Lyft Media Welcomes Crypto Ads with Polkadot, As Companies Spend Millions On Educational Marketing

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Rachel Wolfson

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Rachel Wolfson

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Rachel Wolfson has been covering the cryptocurrency, blockchain and Web3 sector since 2017. She has written for Forbes and Cointelegraph and is the host and founder of Web3 Deep Dive podcast.

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July 21, 2024

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Crypto companies are ramping up digital marketing efforts by running ads on mainstream platforms to increase awareness. According to Magna – the media investment and intelligence unit of IPG Mediabrands – the crypto ad spend in the United States totaled $40 million during the first half of 2024. Additional statistics show that crypto companies are placing ads primarily on platforms like YouTube, which received the largest share of U.S. crypto-ad spending in the first quarter of this year. Facebook represented the largest advertising channel for U.S. crypto companies last year.

Polkadot Runs A New Ad on Lyft

While social media is a popular advertising option for crypto companies, mainstream applications like the ride-sharing app Lyft are now being leveraged. For example, Web3 protocol Polkadot launched an ad campaign on Lyft in June that will run through August this year.

So @Polkadot is now advertising on Lyft 👀 not as “financial advice” pic.twitter.com/LQKNfWXaNv

— Rachel Wolfson (@Rachelwolf00) July 15, 2024

Juba, a Polkadot community member and Founder of creative agency CultureDot told Cryptonews that the “Polkadot X Lyft NYC” campaign was submitted to the OpenGov voting platform in early April. Juba noted that the initiative passed with 80% of the Polkadot community in favor of the Lyft ad campaign.

“Lyft is the second largest ridesharing app in the USA,” Polkadot’s OpenGov reference states. “Lyft has agreed to run Polkadot advertisements for both mobile in-app campaigns and on digital displays that sit atop the famous yellow taxis of New York City.”

Juba explained that Polakdot’s ad delivery began last month and has been on a targeted rotation across specific areas in Manhattan, New York.

“We leveraged the Lyft in-app platform to target relevant areas of the city known for a heavy presence of tech companies, startups, and finance professionals,” he said.

Polkadot Gets Creative With Lyft Ad

Juba added that the in-app ad—which reads “Polkadot, The Future of Blockchain is Here”—directs Lyft users to a fifteen-minute documentary entitled ” Behind the Code.” “From developers, project builders, enthusiasts to key opinion leaders and future participants – many bright-minded personalities are featured in this documentary throughout,” he said. Although the ad directs users to a rather lengthy video, Polkadot appears to be taking a unique approach to advertising by focusing on user education. “We decided to land this advertisement to this specific piece of media due to its transparent and educational nature regarding various elements that come together, which form the Polkadot network,” Juba said.

Lyft Ad Generates Impressive Results

While the Polkadot X Lyft NYC campaign has only been running for over a month, Juba shared that the results have been impressive. “Our in-app ads have performed very well across all markets, returning 3.2% higher engagement across all Lyft riders,” he said. “In the first two weeks this amounted to 20,000 engagements leading to the ‘Behind the Code Series.’ Our final numbers will be at the end of August for the full campaign.”“Using Lyft company reported metrics, we expect to land over 20M+ visual impressions from on-taxi displays,” Polkadot’s OpenGov website further noted.Regarding campaign cost, the OpenGov reference site states that Polkadot will spend a total of $189,680 (31,352 DOT) for the campaign duration. Shane Dwyer, Head of Lyft Media, told Cryptonews that Lyft Media has a unique ability to reach a hyper-attentive audience. “That means that we can help Polkadot showcase their technology to Lyft audiences through our in-app advertising solutions, which are proven to increase both upper and lower funnel metrics for advertisers,” Dwyer said. “It’s this same kind of forward-looking thinking embodied by both Lyft and Polkadot that makes this a great relationship.”

Coinbase Showcases “Mr. Miggles” Ad on X

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase also recently released an advertisement on X.The new ad features a cute cat named “Mr. Miggles.” A Coinbase spokesperson told Cryptonews that the Mr. Miggles social campaign is designed to showcase how on-chain technology can provide creators more freedom and control over their content. “With the virality of internet culture, anyone could become a global sensation,” the spokesperson said. “But when you post content online – whether words, video, images, or music – you lose control over what happens next. And you don’t see nearly the amount of the revenue that the platform where it’s posted on does.”

The internet is broken.
Want to update it with us?https://t.co/H9GHgFRvLY pic.twitter.com/D88yYOxt5a

— Coinbase 🛡️ (@coinbase) July 17, 2024

Although the Mr. Miggles ad has sparked mixed reactions from X users, Coinbase said that within the first 24 hours of the ad launch – which took place July 16 – the exchange saw over 500,000 non-fungible token (NFT) mints, which raised over 53 ETH (about $186,000 at the time of writing) for the Base Creator Fund.

“We’re inviting anyone to participate on-chain by remixing the Mr. Miggles NFT and voting for their favorites,” the spokesperson said. “100% of the proceeds from the NFT remixes go to the creators. 100% of the proceeds from the Mister Miggles film mint will go to the Base Creator Fund.”

Kate Rouch, Coinbase’s Chief Marketing Officer, further told Cryptonews that while the Internet has unlocked an explosion of creativity, most content creators do not reap the benefits. Given this, she hopes that the Mr. Miggles ad campaign will help educate content creators about on-chain technology.

“Our goal with Mister Miggles is to show that on-chain technology can help with a much needed update to the economic models of the Internet and empower creators big and small,” Rouch said.

Coinbase’s Advertising Spend and Strategy

Coinbase further shared that in Q1 2024, the company spent $99 million on sales and marketing efforts. This number exceeds last year’s Q1 spending

of $64 million.

In addition to ads running on social media platforms, Coinbase regularly advertises on television stations (for example, last years’ viral “Update the System” spot, which ran during NBA games on ESPN, ABC, and TNT). The cryptocurrency exchange has also featured print ads on mainstream media outlets such as The Washington Post.

Algorand Runs Ad on X to Highlight Atomic Swaps

The Layer-1 Network Algorand has also taken to X for advertising. On July 17, in honor of National Hotdog Day, Algorand released an ad on the social media platform to raise awareness about atomic swaps.

The cooking never stops.🧑🏼‍🍳

Let’s talk about why Algorand is a top dog on #NationalHotDogDay.

Algorand has atomic swaps, which lets two people trade different cryptocurrencies/tokens without getting cheated (like the scenario here).

We pioneered atomic swaps as a core component… pic.twitter.com/EheNIptxvC

— John Woods (@JohnAlanWoods) July 17, 2024

Marc Vanlerberghe, CMO of Algorand Foundation, told Cryptonews that the advertisement features a series of eight sketches highlighting use cases for atomic swaps.

“All ads are running on X, and are targeting the crypto twitter community and blockchain developers to raise awareness for Algorand as the blockchain that is ready for real-world scale,” Vanlerberghe said.

For context, atomic swaps enable the exchange of cryptocurrencies across different blockchains without a third party.

Will Crypto Ads Help Educate Users?

While crypto companies are spending millions on advertisements across Web2 platforms, whether these ads will help educate users is yet to be seen. Even with all the crypto advertisements that took place last year, a survey from language-learning platform Preply found that 60% of U.S. cryptocurrency investors still don’t understand blockchain technology. Although this happens to be the case, Rouch remains hopeful that ads from Coinbase will resonate with users. “Coinbase’s marketing philosophy is to meet audiences where they are in a tech-forward way,” she said. “In particular, we are focused on participatory campaigns where people can engage with us. Our campaigns often have online, on-chain, and in-person components that invite consumers to participate directly.”Juba added that Polkadot ads across Lyft will likely help get the message to users who want to understand blockchain technology. “The team at Lyft was very open and willing to work with us,” he remarked. “They took time to understand our approach, our target audience, and help tailor a solution that makes sense for both our budget and the tech industry.”