by The New York Times.

Between beer ads, food and celebrity appearances, two Jesus Christ commercials appeared. They are part of the “He Gets Us” campaign, something like “he understands us” in English.

The New York Times, the agency behind the ad, said the campaign is aimed at increasing Jesus’ relevance in American culture.

A 30-second ad, with images and videos of children playing and hugging, ran after the first quarter of the game.

The longer one is scheduled for the second half, showing a series of photos of people arguing and confronting each other. At the end of the ad, the message “Jesus loved the people we hate” appears on the screen.

According to the American newspaper, since its national introduction in 2022, the “He Gets Us” campaign has occupied billboards in American cities and ran ads at various sporting events.

The videos connect Jesus to contemporary issues like immigration, artificial intelligence and activism, seeking to reach “spiritually open skeptics” unaffiliated with any branch of Christianity.

The commercials, according to the New York Times, are part of a multi-million dollar campaign by the nonprofit Servant Foundation.

While the NGO invests millions to spread the Christian message, the disappearance of crypto commercials shows how the industry has fallen on hard times.

In addition to FTX’s declaration of bankruptcy, its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was arrested in December on charges of using billions of dollars in client deposits to finance political contributions, luxury real estate purchases and business operations in his hedge fund. He pleads not guilty to charges of engaging in fraud.

At last year’s final, FTX US President Brett Harrison said the announcements were part of the company’s strategy to make digital currencies “universally interesting”.

FTX’s plans also included free cryptocurrency distribution coinciding with the commercial.

The US$ 39 million disbursed by companies in the industry in the 2022 final were raised by Kantar, a data and consulting company.

The extravagant spending was a sign that marketers were confident of an economic recovery from the pandemic.

In an interview with the New York Times, Alfredo Troncoso, an analyst at Kantar, said that financial services performed very poorly in 2022, mainly because crypto announcements did not see a strong return on investment.

Since then, other advertisers have taken over the positions. Mark Evans, executive vice president of ad sales at Fox Sports, the broadcaster that is broadcasting the 2023 Super Bowl, told the American newspaper that the disappearance of crypto commercials created a little more space.

Super Bowl audiences are heavily involved with commercials, a cultural phenomenon that, along with the halftime show, may be of greater interest than the game itself to some viewers.

For this year, the transmission of the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles accumulated expectations. Analysts said the event was likely to be the most-watched show on American television of 2023 across all genres.

The 30-second commercials for this year’s game have sold for over $6 million (R$31.5 million), and in some cases for over $7 million (R$36.7 million). The network expects to earn US$ 600 million (R$ 3.1 billion) with the game.

With The New York Times