The Martin Agency’s CEO calls out Coinbase for lack of credit over Super Bowl spot

It was actually inspired by presentations our agency showed your team said the agency’s CEO refuting Coinbase CEO’s claim of the ad being in-house work.

Coinbase, a US-based cryptocurrency exchange, rolled out one of the simplest and minimalistic Super Bowl ads in recent memory. A QR code bouncing across the screen.

On offer were a limited-period $15 worth of free Bitcoins and a chance to win a $3 million giveaway. The spot was a hit and the company’s servers crashed.

1/ Some folks asked for details of how our super bowl ad came to be, here is the quick back story...

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) February 21, 2022

On Monday (21 February 2022), Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, in a Twitter thread, revealed how the idea of this ad came to life. “… partially inspired by Reddit’s superb owl commercial at previous super bowl,” tweeted Armstrong before going on to write, “No ad agency would have done this ad.”

It was actually inspired by presentations our agency showed your team on 8/18 (pages 19-24) and 10/7 (pages 11-18) with ad concepts for the Super Bowl with floating QR codes on a blank screen.

— Kristen Cavallo (@Cavallokristen) February 21, 2022

Responding to this tread was Kristen Cavallo, CEO of The Martin Agency, a full-service boutique creative advertising agency from Virginia, USA. “It was actually inspired by presentations our agency showed your team on 8/18 (pages 19-24) and 10/7 (pages 11-18) with ad concepts for the Super Bowl with floating QR codes on a blank screen,” she wrote, basically accusing the CEO, of not giving credit to where its due.

12/
Although we didn’t work with a traditional ad agency I’d be remiss not to mention the creative firm we worked with who actually created the ad, commissioned the song, got the clearances etc etc. Honestly, felt like we were all one team so I didn’t fully realize it, thank you!

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) February 21, 2022

After Cavallo’s response, Armstrong added another tweet to his thread thanking “… the creative firm we worked with who actually created the ad, commissioned the song, got the clearances etc etc.” He did not name The Martin Agency or anybody else.

Thread 🧵
1/5: Hi @cavallokristen - The Coinbase team and I deeply value our partners. The fit with our creative partner Accenture Interactive (AI) was seamless - so much to that extent our CEO actually thought we were a single team when presenting work.

— Kate Rouch (@kate_rouch) February 22, 2022

If this was not enough, Kate Rouch, chief marketing officer of Coinbase joined the conversation and credited another agency Accenture Interactive (AI) for its work on the SuperBowl ad.

She said The Martin Agency was not the only agency to pitch them ideas about incorporating QR codes in their campaign. “Only when AI onboarded and came up with the idea of inserting a QR code in a popular meme did we green light the idea.”

Cavallo seems to have had the last say in the matter with her LinkedIn post where she wrote, "My tweet wasn’t about IP or credit; I understand multiple agencies can arrive at a similar idea... I objected to the dismissive tone of the thread and the denigration of ad agencies.