The greatest launch that never happened
In the summer of 2021, I was flown to eToro’s headquarters to take part in their Super Bowl campaign brainstorm. The goal was to generate buzz in the US for this largely unknown investing platform.
eToro entered the US market within a sea of competition, so they needed to make a big splash — something legendary that would mark them as the bold, new player you wanted to know more about.
This was in the swell of the crypto and meme stock craze, when everyone was saying “To the moon!” referring to investment assets soaring high in price.
My idea? Do it for real. Send one lucky person to the actual moon.
A sweepstakes that would have had the world watching
The concept was actually pretty simple. Partner with SpaceX to reserve a ticket on their moon orbit voyage and then use the rest of the marketing budget for a very short ad to air during Super Bowl LVI. The purpose of the ad would merely be to get people to a landing page where they could register and enter to win.
The KPI for the whole campaign was new first-time depositors so we needed only to have a signup form that recorded new users who deposited by a certain date and time.
This was during a time when Elon Musk was big into crypto and eToro’s audience was mainly crypto fans — the partnership made sense and was on brand. It would have been incredible.
Unfortunately, marketing just didn’t see the potential and wanted a more traditional TV commercial. So, the idea was killed.
Smart business is sexy business
The ask was to use our presence at Money 20/20 in Las Vegas to rouse up awareness of Verifone's brand new product:
The Verifone Carbon.
I pitched the idea that we should hand out cards that look very similar to "escort cards" — the kind people are typically handing out on the street in Las Vegas.
This idea got far but was eventually killed by the CEO who wanted something a little less risqué.
It was a clever and cool opportunity that was sadly killed by the legal department. If only I had a time machine…
Save your future
For October 21, 2015, the day Marty McFly traveled to in Back to the Future II, I created a special promotion and interactive microsite for Kaplan Test Prep.
Just see it
While pictures help to sell tourism, the truth is that they don’t really do any of the experience justice. Why not showcase this by withholding beautiful and adventurous images behind a disclaimer.
The concept is to egg the viewer on. The image gives them just a slice of a gorgeous place, but keeps the rest at arms’s length.
Don’t you wanna see it for real?
Sadly, the campaign was never picked up.
