Dot-com Super Bowl commercials are a warning to crypto brands

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. RSVP for Ad Age’s Super Bowl event on Feb. 8 at AdAge.com/InDepthSuperBowl. 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. LifeMinders.com — "The Worst Commercial" LifeMinders.com didn’t exactly go big for their Super Bowl spot, but it did create an ad that was both engaging and oddly endearing. The humility of an all-text visual, self-deprecation and a simple business pitch helped to depict the brand as an email service you could trust on this new internet thing. Yet, despite drawing in 700,000 new subscribers in the week following the Super Bowl, LifeMinders.com failed to meet its users’ expectations and was sold to Cross Media Marketing in July 2001. The original URL went dark sometime thereafter. Read more: 12 keys to making a Super Bowl ad worth $6.5 million HotJobs.com — “Negotiation” Online employment services made up the most popular sub-category of dot-com brands in the 2000 Super Bowl, with ads from Monster.com (still active), Kforce.com (still active) and HotJobs.com (inactive). The latter produced an ad with McCann-Erickson, that was an effective follow-up to its Super Bowl spot the previous year, with a recognizable brand mascot, celebrity voice-over and stick-it-to-the-man confidence. In fact, the messaging sounds a lot like a pitch for cryptocurrency: We are the answer to a corporate status quo that is taking advantage of you. Ideally the fate of crypto brands will be different than HotJobs.com, which has since disappeared behind a series of acquisitions, first by Yahoo in 2002, and then by rival Monsters.com in 2010, to where its URL currently redirects. Pets.com — “Please Don’t Go” Pets.com’s singing sock puppet was a highly visible mascot for a lavishly marketed brand, making appearances in the 1999 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade as well as on “Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.” Its Super Bowl ad, created by TBWA/Chiat/Day, was no less lively, featuring an adorably pitiful rendition of Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now,” set to shots of equally cute pets. Unfortunately, Pets.com was one of the first of its fellow internet startups to go under. Management folded the company less than 11 months after the 2000 Super Bowl, and the rights to its sock puppet went to auto lender Bar None. Read more: E-Trade Baby may return for the Super Bowl WebEx.com — “Real Drag” Web conferencing company WebEx.com, which was acquired in 2007 and renamed Cisco Webex, aired its Super Bowl ad amid a huge marketing push. The brand committed the majority of a $25 million round of funding to a national campaign, announcing in the same release that RuPaul would be its celebrity spokesperson. "It quite literally takes a seven foot—in heels—towering glamazon to stand out in the crowd of internet companies vying to capture consumer attention today,” David Thompson, then VP of marketing for WebEx, said in the release at the time. The scale of this campaign, captured in the loudness of its Super Bowl ad (which concludes with a gesture from RuPaul that definitely wouldn’t pass today), is reminiscent of how crypto brands are also going big to win over consumers. Celebrity endorsements and Times Square takeovers (which WebEx also launched that following spring), are recent tactics that these companies have used to compete for eyeballs. Computer.com — “Nephew” Like that of LifeMinders.com, Computer.com’s Super Bowl spot exudes a humility that makes the ad hard to dislike. The intentionally amateurish ad uses family members and friends of the two founders—both named Mike—to essentially pitch the business to viewers and potential supporters. The spot ultimately cost the Mikes half of their $7 million funding. After watching the ad in real time during one of the closest Super Bowls in recent history, president of Disney Bob Iger reportedly told one of the Mikes: “I don't know if you have a horseshoe up your ass, but that was the highest-rated commercial of all time.” Despite the success of its ad, Computers.com was bought up by Office Depot later that year, as the Nasdaq peaked and the dot-com bubble finally burst. The company’s story is a lesson to crypto brands—and brands everywhere—that even the “highest-rated” Super Bowl advertising isn’t enough to carry a defective business.

Dot-com Super Bowl commercials are a warning to crypto brands

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