Super Bowl commercials: Crypto, NFT, metaverse brands beware

Remember the “Dot-Com Bowl?” The year was 2000, and for a number of web-related startups hoping to lead the adoption of the internet, the Super Bowl posed the perfect advertising opportunity, or so they thought. These companies spent an average of $2.1 million for 30-second spots only for most to fade away soon after, either through acquisitions by bigger internet startups or dissolutions over faulty business models.

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Now, 22 years later, the Super Bowl is seeing an influx of a different breed of tech hopefuls: crypto brands aiming to capitalize on a white-hot marketplace and educate consumers. FTX, a crypto exchange that has previously advertised with Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen, will air its first Big Game commercial this year, and rival exchange Crypto.com is expected to run multiple national spots of its own. A 30-second spot this year is worth an estimated $6.5 million. 

As the game nears, some ad execs are likening this blitz to that of the “Dot-Com Bowl,” a comparison in market uncertainty and immaturity that begs the question: In 22 years, will we look back on the upstarts in the “Crypto Bowl” with the same disbelief and second-hand embarrassment as those of Super Bowl XXIV? 

“It feels like this year is resembling a lot of the dot-com-era,” said Nick Miaritis, executive VP at VaynerMedia. “This will be the Super Bowl with new types of companies, products and services, with an especially big push in the crypto world.”

Ad Age has compiled the most memorable ads from the “Dot-Com Bowl” to serve as both a trip down memory lane as well as a reminder of crypto brands’ undecided future. And you can see more Super Bowl commercials from 2000 and other years in Ad Age’s Super Bowl archive.