CoinSwitch Kuber, CoinDCX and WazirX were the top crypto advertisers on digital mediums this year: Report

• While no decision has been made yet by the Government to ban Cryptocurrency platforms and their ads yet, if banned in the ongoing winter session in the parliament, it is likely to have a larger impact on India’s advertising sector.
• Here’s a look back at how much Cryptocurrency platforms contributed to ad revenue pie from January to November 2021, as per TAM AdEx.

A proposed bill in India indicates that the government is mulling over introducing a facilitative framework for the creation of an official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India. The Bill also seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India, however, it allows for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses. This uncertainty has already caused price declines on the local exchanges and crypto advertisers have decided to take it slow until the next hearing.

While Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that no decision has been taken on banning crypto advertisements, there is a new Bill in the making, which implies there will be stringent policies in place. FM Sitharaman further said that the new Bill will take into account the rapidly changing dimensions in the virtual currency space. She had also mentioned that it will be presented to the Cabinet and introduced in the Parliament during the ongoing winter session.

Until the next hearing, crypto platforms have either halted or slowed their advertising activities, which is likely to impact advertising revenue collection. As per exclusive data shared by TAM AdEx with Advertising and Media Insider, there was a spike in cryptocurrency-related digital advertisements by 36 times between Jan to Nov 2021.

Due to the festive season and IPL 2021, crypto platforms were at their peak during October. The month of Diwali, which was October this year, nearly had a 30% share of the category and it took a dip by 6% in November 2021, whereas on television, there wasn’t a single ad from Crypto platforms in 2020.

In 2021, television has seen 33.4 hours of advertising from Crypto platforms. The festive season proved to be bountiful for television too as October had more than 75% share of Crypto platforms, up from 2% in June and 23% in September. More than 85% of cryptocurrency advertisements were on Sports channels, with the rest appearing on News channels, GEC stations, and Movies channels. Cricket was the most popular genre amongst all, with 84% of cryptocurrency advertising airing in Y 2021.

Ad insertions of cryptocurrency grew from 0.01% share in overall Digital advertising during Jan-Nov'20 to 0.27% in Jan-Nov'21, indicating that the competition is getting intense and there’s a wider consumer base for brands to woo now.

Simultaneously, the count of advertisers grew fivefold from 15 in Jan-Nov'20 to 59 in Jan-Nov'21 on digital mediums, revealed TAM AdEx. CoinSwitch Kuber had the lion’s share of 44% in digital crypto advertising from Jan to Nov, followed by CoinSwitch.Co at 18% and CoinDCX at 18%. Wazirx and Zebpay had 8% and 6% share respectively in digital advertising

Between Jan to Oct, CoinSwitch Kuber had the biggest share of 58% on television too, followed by CoinDCX at 36%, Zebpay at 5% and WazirX at 1%.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the meeting conducted on November 13 had reviewed key issues concerning cryptocurrency. He had discussed misleading, non-transparent advertising practices. It was also discussed that unregulated crypto markets should not become avenues for money laundering and terror financing.

In the past few months, we have seen a lot of high decibel campaigns from a lot of crypto players including WazirX, CoinSwitch Kuber, CoinDCX, Zebpay to name a few. Many of the platforms have used prominent faces like Ranveer Singh, Kunaal Kapoor Roy, Vishnu Kaushal to woo young consumers.

A lot of people have been speaking about the risks of investing in the currency without fully understanding how the crypto ecosystem works. The government’s move therefore could help bring about more transparency and accountability into the ecosystem.