PayPal scalps a parody of its Super Bowl ad positioning Bitcoin as ‘New Money’
A repurposed version of PayPal’s Super Bowl ad positioning Bitcoin, instead of the money transferal service, as the future of currency has been pulled from YouTube to "avoid customer confusion".
The ‘New Money’ PayPal slot, which featured as The Drum’s Ad of the Day last week, took aim at the established banking institutions by calling them ‘Old Money’ and implying it is the future of banking.
However, with crypto-currencies like Bitcoin proving to be the latest disruptive force in banking, Shiloh Silverman, who heads a video studio called Silver Park Studio, rejigged the PayPal ad to proclaim “Bitcoin is newer money”.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the video received takedown notices for its similarity to the PayPal's creative, a spokeswoman for the company said: “Our vision of New Money includes Bitcoin, but to avoid customer confusion, we asked them for the video to be removed.”
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I think this demonstrates just how excited customers are about the concept behind PayPal’s ’New Money’ campaign.”
PayPal went onto say it is working with the cryptocurrency through digital wallet firm CoinBase.
Following the takedown, a new version was uploaded (which can be seen at the top of the article), below is the original PayPal ad for comparison.