The ad, which lasted only five seconds, opened as if it were a car commercial, but then quickly displayed the orange and white Reddit logo, which was followed by a message.
“If you’re reading this, it means that our bets were worth it,” read the message. “One thing we learned from our communities in the past week is that underdogs can do just about anything when we gather around a common area.”
“Who knows, maybe you are the reason why finance books have to add a chapter on ‘trends’,” said the Reddit ad. “Powerful things happen when people are grouped around something they really care about. And there is a place for that. It’s called Reddit.”
Reddit said it spent “the entire marketing budget” on the ad, which the company’s marketing director, Roxy Young, “was not part of our marketing plan.”
“But we have been so inspired by the power of our communities in the past few weeks that we came together to bring them together in just a few days in collaboration with our agency partners on R / GA,” she told CNN Business in an emailed statement. “I am very proud of what we were able to achieve in just five seconds and I think it captures the heart of Reddit in our unique and brilliantly absurd tone.”
The announcement aired in nine of the top ten metropolitan markets in the United States, Young said, including New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, DC.