Super Bowl commercials, which are almost as highly anticipated as the game itself, tend to reflect the zeitgeist of the period during which they air, and the message from Super Bowl LVI commercials was clear: the metaverse and crypto have entered the chat.
Gone were the “stronger together” ads that were popular throughout the past couple years, replaced by a variety of ads from Coinbase, Cyrpto.com, and Meta, among others. While these once-niche technologies have become more mainstream during the pandemic, their strong presence during the Super Bowl broadcast — which garnered 112 million viewers — represents a significant shift in the way brands are hoping to engage fans moving forward.
For example, Coinbase’s ad included an innovative QR code concept. The commercial featured a color-changing QR code bouncing around the screen that viewers could scan to access Coinbase’s site, and they weren’t adequately prepared for the sudden increase in traffic — you’ve probably heard by now that it was so popular it temporarily crashed the site.
Meanwhile, Bud Light Next aired a spot including a reference to its new NFT collection and a concert in the metaverse, clearly portraying the way fan engagement methods have evolved, even within the past year. Meta told the story of an animatronic dog musician whose band is dissembled in the real world but comes back together in VR; Crypto.com featured LeBron James with his younger CGI self as part of its Fortune Favors the Brave campaign; and FTX recruited Larry David to promote its own crypto exchange.
Taking it one step further, Miller Lite hosted a virtual bar in Decentraland during the game, where fans could watch the “first big game ad in the metaverse,” which was aired exclusively in the virtual world. This was a creative way to circumvent Anheuser-Busch’s exclusive Super Bowl advertising rights and enable Miller Lite to get in on the action.
Salesforce added its own commentary on the growing enthusiasm around virtual worlds with a commercial promoting its #TeamEarth initiative. “So while the others look to the metaverse and Mars, let's stay here and restore ours,” narrates Matthew McConaughey in the ad. The company is decidedly less excited about these technologies, but either way, the metaverse and Web3 were front and center on Sunday night.
Whether these technologies have earned buy-in from viewers is a different story — Coinbase’s ad is being widely praised as innovative and successful, but Meta’s largely fell flat — but their presence during the largest broadcast of the year certainly highlights their increasing pervasiveness in our culture and in fan experiences.