This Sunday (07/02) Reddit stepped off the internet for a bit and bought five seconds of the most expensive time on television in the world during the Super Bowl. The very short ad celebrated the GameStop case and went unnoticed by many people who followed the event.

The Importance (and Cost) of Super Bowl Ads

For those who don't know, the Super Bowl is the game that decides the NFL (National Football League) champion, held between the winners of the two conferences in the US. The event captures the imagination of North Americans, and was won for the first time this year by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, led by Tom Brady, who won his seventh trophy. Commercials in NFL decision games are highly valued, and in Super Bowl LV, 30 seconds cost US$ 5,5 million. according to CNN.

“Spots on big games are always expensive, so we couldn’t afford to buy a full one. But we were inspired and decided to spend our entire marketing budget in 5 seconds. One thing we’ve learned from our communities over the past week is that underdogs can accomplish anything when they come together around a common idea,” reads part of the text displayed by Reddit during the commercial for Super Bowl.

https://twitter.com/reddit/status/1358572629729320960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1358572629729320960%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2021%2F2%2F7%2F22271797%2Freddit-super-bowl-ad-five-seconds-gamestop

GameStop Case

The ad celebrates the GameStop case, in which shares of the game store were purchased after members of the WallStreetBets sub-editorship banded together to change the company's market value. Together, the amateur short sellers ripped $5 billion off Wall Street in 2021.

Professional speculators began losing money because they could no longer buy the cheaper stocks to return. Reddit users who risked more on their small investments and managed to sell their GameStop shares at the high end of the spectrum came out on top.

Now, to celebrate this unprecedented feat, Reddit has decided to buy a short but very expensive ad for the Super Bowl final. This is usually the most-watched sporting event of the year in the world, and halftime is the most expensive commercial time on television. In the 2020 edition, 30 seconds of advertising cost around R$23 million. The figures for 2021 have not yet been released, but it is expected that the forum paid a good amount to put the text on the screen.

“Powerful things happen when people come together around something that really matters. And there’s a place for that. It’s called Reddit,” concludes the text displayed at the Super Bowl.

Through which channels you reach those people, classic and out of the box. The Verge

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