You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …
The Product:
Kraken Crypto Exchange
The Promotion:
The Pitch:
Cryptocurrency is a lot like tacos: not good for you, but as long as you don’t pay attention to what goes into it, you’ll probably enjoy yourself.
I want you to watch the ad above. Now I want you to forget you’ve seen it, and just imagine what the script to this commercial would’ve looked like.
‘Cause, you know what? As written, this could have been a fine ad. People are often hesitant about using cryptocurrency, so an ad that compares buying crypto to trying out a new taco truck? That’s kind of brilliant. We can also be hesitant to try new places to eat, but have internalized the idea that we need to try them some of the time, or else we’re being boring. And we all probably have memories of trying a new restaurant, loving the food, and being so glad we didn’t miss out.
Of course, it’s not a perfect metaphor. Once people sample the food at a restaurant, they can tell right away whether they enjoy it or not, but cryptocurrency isn’t something you enjoy in its own right – whether it gives you any benefit is something that’ll take time to become clear, if it ever does. And what “spicy as you like” is supposed to mean in regards to cryptocurrency, I cannot tell you.
That’s why I said it could have been a good ad, not an honest one. Had it been produced well, most folks wouldn’t have thought through the ways it doesn’t make sense, just absorbed the general vibe it was putting down.
But instead of being produced well … it did this.
The whole idea behind the crypto/taco comparison is to make buying cryptocurrency seem as ordinary and unthreatening as eating taco truck tacos. But instead of keeping things grounded and mundane, they went the exact opposite direction and created this uncanny valley nightmare.
The sets have the rough outline of a taco truck by the side of the road, but everything is so blatantly artificial, like it was all built by an alien working off someone else’s description. Or like it was designed by Tim Burton if they were really into the color pink.
It all just looks … off. Especially when you get to the “food”, which keeps the rough outline of real food, but is clearly made of hard plastic that should have your every “DO NOT EAT THIS!!” alarm firing. Given the message of the ad is that this “food” is something you’d want to try, that’s kind of a major problem.
Add in the spokesperson using some very unnaturalistic delivery, and a music track that’s unnerving in a way I don’t have the musical training to properly dissect, and you have a commercial that, if anything, will make crypto seem more sinister and less appealing. I couldn’t figure out how that happened … until I checked out Kraken Crypto Exchange’s YouTube channel.
Seems they’d made a couple ads prior to this one, using the same sort of visual and musical style, and in those ads, that style worked well enough. I guess someone decided they should keep this signature style going, even though it didn’t mesh with what their latest ad was trying to do. So it’s still a bad decision, but at least stubbornly sticking to a style is something I can understand.