The 30-second spot, which will make its debut during Sunday’s game, underscores the company’s brand pressure to open up America’s financial system to everyone. The ad features everyday people living their lives and shows how they can incorporate the Robinhood app into their daily routines. The ad ends with the slogan “we are all investors.”
The ad will appear at a difficult time for Robinhood.
Last week, Robinhood infuriated users and lawmakers with purchases of GameStop (GME), AMC (AMC) and other favorites from the WallStreetBets Reddit group that disrupted parts of the financial markets. Hours later, Robinhood raised $ 1 billion from existing investors in a move that indicates a cash crisis. Days later, the free trade app raised an additional $ 2.4 billion from investors – a huge amount that underscores the intense financial pressure the company is suddenly experiencing.
Robinhood’s decision to restrict certain activities led users to file a class action lawsuit, claiming that the company’s actions unfairly target the market against its own customers. And Senator Elizabeth Warren this week demanded responses from the company for the “sudden change of rules” on individual investors by temporarily banning the purchase of certain shares.
The controversy is not mentioned in the company’s blog post about the Super Bowl ad. On the contrary, Robinhood said the ad was created in ‘the hope of reaching and empowering millions of people’ who were ‘left behind by the US financial system’.
“We are here in the early morning jog, the afternoon study breaker, the late-night toddler – because we all invest in ourselves every day,” the company said in the post.
The feeling of a good atmosphere of the ad, which cost Robinhood about $ 5.5 million during the game, follows a similar playbook used by other companies that want to regain the will of the public and offer a mea culpa. Wells Fargo (WFC), Uber (UBER) and Facebook (FB) everyone followed that route in 2018 after several controversies.
Tony Calcao, executive creative director at advertising agency CP + B, said an in-room elephant had an effective apology ad.
“If you want to get the customers back,” he said, “you better admit you picked up the clothes.”
Maybe it doesn’t have to admit anything. Data from SimilarWeb shows that the number of downloads last week amounted to more than 1.8 million – an increase of 400% compared to the previous week.
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