Super Bowl advertisements are an event that grabs the maximum eyeballs of people watching it live or on TV in the United States. Brands in the US spend big dollars on Super Bowl ads. The event has even featured halftime performances by stars like Beyonce. However, this time, Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity AI, had decided to take a marketing gamble instead of directly promoting a campaign during a hyped time.
In a groundbreaking move, Srinivas has launched the ‘Million Dollar Question’ campaign, offering a $1 million cash prize instead of running a traditional Super Bowl advertisement. This contest is open to the residents of the United States aged 18 and above.
Ask your questions during the game. There’s not a better app to. pic.twitter.com/YEjc9kOPUB
— Aravind Srinivas (@AravSrinivas) February 9, 2025
Winner to receive a grand prize
The marketing move requires participants to download the Perplexity AI app and ask at least five questions during the event.
The campaign was scheduled to run from 3 PM to 7:30 PM on February 9, 2025, which was aligned with the Super Bowl game between Kansas City and Philadelphia.
According to Aim Media House, the initiative has drawn widespread appreciation for its innovative engagement move. As per some marketing experts, this is a ‘genius’ move of prioritising interactive participation over passive advertising.
What is Aravind Srinivas’s ‘Million Dollar Question’?
The campaign led by Perplexity’s CEO, named ‘Perplexity’s Million Dollar Question,’ is a promotional strategy to boost the downloads and usage of the start-up’s AI chatbot.
Srinivas took to his LinkedIn to share a post that said, “There will be no Perplexity Super Bowl ad. Instead, there’s a Super Bowl contest.”
Pay the user, not the establishment. $1,000,000 to that one optimistic user. Better than spending several millions on traditional ad spend. Repeatable and scalable and more exiting and iterative with plenty of room for improvement to make it less random and more meritocratic.
— Aravind Srinivas (@AravSrinivas) February 9, 2025
The post further read that one will install the application and ask five questions on the app during the game, and this is how they will pick up one winner to give them $1 million. This post received appreciation from across the marketing world.
For more informative articles on historical and upcoming events from around the world, please visit Indiatimes Events.
