What happened
During Super Bowl LV on February 7, 2021, Reddit aired an unconventional five-second commercial that referenced the company's central role in the GameStop short-squeeze frenzy then gripping financial markets. Unable to afford a national 30-second spot — which ran around $5.5 million — Reddit said it spent essentially its entire marketing budget on the brief regional placement, which appeared on CBS stations in nine of the top ten U.S. markets. The ad consisted of a simple block of on-screen text reading, in part, 'Wow, this actually worked,' framed as a toast to the 'underdogs' of the r/wallstreetbets community.
The spot was assembled in just a few days with agency partner R/GA and became a marketing case study in agility and cultural timing. By leaning into the GameStop moment rather than running a polished conventional ad, Reddit turned its limited budget into outsized buzz, with viewers pausing and replaying the message and the stunt earning widespread press coverage. It cemented Reddit's image as a scrappy, culturally fluent brand at the exact moment the wider public was learning what the platform's communities could do.