Robinhood’s Super Bowl ad couldn’t have come at a worse time. They’re in the midst of a ton of bad press and ran and ad that felt it was made to make people even angrier.
In case you missed the wild saga: Robinhood came under fire after it limited the trades on stocks that Reddit investors targeted to inflate, like AMC and GameStop. This was part of a widespread battle between retail traders and certain hedge funds that had shorted stocks. Robinhood claims they didn’t have enough cash to continue trading, making the pricey ad even more controversial.
From the get go, newly popular subreddit r/WallStreetBets was pissed off when Robinhood announced, and debuted, its planned Super Bowl ad. “Fuck Robinhood,” posted one commenter as the subreddit floated crowdfunding an (uber expensive) ad of its own. WallStreetBets ended up raising about $30,000 — that’s many millions away from from buying a Super Bowl ad — but the contentious atmosphere didn’t go away.
To be fair, the ad from Robinhood almost seemed designed to make people angry. The message of the ad is literally “we are all investors” just after it made headlines for denying people the chance to invest. Here’s the Robinhood spot that aired toward the end of the big game.
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People were really, really unhappy to the ad from Robinhood. Here are just a few of the responses, which ranged from anger, to jokes, to disbelief that the app would run the ad.
Guess that Robinhood ad was already locked in huh
— Amanda Mull (@amandamull) February 8, 2021
Stood up and boo’d that Robinhood commercial. BOOOOOOOO!!!!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
— Nate (@BarstoolNate) February 8, 2021
Robin Hood, despite being the craziest company of 2021 so far, managed to have the most boring Super Bowl ad.
— Alex Weprin (@alexweprin) February 8, 2021
lmao great timing on that super bowl ad Robinhood
— Super Bowl Ref (@lib_crusher) February 8, 2021
Not Robinhood buying a Superbowl commercial with the money they stole from us 😫
— Angie Jones (@techgirl1908) February 8, 2021
Ad Age tweeted that Robinhood apparently considered pulling the ad but decided to run it after seeing its users increase during the controversy.
Robinhood considered backing out of the #SuperBowl following the $GME stock controversy, but decided to stay in presumably after it saw the boost in users it got from the frenzy.
— Ad Age (@adage) February 8, 2021
Well it definitely sparked a response, for better or worse.