Coinbase adverts banned in UK for suggesting crypto could ease cost of living crisis

"The adverts from the US crypto exchange include a sarcastic two-minute video showing people singing everything is just fine, everything is grand as their home falls into a state of disrepair and suffers a power cut, while outside Britons cheerfully dance through streets littered with rats and piles of overflowing bin bags. As the ad progresses, a shopper faces rising prices for fish fingers in a supermarket, white-collar workers lose their jobs, a sewage pipe bursts and rubbish falls from the sky. The clip ends with large text saying: If everything's fine, don't change anything, before being replaced with the Coinbase logo."

"The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the advertising campaign, which launched in August, implied that using Coinbase could be an alternative to the financial concerns associated with the cost of living, and so trivialised the risks associated with investing in cryptocurrencies. We considered that using humour to reference serious financial concerns, alongside a cue to change', risked presenting complex, high-risk financial products as an easy or obvious response to those concerns, it said."

Coinbase launched an advertising campaign in August depicting people cheerfully insisting everything is fine amid visible social and household decline. The UK's Advertising Standards Authority banned the adverts for implying that using Coinbase could be an alternative to financial concerns tied to the cost of living and for trivialising the risks of cryptocurrency investment. The ASA judged that humour combined with a cue to change risked presenting complex, high-risk financial products as an easy response. Coinbase was founded in 2012 and provides a platform to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. George Osborne was appointed in December to chair Coinbase's global advisory council and had previously advised the company.

Read at www.theguardian.com