The rapper Post Malone stars in a new Super Bowl ad for Bud Light Seltzer.
Advertisers are back in the Big Game, taking advantage of the giant platform for brand exposure that is the Super Bowl.
Never mind they’re paying a reported $5.6 million for a 30-second spot; the broadcast still garners the biggest audience for a single program.
To be sure, last year’s game attracted 98.2 million viewers, the lowest viewership in 11 years. By comparison, the most-watched Super Bowl in history is Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, which garnered a record 114.4 million viewers, according to Statista. Still, the unmatched reach makes it worth every penny to most marketers. (Some brands even are going off the big screen and turning to TikTok.)
A little context: During the rest of the NFL season, 712 brands advertised during national games and spent a total $4.5 billion on ads that were seen on TV screens more than 160 billion times, according to the TV ad measurement firm iSpot. Compared to 2018, the total number of brands advertising increased by 8% while revenues increased 13.5% and TV impressions increased 10.7%.
So far, dozens of advertisers have released their ads or teasers of the ads for Sunday’s championship between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs. Expect some surprises on Game Day, too. But for now, there are some newcomers like Presidente beer, the streaming service Quibi, and the password manager Dashlane. And then there are tech companies like Google and Amazon who will use their widely different Super Bowl spots—heartfelt emotion versus social commentary and snark—to pitch their rival smart assistants. And of course there will be plenty of drinks, snacks, cars, deodorants, and even a few political ads.
Forbes interviewed a number of CMOs who have one, two or more ads in the Big Game to hear about the strategy behind the TV spots.
Anheuser-Busch
This year, Anheuser-Busch will have four ads in the game for four separate brands. Along with one for Budweiser, the beer-maker is also running two for Bud Light Seltzer, another for Michelob Ultra and another for Michelob Ultra Pure Gold. Some of the spots are meant to be funny, like Michelob Ultra’s starring talk show host Jimmy Fallon as he tries to exercise.
Some of this year’s ads also have an sustainability component. While SodaStream is pushing for using less plastic, Michelob Ultra Pure Gold’s ad pitches organic farming. The beer brand, Anheuser-Busch’s first certified organic brew, is telling people the company will help farmers plant six square feet of organic farmland for every six-pack sold. And then there’s the flagship Budweiser ad, which celebrates everyday American heroes in its usual feel-good way.
“Every year you have a different context in society and policies,” said Anheuser-Busch U.S. CMO Marcel Marcondes. “And they’re going to take what Budweiser says. But we don’t compromise who we are and our point of view on the American values.”
While three of the ads are set for the Big Game, Anheuser-Busch has also decided to let fans weigh in. Marcondes said the company spoke with thousands of consumers during the ideation process. And just last week, the marketing team decided it couldn’t decide which of two Bud Light Seltzer ads it should air during the actual game so it’s letting fans vote between one featuring the rapper Post Malone in a convenience store and another of him in bar.
Anheuser-Busch is also changing how it measures the campaign’s impact. Instead of looking entirely at share of voice like it did in the past, he said he’s much more interested in how relevant the brands are as a part of the overall conversation around the Super Bowl.
“This is what matters the most to make sure people are talking about you instead of how much air time you’re buying,” he said, adding that that “instead of speaking at them, we want to speak with them.”
Pepsi
Pepsi will have the most brands it’s ever had in the Super Bowl. Along with the Pepsi Zero Sugar and Mtn Dew Zero Sugar, it’s also running ads for Frito-Lay’s Doritos and Cheetos along with spots for SodaStream and Sabra.
“I think we almost have an unfair advantage at PepsiCo,” said Greg Lyons, CMO for PepsiCo Beverages North America. “We get a multiplier effect because while people are watching the game, they’re eating and drinking our products. And then, we also have tens of thousands of frontline employees who know that these products will be on the Super Bowl and they’re bringing our products to the stores and stocking the shelves.”
The Super Bowl is always high stakes for the Pepsi, one of the game’s biggest sponsors. In fact, Frito-lay CMO Rachel Ferdinando said the company produces 600 million pounds of snacks in the six weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, making up around 20% of total annual production.
The ads themselves are all humorous in nature. For Mtn Dew, an ad starring Tracee Ellis Ross and Brian Cranston remakes a scene from the film “The Shining” to show how Mtn Dew’s new sugar-free option compares to the original. For Pepsi Zero Sugar, it paired Missy Elliot with Grammy-winning singer H.E.R. to remake the song “Paint it Black” by The Rolling Stones. It will also be having some fun with spray paint down in Miami.
“The first line of that song is ‘I see a red door I want to paint it black,’” Lyons said. “And so we’ve got this beautiful new red can and there are some red cans out there and in the ad, we will be painting them black.”
The old-meets-new trend is also present in other ads by pairing country western movie star Sam Elliot with Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus in an ad for Cool Ranch Doritos.
“When you’ve got a product called Cool Ranch,” Ferdinando said. “That leads to think about what can you do on the cool ranch? What happens on a cool ranch? So we’re basically taking the Wild Wild West to Doritos Cool Ranch.”
Kellogg
For the first time ever, Kellogg will have two spots in the game: One for Pringles and another for a new sweet-and-savory Pop-Tart filled with pretzels. The Pringles ad is a collaboration with “Rick and Morty,” the hit Adult Swim show. According to Gail Horwood, CMO of Kellogg North America, it’s meant to feel like a short episode rather than like an ad.
“We just thought with this idea of infinite possibilities, ‘Rick and Morty’ was a really good fit,” Horwood said. “We love the idea of the fact that this is animated, which is different.”
Kellogg’s Pop-Tart game show-themed ad features Jonathan Van Ness, the TV star from “Queer Eye,” who was also a spokesperson for other brands in 2019 including Smirnoff and SodaStream.
“With Jonathan Van Ness, we like this idea that he’s known for bringing out the best in people and knew we wanted to leverage his likeablity and humor to introduce this new snack,” Horwood said.
Hyundai
To promote the new 2020 Sonata that includes a smart-parking assistant feature, Hyundai went to Boston. It recruited several celebrities from the Boston area—Chris Evans, John Krasinski, Rachel Dratch, David Ortiz—who all put on thicker-than-usual Boston accents as they watch a car park itself.
Working with its internal agency Innocean, the company wanted to explain how the tech worked and started off with 344 original scripts as options. One day, member of the marketing teams were joking about the phrase “smart park” with different accents when someone realized that Boston one might catch up.
“I think people who come from a part of the country, when you go back to your home roots the accent naturally comes out,” said Hyundai North America CMO Angela Zepeda.
According to Barney Goldberg, executive creative director at Innocean, Boston accents have been used in much of pop culture and has been a fun accent for even people not from the area to attempt. (To try and help that idea catch on, Hyundai is using the social media platform TikTok, tapping into an existing meme where people change their voice over time based on where they are.)
“It just becomes highly mimic-able,” he said. “You want to join in. And that’s our hope.”
Heinz Ketchup
Instead of just creating one ketchup ad for the Super Bowl, Kraftz Heinz created four to run simultaneous—on the same screen, at the same time. Working with the director Roman Coppola, the 30-second spot follows four storylines: a market on another planet, a family with a lonely clown in a diner, a young couple meeting the parents and a family moving to a seemingly haunted house.
Created with Wieden + Kennedy New York, each scene has some element of suspense at the beginning, but as the camera follows each group, it finally zooms in to show something less than terrifying: a bottle of ketchup.
“We believe that by doing four ads at once, we can remind consumers of all the situation where we’ve been there to bring a smile and reassurance during the big game,” said Ashley Tople, head of U.S. brand marketing for Kraft Heinz.
Verizon
Verizon’s spot both promotes its 5G wireless technology and also pays homage to firefighters and other public servants.
This is “such an interesting time” in terms of 5G, said Diego Scotti, CMO of Verizon. But “in a way, consumers are worried” about it—seeking to figure out whom they can trust and rely on for the best service. In a noisy, crowded market, “it’s important for us to be grounded in our values,” he said, and that’s why this year’s Super Bowl ad—“One More Sunday”—builds on the narrative Scotti has worked to create at Verizon, starting with its “First Responders” ad in the 2018 Super Bowl—a narrative with hardworking people at the center. “In the Super Bowl, we should focus on technology but also the human spirit of the people who serve,” he said. The spot’s voiceover is by Harrison Ford, features newly retired Giants quarterback Eli Manning and was directed by Pete Berg. It is set to Pearl Jam’s new single, “River Cross”—“a beautiful, heroic song,” Scotti said.
“Especially in this moment of fears that technology is taking over humanity, and also at a time of divisions, we wanted to share a message of unity and positivity,” Scotti said. “That’s why the night is going to end with how we can all serve and how can we do a little more,” he said, referencing the spot’s call to action for people to give back to their communities. “We have a partnership with the NFL; we want to create the largest volunteer network in America. Using Eli Manning, we can say, it’s the end of the season, but we can give one more Sunday.” Verizon will create opportunities for people to volunteer in communities and neighborhoods. “We come with a message of values,” he said, and that’s important when consumers are trying to figure out what network to rely on.
“The biggest point is that when consumers are wary and confused—because in our category everything seems the same—the point about reliability is both rational and emotional. When we talk about the performance of our network and level of 5G—you can rely on this performance, but also important is the emotional connection around reliability.” For consumers, “who do you trust and give your business to is important,” he said. “We are the leader, and we are the quality player.” Agencies McCann, R/GA and Hearts & Science collaborated on the work.
Dashlane
On the heels of its brand overhaul, password-management service Dashlane debuted its Super Bowl spot this week to showcase “a product that solves problems for a lot of people,” said CMO Joy Howard, who joined the company only six months ago. “It felt like the time was right to join a company like this because of all the things happening in the world,” she said. “People are so concerned about privacy on the web, and I saw an opportunity in that.”
The insight driving the Super Bowl spot was that people are spending more time online and require “digital autonomy,” she said. “If you have a product that the world should have, there’s no better time to launch it into the world than around the Super Bowl. People only opt-in to advertising one time a year, and the Super Bowl is it.”
Completing the brand overhaul prior to its Big Game debut was key, she added. “Before we really invested in mass media, which I felt the time was right to do, I wanted to update the brand to reflect where we really want to take the brand culturally.” The company worked with Pentagram on the new logo and brand refresh. “It’s really dynamic,” she said of the new logo. “It’s wonderful to see how it works with the ad,” which was created with new Brooklyn-based creative shop Lightning Orchard; Dashlane is one of its first clients. “I wanted to work with some new talent,” Howard said. “We [planned to] do three rounds [of pitches], and we awarded it to them after the second round. It’s really been a dream. We thought this was a great moment to launch the brand into the wider world.”
The ad concept, a funny depiction of a person just trying to remember his password and at risk of missing his chance at literal nirvana at the hands of a Grim Reaper doppelganger, “was the first idea that they pitched us, and it all just fell into place,” she said. As she explained, the spot uses “a lot of the imagery around the internet, like the dark web and hackers in hoods. When [Lightning Orchard cofounder Jeff Kling] pitched the spot, it was on a mythological level. And I’m a big believer in how powerful that is in making sense of the world,” she said.
“I want people to be surprised when they see it,” she said of the ad. In the Super Bowl, “you have to break through. I think the quiet, calm, foreboding part will help us break through. There’s going to be this moment,” she said. “Get people’s attention and freak them out and then make them laugh.”