The jury is still out on whether the Rams or the Bengals will walk out of Super Bowl LIV as Champions, but there have already been a flurry of memorable commercials and moments. One such moment occurred during FTX’s commercial promoting its cryptocurrency exchange, which featured Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David. David is featured in the commercial as the skeptic during landmark inventions throughout time, and that includes the final part of the commercial when Crypto is brought up. This is actually David’s first commercial, and director Jeff Schaffer said that FTX “had the grapes to make an ad where Larry David says he won’t use the product (via Variety).
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“We need to meet people where they are – and that means embracing skepticism,” said FTX co-founder and CEO Sam Bankman. “A lot of people who are now the biggest advocates of crypto once had significant reservations.”
“Who better to belittle the sum of human achievement – and be wrong?” Schaffer said. Schaffer added that David gets asked to do commercials “pretty regularly, but also said most discussions don’t get past the concept phase.
“A lot of times, when you get the idea, they’ve already worked on it very hard, and they’re very proud of it, and they want to do it that way. Often, we have a different take on stuff,” Schaffer said. FTX’s ad agency dentsuMB had a concept “we were completely in lockstep with” and “we got excited and started writing little sketches about different time periods.” He also said that it helped that “Larry and I are not the most tech-savvy people on the planet.”
It was a complex shoot with several scenarios and lots of costumes, and it all came together pretty quickly. While the ad for the Super Bowl is 60 seconds, there’s a two and a half minute trailer that will be released online later tonight.
“When you make something, whatever it is, a show, a movie, and you’re proud of it, there’s always a fear in the back of your head: What if nobody sees it?” Schaffer said. “With a Super Bowl, that removes all of those doubts. If we can keep people from going to the bathroom one minute longer, we have done our job.”
