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- The massive television campaign in the major US media initiated by Grayscale has disappointed many members of the crypto community.
- The ad is being criticized in the community for technical flaws and an ambiguous message.
Announced on August 7 by Digital Currency Group CEO and founder Barry Silbert, Grayscale’s massive advertising campaign has begun. With a nationwide reach in the United States, the campaign was launched in the country’s major media outlets such as FOX, CNBC, MSNBC, among others. The campaign was launched with the promise of bringing mass adoption of Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and other cryptocurrencies.
Grayscale is the world’s largest asset managing firm for cryptocurrencies. During 2020, the company has increased its investment in Bitcoin and Ethereum and has been even buying quantities of BTC that have exceeded the production of the miners in a given period. The launch of the national campaign in the United States was interpreted by many to be an attempt by the company to attract new investors to the crypto market.
Statista’s data show that the viewers of the TV stations where the advertising campaign was launched are young, with an average age of 49 years. In other words, the campaign targets the audience most likely to invest in cryptocurrencies and is expected to reach at least 6.5 million people. Grayscale’s CEO, Michael Sonnenshein, shared the above commercial yesterday with the message “Go Digital”.
Bringing Bitcoin to the masses
The commercial is 30 seconds long and, as noted by several members of the crypto community, there is no mention of Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency in any part of the ad. In fact, only at the end there is a list of products offered by Grayscale. Among them is the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust which has achieved a total market value in Assets Under Management (AUM) of $4,814 billions, the Grayscale Ethereum Trust with $769 million and the Grayscale Ethereum Classic Trust with $82.4 million.
The rest of the video tries to establish a relationship between the need to invest in cryptocurrencies and digital assets to counteract the “inflationary policies” of the Federal Reserve of the United States. However, the crypto community noted that the message of the video was ambiguous and unclear. In that sense, some users said it does not meet their objective of “moving investors to action”, as one Twitter user stated:
Seriously like is this the best you can do ? The music is overlapping the words & most of the audio is unhearable. I appreciate the efforts Grayscale, but do better next time. Your drop Gold campaign was way too good.
Another critic of the commercial was Paul Brody, a blockchain innovation leader at Ernst & Young. Brody said he wants to see blockchain technology succeed, but:
I don’t want to see further amplification of the bad economic ideas that underpin bitcoin and the silly idea that somehow printing money is somehow always and automatically bad.
Other users were bullish and said the commercial will have a direct positive impact on Bitcoin’s price. Despite not explicitly mentioning cryptocurrencies, the more optimistic users were confident in how “historically” every Grayscale commercial has been positive for the crypto market.
Our new commercial debuts TODAY… Trust us: AUDIO ON! #GoGrayscale pic.twitter.com/hPhUgp7HiY
— Grayscale (@Grayscale) August 10, 2020
