NFL super star quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel turned business titan Gisele Bundchen fronted a $20m ‘You In?’ campaign endorsing cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX.
The comic campaign is spearheaded by a humorous commercial in which the pair play over football rivalries was created by recently appointed agency DentsuMB (with Dentsu’s 360i handling the media) and debuted on air during the national telecast of the NFL’s 2021/22 season opener between Brady’s Super Bowl winning Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Dallas Cowboys.
The hero spot, called ‘FTX. You In?’, only mentions crypto a few times and instead mostly focuses on football rivalries and sees Brady and Bündchen call up friends (including New York Jets superfan Fireman Ed to join the platform) to spread the word about FTX.
Launched on 8 September, as well as running on TV, the campaign spans the brand’s digital and social channels and will run through October.
The married couple are the latest powerhouse celebrities to promote crypto and take an equity stake in FTX and other stars with an ambassador role for the brand include NBA standout Steph Curry.
The campaign’s objective, explained FTX US President Brett Harrison at the campaign launch, is to boost brand awareness, drive sign-ups, deposits, trades, app downloads and other activity and the thinking behind partnering with high profile ambassadors is establish brand trust in an increasingly competitive and sometimes intimidating marketplace
“We’re the newcomers to the scene,” said Harrison. “We know that we had to embark on some kind of mass branding, advertising, sponsorship type work in order to be able to do that.”
According to Harrison, the FTX campaign seeks to reach both those who are well-versed in cryptocurrency and have a number of options they can choose from, and those who are new to the space and don’t know where to start.
Comment:
This is just the latest iteration of FTX’s recent marketing push which also includes signing a $135m deal for the naming rights on the Miami Heat’s stadium (now called FTX Arena) and penning a partnership to become the official crypto exchange of MLB which will see its logo across official baseball umpire uniforms and broadcasts.
Plus, in August, FTX signed a seven-year deal with North America’s professional League of Legends circuit: one of the top three most popular sports broadcasts for the key 18-to-34-year-old US demographic.
Establishing trust is vital in a sector rife with scams: the US Federal Trade Commission reports that crypto investment scams have skyrocketed since October 2020 with around 7,000 Americans reporting scam linked losses between October and March.
While in July TikTok barred users from promoting sponsored content about cryptocurrencies and prohibiting ad placements for cryptocurrencies, crypto trading platforms and more.
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