3 ms·

Coinbase was a ycombinator startup and they made a Superbowl ad that successfully converted enough users from TV to phone that it crashed their app. There's a c

by kodah 5y ago

Coinbase was a ycombinator startup and they made a Superbowl ad that successfully converted enough users from TV to phone that it crashed their app. There's a couple interesting points there: - Bitcoin is popular enough with Superbowl fans to incur an app crash - Coinbase ignored advice from an experienced ad agency for a Superbowl ad - The entire production was under $100k and had the desired effect It makes sense this is on HN.

banana_giraffe 5y ago
> Bitcoin is popular enough with Superbowl fans to incur an app crash I'm not so sure it shows how popular Bitcoin is. Since it just crashed the website, I imagine the only takeaway is: If you spend 60 seconds showing nothing more than a QR code, then a lot of people will scan it and try to load the website.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  ... which makes this as much a story of opsec as advertising. Imagine if someone were to go through that whole process of prepping the ad, going through the meetings, getting the sign-offs, and then had rug-pulled what resource is linked by that QR code at the last possible second...
- lttlrck 5y ago
  if the camera apps do any preloading on QR URLs there is even less awareness...
jaywalk 5y ago
The ad was just a bouncing QR code, people who scanned it had no idea that it was anything related to crypto until they were directed to the website.
- addaon 5y ago
  Yep. Definitely shows opportunities for getting value out of zero-day exploits next Superbowl. If you can find a straightforward-to-monetize attack that works on either of latest iPhone or Android, I'd imagine it would be easy to cover the cost of running the ad. And behaviorally, I have to assume that folks would consider a QR code on their TV a more "trusted source" than, say, an unsolicited e-mail, so you can probably even get some behavioral co-operation.

3 ms·

Coinbase was a ycombinator startup and they made a Superbowl ad that successfully converted enough users from TV to phone that it crashed their app. There's a c

by kodah 5y ago

banana_giraffe 5y ago
> Bitcoin is popular enough with Superbowl fans to incur an app crash I'm not so sure it shows how popular Bitcoin is. Since it just crashed the website, I imagine the only takeaway is: If you spend 60 seconds showing nothing more than a QR code, then a lot of people will scan it and try to load the website.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  ... which makes this as much a story of opsec as advertising. Imagine if someone were to go through that whole process of prepping the ad, going through the meetings, getting the sign-offs, and then had rug-pulled what resource is linked by that QR code at the last possible second...
- lttlrck 5y ago
  if the camera apps do any preloading on QR URLs there is even less awareness...
jaywalk 5y ago
The ad was just a bouncing QR code, people who scanned it had no idea that it was anything related to crypto until they were directed to the website.
- addaon 5y ago
  Yep. Definitely shows opportunities for getting value out of zero-day exploits next Superbowl. If you can find a straightforward-to-monetize attack that works on either of latest iPhone or Android, I'd imagine it would be easy to cover the cost of running the ad. And behaviorally, I have to assume that folks would consider a QR code on their TV a more "trusted source" than, say, an unsolicited e-mail, so you can probably even get some behavioral co-operation.