Google‘s recently launched commercial ad promoting their new Call Screen pokes fun at energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining. The dialogue in the commercial between two characters centers around high energy bills related to the famed process. The female lead remarks to the other actor that his energy bill is “super high.” He responds that it is due to his cryptocurrency mining activity.
The shots at crypto don’t stop there, the woman in the commercial then says:
“Cryptocurrency? That money’s not real”
To which her onscreen counterpart responds “Yeah, well I’ve got news for you: money isn’t real.”
The playful commentary on the ever-controversial digital asset is laced with irony as Sergey Brin (the president of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc.) is a known Ethereum miner.
The company recently lifted it’s June crypto ad ban (in part) and may be poking fun at the regulations by talking about cryptocurrency in their own advertisements now. Their stance on cryptocurrency is not entirely fleshed out, like most the search engine giant is attempting to balance digital asset potential while mitigating its risks. Just last week Google banned obfuscated Chrome extensions that include mining scripts. This was in an attempt to thwart malicious extensions using machine learning.
All Google policy and comment related to cryptocurrency are dictated by their ‘watchful waiting’ approach. At the time of the ad ban Google’s Director of Sustainable Ads, Scott Spencer commented,
“We don’t have a crystal ball to know where the future is going to go with cryptocurrencies, but we’ve seen enough consumer harm or potential for consumer harm that it’s an area that we want to approach with extreme caution.”
That extreme caution Spencer described has now become slightly politicized through their latest video ad’s commentary. The crypto 24-hour news cycle is continuously filled with Big Four and big investor two-cents on cryptocurrency. While Google’s intentions for the ad may have been nothing short of playful, as Bitcoin prices continue to plummet any news can easily become bad news for investors.
