The world of advertising has also been influenced by cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Now, thanks to the growth of the sector and the growing interest of people around the world in the digital economy, many brands venture to experiment with the new industry, making the emerging ecosystem an important input for their advertising campaigns.
Although the objective of these promotions may be to publicize a new product or service (an ICO or new token, for example), it highlights the fact that the creative proposals not only come from companies linked to the ecosystem, but also from large companies with trajectory in various industries that aim to generate customer loyalty or create brand awareness, approaching them through a topic that has achieved great popularity especially after the rise in the price of bitcoin at the end of 2017 .
In their desire to attract attention and to be more and more creative, companies have developed a series of curious and even dangerous advertising campaigns that even invite the public to take some risks, which can go beyond the fact of investing in cryptocurrencies.
SEARCH CRYPTOCOINS BURIED ON MOUNT EVEREST
Last May a company led promoting the launch of the initial offering of coins (ICO) social network juvenile ASKfm a very risky levels, and designed an advertising campaign that consisted in hiding in the summit of Mount Everest two hard drives with 500,000 ASKT tokens, valued by the company, at $ 50,000 each, although they have not yet been issued .
To carry out the feat, the company hired a team of four Ukrainian professional climbers, who climbed Everest accompanied by sherpas (mountain guides). An advertising video was recorded there, in which one of the climbers shows the discs and points out that one of them would be placed in the peak, and the other somewhere in the mountain. At the end the public is invited to look for the tokens , "if it can" .
The plans were hampered due to bad weather conditions, and when the team began to descend was affected by snow blindness, being trapped at about 7,900 meters . The climbers had to be rescued, two of them suffered freezing and then recovered. However one of the Sherpas, named Lam Babu, got lost.
Due to the confused information that transpired on the subject, in principle it was not known if the man had died or not. Subsequent information on the subject indicates that Sherpa Lam Babu died on that expedition. Despite this unfortunate fact, the company's promotional campaign has continued its march.
WIN PACKS OF BACON WITH A PARODY OF A TOKEN
The North American charcuterie company Oscar Mayer, belonging to the Kraft Foods group, began promoting its products at the beginning of last May with a strategy created by the advertising agency McGarryBowen, which simulated making an initial offer of coins and launching a token based on a bacon reward: Bacoin (BACN). The campaign was supported by a video by Keith Sizzle, a fictional character who graciously presented himself as the "architect of Bacoin and digital prophet", making a parody of cryptocurrency mining and its entire quotation process.
Each BACN was equivalent to an indeterminate number of slices of bacon (BCNS), whose quantity would go up or down according to the participation of the people, who had to share product information through social networks or emails. In this way, they obtained profits in bacon packages . The idea was to emulate the fluctuation of the price of cryptographic currencies and the way in which investors follow these changes in the market.
A few days after the launch of the promotion the company received a complaint from a young man who requested his suspension, claiming to have created a real cryptocurrency with the same name in 2014, in an inconclusive plan that sought to use the token as a marketing tool for the industry. meat In response to his request, the man noted that the company promised to give him bacon , make a donation to the nonprofit Geek Group National Science Center, and possibly send him a Wienermobile (car in the form of a hot dog).
Although the company confirmed to have communicated with the young man -who by the way confessed not to have money to make a demand-, he assured that his idea was original. The promotion closed in mid-May and it was also not clear if the appearance of this complaint was part of the advertising strategy or a way of drawing attention from the complainant.
BUY MILKSHAKES TO GUESS THE PRICE OF BITCOIN
Boost Juice Bars, an Australian retail store that specializes in the sale of fruit juices and smoothies, launched a four-week promotion last February , in which customers were asked to guess the value of a bitcoin at 12 noon of every Monday. The person who made the closest guesses each week would get profits in bitcoin.
To participate, consumers should receive a coupon that was automatically generated after downloading the company's mobile application and clicking to purchase their products. Then, the person emitted his calculation on the value of bitcoin in the established time and day, or a random number was generated to participate.
The guesses closed 24 hours before selecting the winner and only a consumer could guess a specific value to be the winner each week. To carry out this campaign, Boost Juice partnered with the Australian exchange house , CoinJar, in order to cover the acquisition costs of the cryptocurrency.
According to company data, there was an increase of 67% in the use of the application after the launch of the campaign , obtaining more than 3,500 conjectures within the first two days. In this regard, the director of technological innovation, Christian McGilloway, said that the idea was to approach consumers with the subject of which they were thinking and talking, considering the growth of interest and the high prices reached by bitcoin at the end of 2017.
SUCKING YOUR FINGERS WITH BITCOINS
Earlier this year the fast food company KFC Canada began offering a special bucket with ten pieces of chicken, waffle fries , a medium sauce and two dips for the equivalent of 20 dollars in bitcoins. In the packaging of the product , the traditional image of Colonel Sanders was replaced by the Bitcoin logo .
In parallel, the company developed a playful campaign through social networks around its new offer using phrases and word games that mixed names and characteristics of their products with terms linked to the new ecosystem. Promotions and questions the public had to answer were raised, making even suggestions on how to invest bitcoins ,. In this way phrases such as: "if Satoshi reveals his identity, the bucket runs on our own"; "Fiat money is backed by gold, but Bitcoin is backed by fried chicken"; or also "invest in an original recipe. Avoid the alt-recipes. "
The promotion was only available in Canada for the home delivery service. It became a novelty in the restaurant world, as it was the first time that the parent company adopted a digital currency. Through its messages, KFC suggested that it would expand the new payment method in future promotions, accepting other cryptocurrencies.
EAT HAMBURGERS WITH WHOPPERCOINS TOKENS
In August 2017 the Russian subsidiary of Burger King offered customers a new token called Whoppercoin for every ruble they spent in their restaurants. Once the person accumulated 1,700 WhopperCoins , they could be exchanged for a free hamburger.
The token was issued on the platform of the exchange house Waves and was born with an initial circulation of one billion units, which were transferred to the digital wallets of the users after submitting a copy of their invoice.
Shortly after the announcement, the price of the platform's original crypto-active, Waves, had a significant increase in its price . For that date the company raised the possibility of a possible issuance of this asset as exchange value to acquire products in stores, although there is no more recent information about it.
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