CRYPTO’S NOT JUST FOR JERKS IN HOBBY’S OUTRAGEOUS NEW SPOTS

HOBBY’s Beatrice Pegard pokes fun at the excesses of the crypto community in two hilarious spots for new cryptocurrency platform Olliv.

Titled ‘Skeptical' and ‘Complicated’, these spots show cryptocurrency isn’t just a hustle for obnoxious tech bros and rich douchebags - it’s for us normal people too. That’s the message behind the ‘Normal People Crypto’ campaign from AdAge Small Agency of the Year, Quality Meats. “Our approach was to basically acknowledge all the questions, fears and doubts we personally had around crypto, as crypto laypeople ourselves, since that’s how many people are probably thinking about crypto right now,” says Brian Siedband, Quality Meats Co-CCO.

“We wanted to play against all the celebrity spokespeople and lofty ‘fortune favoring the brave'-style noise, and bring crypto down to earth, with everyday use cases that can actually be helpful in everyday life,” says Gordy Sang, Quality Meats Co-CCO.

It’s clear right away these aren’t your average financial services spots. Pegard brings her trademark visual exuberance and irreverent humour to these satirical scenes.

HOBBY clearly had fun building this world of douchebaggery. Shot over two days in Cape Town, South Africa, the production recreated the traditional crypto scene in all its glamour… and all its ridiculousness. Shady crypto dealers lurk in back alleys. Tech bros rattle their jewellery outside glitzy clubs. The one-percenters are pampered in tasteless opulence. There’s a custom luxury car with suicide doors and a hang gliding billionaire launching himself from his mansion in the hills.

The finale of ‘Skeptical’ sees a brattish tech guru hovering above his private pool on a water jet board. HOBBY and the team had to pull off an impressive last minute in-camera effect to get the shot - when it became clear the pool wouldn’t be able to power a real jet board.

Crypto is a global currency so it seems appropriate that this production was truly global too. HOBBY assembled a wealth of international talent to bring this extravagant world to life. As HOBBY Producer John Gerard points out:

“With the director in Sydney, producers in London and LA, agency in Austin and Chicago, and shoot location in Cape Town; this really was a global production in the truest sense. There was always bound to be someone from the team awake and working on this project at all hours, even if it was inevitably 5 o’clock somewhere else!”

Beatrice Pegard is represented by HOBBY in the Nordics and USA.