Ashley BorthwickThe ASA has instructed CB Payments Ltd trading as Coinbase that it must not show its set of Video on Demand and poster ads with a theme of “everything is just fine” in their current form again. The ads had a theme of satire, with adults singing and dancing while highlighting difficulties in every day lives with the cost of living. Messages appearing in the video and on the posters said “IF EVERYTHING’S FINE DON’T CHANGE ANYTHING”, with a Coinbase logo.
Complaints said that the ads were irresponsible because they trivialised the risks of cryptocurrency and implied it was a solution to prevalent financial concerns. Coinbase said the ads were easily understood and that it was reasonable to assume consumers would see them as satirical. It said the ads did not contain any calls to action or suggest any solution to the problems and that no reasonable consumer would understand the catchphrase as meaning that Coinbase’s cryptocurrency would solve individual financial hardship. Neither did Coinbase believe the ads trivialised the risks of cryptocurrency.
The ASA seems to have some sympathy with Coinbase’s view and agreed consumers would see the parody and that everything was not in fact “fine”. But it said the ads implied that consumers should make a financial change, and that by pairing the phrase with the logo it was positioning Coinbase as an alternative to traditional financial systems and implying it could be part of the solution to the problems featured in the ads. It acknowledged the general public is becoming more familiar with crypto, but still it is complex and many consumers will not have an in-depth understanding. So, overall, the ASA said the ads trivialised the risks associated with cryptocurrency investment and were irresponsible.
