Yuriy M / Creative Director

CHALLENGE

Super Bowl commercials are expensive performance art. Brands burn millions on celebrities (I once spent three weeks chasing Larry David) and bloated cinematic VFX, competing to be the most over-the-top ad in the break. Coinbase’s CEO had a simple brief: please don’t do that!

INSIGHT/

STRATEGY

Every brand was fighting to be the flashiest thing on screen. Which meant the actual power move was to be the quietest. In an arms race of excess, the only way to hijack the broadcast was to reject its rules entirely. We stopped competing for scale and started competing for confusion. We summed it up as "Radical Understatement."

0:00

IDEA

The $14 Million Mystery. An animated QR code. No logo. No mention of Coinbase. No Larry David. Just a primitive animation that looked like someone made it in Microsoft Paint last night.

Everyone watching knows a Super Bowl spot costs millions per second. So when you see something that looks like it cost $47 to produce, your brain short-circuits. The cheapness is the trap.

— PROJECT

Less Talk,

More Bitcoin

— CLIENT

Coinbase

— ROLE

Originating Concept /

Creative Lead

THE INSPIRATION

The unlock came at brunch in Thousand Oaks. I watched everyone casually scanning QR codes on menus, a pandemic-installed behavior so automatic it was basically a reflex.

We realized we could weaponize that muscle memory and turn a passive TV spot into a direct-response campaign.

THE MECHANICS
While other brands chased vague brand awareness, we built a conversion funnel that happened to be on national television. The bouncing code led directly to some free crypto on signup. No intermediary steps. Scan → Sign up → Crash the servers.