SuperBowl 58: New Brand Creative Playbook Needed Beyond Safe Plays
SuperBowl 58 delivered some Vegas level crazy including: Patrick Mahomes’ last minute magic to cinch the Kansas City Chiefs’ 3rd Championship; the spectacular theater of Traylor taking the Big Game’s cultural decibels to a whole different level with distractors and memes in tow; and Travis himself playing out our full range of American emotions, from anxious rage at being benched to unhinged frat boy celebratory escapism upon winning.
Getty
From that angle, the show: sloppy, messy, and full of memes, hit the zeitgeist. The ads and the state of creativity were another story, most of them feeling safe, and perhaps most dangerously, unconfident, and needing to embrace a little crazy.
Culture Confidence : What Brands Got Wrong (and Right)
1.It’s not about celebrities
This is the biggest warning sign coming from the Super Bowl with many brands not having a confident core to lead the cultural conversation. And while it would be foolish to deny the link between celebrity, commerce, and sports as entertainment, something is clearly amiss in the disproportionate balance. Plus, have brands not read the memo regarding de-influencing and the waning impact of celebrities?
Close to half the spots were celebrity spots, while many of them were somewhat funny (and we certainly need funny) and of the moment, such as Dunkin’s Cringe-personified with JLO and Ben Affleck or CeraVe’s clever Millennial play with Michael Cera, this direction still feels copy-cat, of greater benefit to celebrities, and with a brand sugar rush of questionable length as consumers move on the next scroll.
Dunkin
2.Confident Brands Command The Conversation
Brands that did it right tapped into their own storytelling, product, and benefit super-power, and engaged celebrities as equals.
Verizon’s “Can’t B Broken,” with Beyoncé delivered on this, equating Beyoncé’s viral “Break the Internet,” power with Verizon’s network reliability. The challenge was funny, with a refreshingly self-deprecating Beyoncé trying to outdo herself and bring down Verizon’s Internet, to no avail. Both brands benefitted, and Verizon held its own to Queen B, who also used this moment to drop some new music.
Beyonce for Verizon
3.Harness Fandoms:
The Super Bowl is tricky, it offers a now rare unicorn moment to speak to the entire world at a moment of cultural sub-tribes and fragmented media. Brands are not sure how to play and end up equating mass reach with watered down creative that tries to speak to everyone, with silly, mostly bro-like humor, a lot of it unforgettable.
Instead moments that feel more original and unique stand out. A way to do this is by speaking to the passion points and peculiarities of an audience.
An example of this was served by Usher’s half-time show, shunning high octane hits in favor of more of his mid-tempo ballads loved by his fan-dom. He also chose not to play any of the songs from his upcoming album, serving up a nostalgia and fan-based playlist to further boost his legacy while serving up the perfect appetizer for his upcoming tour.
We saw this anti-mass approach play by Paramount + for its UEFA Champion League spots, addressing the other “football” fans ready to shift their schedules in many ingenious ways to escape and watch the Champions’ League games. Fans of the league, a passionate yet sizable minority in the U.S., were shown a rallying cry, served dry.
Paramout+
Hot beauty brand E.L.F., known for its hardcore fans, also tapped into the power of fandom by partnering with opinionated reality tv personality Judge Judy, passing generous yet direct judgment on beauty standards, beauty mishaps, etc. while saluting the brand fandom and further cementing its cool mass outlier status.
During the rest of the show, there were some gems in the spots shown that hint at a framework of better, more compelling, and crazy way forward for brands:
Brand Benefit & Entertainment can work. Reese’s “Yes!” delivered on the messy yet exuberant zeitgeist. Its random cast of characters (no celebrities) laid out in almost gif and social media mode, the cartoonish set of exaggerated emotions and fandom fervor at product claims, deliver an Andy Warhol-ness quality for the Insta generation and beyond that is contagious, and yummy.
Reese's
Make It Interactive. Best campaigns going forward will go beyond the spot and instead spark an experience, with a clear call to action. This year DoorDash became the unofficial goody bag for all Super Bowl watchers with its “Doordash All The Ads,” giving everyone an opportunity to collect goodies from participating brands, and in doing so delivering the live shopping and game-fication experience which is making commerce so much fun.
Less Is More. As brands try to outdo each other, many just add to the noise. Reading the room, Disney ran with an opening around a quieter form of statement. Promoting its Disney+ streaming offer, it delivered a bare spot with a piano background and text with quotes from famous movies, ending with Taylor Swift’s “Are you Ready for It?,” as a timely prelude to the star’s Era’s Tour launching on the service. Quiet culture mic at its best.
Keep it Real. While the Super Bowl is a national pastime and form of escapism, it does not mean brands cannot bring some realness into it and start new conversations. The NFL delivered this by addressing the bullying emergency by tapping into its roster of players to remind kids of the power of their voice.
Walk into the show knowing yourself, your game, and your super powers
Read the room, the cultural conversation, and explore all the ways you can own the story before, during and after the show.
Think beyond the :30 and :60 spot and see this moment to design an experience
And above all, like the Super Bowl, embrace the power of the unexpected, play the good type of cultural offense, while playing defense expressing and protecting your brand core. That’s MVP level thinking we can all use.
