Coinbase Dunks on Traditional Payment Methods in $15M NBA Ad spend

Coinbase is launching a $15 million TV ad campaign that aims to tout the merits of using cryptocurrency in a language that sports fans understand: Pizza. 

FOX Business has learned that the U.S.’s largest crypto exchange is set to run three separate commercials across four channels airing the NBA playoffs starting Wednesday.

The idea behind the commercials, news of which hasn’t been reported yet, is to underscore how complex and expensive traditional payment methods are compared to crypto, which is settled almost instantly and cuts out the so-called “middlemen” like banks and payment service providers. 

“We’re under the illusion that when we use credit cards or Venmo, things are happening instantly, but they’re actually just part of very complex plumbing that’s masked by a digital interface,” said Coinbase’s chief policy officer Faryar Shirzad. 

AMAZON INTRODUCES UNLIMITED GROCERY DELIVERY SUBSCRIPTION WITH PRIME

To showcase this, the tongue-in-cheek ad shows the process a pizza pie would go through if it was money in today’s system. The commercial begins with the pizza going through several approval and authorization stages. The narrator is heard saying “If pizza worked like this, you wouldn’t like pizza.”

The commercial follows the pie through more stages, mimicking the typical credit card transaction. Several different people take bites and slices from the pie, symbolizing the middlemen that want to take a proverbial slice of the pie. The narrator says “this is pretty much what happens to your money whenever you spend it or send it.”

Finally, the pizza goes through a door marked “surcharge,” to indicate the credit card fees customers pay on their transactions. 

The commercial ends with the pie getting picked up by a delivery boy who turns to the camera and says, “we deserve a better system, easier simpler faster. That’s how crypto works.”

 “Crypto is a solve for Americans who are fed up with the middlemen taking a bite every time they order and pay for pizza, Coinbase’s Vice President of Engineering told FOX Business. “Coinbase is building the future of money to make sure American consumers own their own pie — and making sure their payment moves at the speed of the internet.” 

POPULAR TEX-MEX CHAIN CLOSING SEVERAL LOCATIONS IN 4 STATES

In this photo illustration a Coinbase logo seen displayed on a smartphone.  (Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images)

The 60-second ad and two 30-second ads will air starting Wednesday on TNT, ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC and run through June 9.

Pizza seems to tie a reoccurring theme in Coinbase’s ads. The latest spots, which cost Coinbase $15 million, come just two days after the conclusion of its Bitcoin pizza ad, which aimed to show Bitcoin’s increasing value over time by illustrating how much pizza a person could buy with one bitcoin in 2012 compared to 2024. The ad has been viewed over 3 million times on X. 

Cryptocurrency exchanges are shelling out top dollar to run ads during next Sunday’s Super Bowl between the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals.  (Photo illustration by Chesnot/Getty Images / Getty Images)

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO

Coinbase’s marketing blitz comes as Congress inches closer to passing legislation on so-called stablecoins — cryptocurrency that mimics the dollar. Legislation introduced in the Senate last week is the latest in a series of bipartisan bills in both the House and the Senate that aim to establish comprehensive federal oversight of stablecoins. 

“Stablecoins are actually a huge unlock for consumers who currently have to pay fees that they just can’t afford and for merchants who pay fees that they can’t afford,” said Shirzad. “It’s not that complicated on how you regulate stable coin issuance. And so there’s no reason why you can’t get agreement by on a bipartisan basis to get this done.”