OpenAI’s Super Bowl Ad Echoes Coinbase’s 2022 Viral QR Code Commerical

Key Takeaways

• OpenAI ran its first-ever television commercial during Sunday’s Super Bowl.
• The Super Bowl ad was the work of OpenAI’s new chief marketing officer (CMO) Kate Rouch.
• Before joining OpenAI in December, Rouch worked for Coinbase where she was responsible for a viral Super Bowl campaign.

In OpenAI’s first-ever foray into television advertising during Sunday’s Super Bowl, the company opted for a minimal aesthetic that emphasized its technology’s potential rather than relying heavily on branding.

The commercial was the brainchild of OpenAI CMO Kate Rouch, one of the most successful advertisers in tech who was also behind Coinbase’s viral 2022 Super Bowl ad that drove 20 million visits to the online crypto exchange.

OpenAI’s Television Debut

When OpenAI hired Rouch as its first chief marketing officer (CMO) in December 2024, it signaled a new chapter for the company.

Before the Super Bowl, OpenAI’s marketing strategy had been nonexistent. And it’s easy to see why the company wasn’t initially in a rush.

As the fastest-growing consumer application in history, ChatGPT has amassed more than 300 million weekly users without so much as a single Facebook ad.

But for its advertising debut, OpenAI went big and acquired the most expensive slot on television.

The commercial itself only subtly alludes to ChatGPT. By creating animations out of the pulsating dot the platform displays while loading answers, OpenAI relied on imagery that only preexisting users would recognize.

Coinbase’s Viral Super Bowl Commercial

By deemphasizing logos and other hallmarks of traditional brand advertising, OpenAI’s commercial recalled Rouch’s previous Super Bowl creation for Coinbase.

For that, viewers weren’t made aware of what was being promoted until the last seconds of the commercial, and even then they would miss it if they blinked. Instead, most of the minute-long video depicted a QR code bouncing around the screen, inviting viewers to scan it with their phones and be directed to the Coinbase website.

Rather than forcefully trying to sell a product, both commercials were designed to create intrigue and start a conversation.

As Rouch described in an interview , “People are sitting around at Super Bowl parties, and they’re going to be like, ‘Whoa, hey do you use ChatGPT? How do you use it?’ And they’ll pull out their phones.”

A New Era for OpenAI

The overarching message of OpenAI’s commercial, dubbed “The Intelligence Age” is that the rise of artificial intelligence represents an epochal breakthrough equivalent to the invention of fire, the wheel or the internet.

However, the ad doesn’t just point to the revolutionary potential of modern AI tools; it also reflects OpenAI’s journey as it matures from a scrappy startup into a major tech player.

Technology firms have traditionally turned to television advertising at key milestones in their growth.

For example, after more than a decade in business, Google ran its first commercial  to promote Chrome in 2009, marking a pivotal expansion beyond the search engine that built the brand.

For OpenAI, the latest marketing campaign also looks beyond the product that made it famous, or at least beyond the rudimentary use cases of the early chatbot era.

The final seconds of the commercial highlight sophisticated, multimodal AI functions. “What bird is this?” asks one voice; “Turn my idea into a business plan” commands another.

It then concludes with what could become an iconic marketing slogan: “What do you want to create next?”