So something very unusual caught my eye out in Dublin this evening. Floki Inu, a memecoin, is running a massive outdoor advertising campaign. This tweet announces the details and some photos showing the extent of the two week campaign: 150 buses, 14 billboards, 12 rail digital displays, and 50 rail 6-sheets displays in Dublin!
I counted, in the twenty or so minutes I was outside this evening grabbing a chipper, at least 20 buses and a railbridge which had the ad running in circulation. What also caught my eye looking at the difference between the ads they showed on their twitter, and the ads I saw with my own eyes is that there was zero risk warning. This is really, really likely to cause a lot of complaints with the Advertising Standards Authority, given that it’s crypto, and any financial advertising in Ireland has to have a load of disclosures.
I’m also really surprised that Exteron Media, the advertising agency that handles Dublin bus and a lot of the outdoor advertising would let it go ahead without those disclosures. So while it’s cool to see crypto exposed to a larger audience, (and they’re not the first, with a crypto exchange running a crypto campaign on the Luas a year or two ago), it’ll be interesting to see if their userbase does grow in Ireland, but also does it lead to any legal issues around the advertising campaign, and ones that follow it.
