Bud Light on Friday released the 15-second teaser below for its upcoming 60-second Super Bowl commercial, in which—as promised—a man accepts a challenge to play a crazy, life-size game of Pac-Man.
As seen in the teaser, the dare is written on the label of his Bud Light bottle. That ties into a new Anheuser-Busch packaging campaign that began in December, in which Bud Light bottles now come with almost 50 different “Up For Whatever” messages to inspire drinkers to be more spontaneous and fun.
In the full 60-second Super Bowl spot, titled “Coin,” from EnergyBBDO, the man follows the hint on his bottle and “finds himself in a giant Pac-Man maze, having the time of his life,” says the brand.
The work builds on Bud Light’s buzzy 2014 Super Bowl campaign “Epic Night,” which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Don Cheadle and took the brand away from its usual scripted jokes and into dynamic real-life stunts. This year’s campaign will be supported by a three-day House of Whatever event in Arizona, near the site of the Super Bowl.
In addition to the Bud Light spot, A-B plans to air two 60-second Budweiser ads (one of them a sequel to last year’s chart-topping “Puppy Love”) on the Feb. 1 Super Bowl telecast.
Newcastle Brown Ale keeps finding new and interesting ways not to appear on the Super Bowl. This year it’s already tried crashing the Doritos contest (sort of). And now it’s gotten Aubrey Plaza on board to introduce a truly, audaciously stupid idea: getting small brands everywhere to all go in on a Super Bowl spot together.
“Instead of blowing Newcastle’s marketing budget, let’s team up to blow all of our marketing budgets!” the 30-year-old Parks and Recreation star says in the video below about Newcastle’s so-called “Band of Brands” idea.
Because what could be more compelling for any brand than to share 30 seconds of airtime (price tag: $4.5 million) with 20 of 30 other brands?
Interested parties should head to NewcastleBandOfBrands.com, where you can, according to Plaza, “find out how our brand can help your brand help our brand, most importantly.”
You might remember Newcastle Brown Ale’s antics around last year’s Super Bowl—a little stunt from Droga5 called “If We Made It” that imagined what a Newcastle Super Bowl ad might have looked like if they could have afforded one.
Given that success, Newcastle obviously had to screw with this year’s game, too. And so it begins its 2015 Super Bowl ambush with the video below—in which the brewer, which still doesn’t have $4 million lying around, pretends to crash a certain “Crash the Super Bowl” contest by a certain unnamed snack maker (OK, Doritos), so that it can get on the Super Bowl for free.
Newcastle’s fake Doritos ad, also made by Droga5, is amusingly bad—which frankly is a step up from some of the actual Doritos finalists, which are short on the amusing part. It’s full of stupidly obvious Newcastle product placement, in keeping with the brand’s ethos of undercutting typical marketing tactics. There’s even a case study (see below) about the “failed attempt to infiltrate a snack chip contest.”
“We had such a good time almost making that Huge Sports Match ad last year, we decided we’d stop at nothing to finally make our way into the Really Large American Football Contest in 2015. Even if we still can’t afford it,” the brand tells us.
It’s a bit of a convoluted premise—Newcastle’s meta anti-advertising stunts often have a kind of pretzel-like structure to them. But the brand confirms there’s more silliness to come in the next few weeks, so it should be fun to see what else they have in store.
CREDITS Client: Newcastle Brown Ale Campaign: Newcastle: Chores. A beer ad disguised as a snack chip ad. Title: Chores
Agency: Droga5 NY Creative Chairman: David Droga Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer Group Creative Director: Scott Bell Senior Art Director: Dan Kenneally Senior Copywriter: Ryan Raab Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale Head of Broadcast Production: Ben Davies Senior Broadcast Producer: David Cardinali Broadcast Producer: Bill Berg Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer Head of Strategy: Chet Gulland Strategist: Nick Maschmeyer Social Strategist: Rebecca Russell Communications Strategist: Kevin Wang Group Account Director: Dan Gonda Account Director: Nadia Malik Account Manager: Ashton Atlas
Client: Heineken USA, Newcastle Brown Ale Senior Director, Portfolio Brands: Charles Van Es Brand Director: Priscilla Dohnert Brand Manager: Brett Steen
Production Company: Droga5 Studios | Film Director: Mike Long Line Producer: Jessica Bermingham DP: Brian Lannin
There’s nothing in the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” rules that says the consumer-made ads have to be good. But they do—according to the judging criteria—have to be original.
One of the 10 finalists unveiled today may have a bit of a problem in that department. That’s because the plot of Jason Johnson’s “Trouble in the Back Seat” is very similar to that of “Drama Queen,” a well-known ad from director Rogier Hesp (produced by TWBA/PHS Helsinki) that won the Young Director Award at Cannes in 2010.
In both ads, after parents get pulled over by the police, kids in the backseat hold up “Help!” signs, pretending they’ve been kidnapped. (In the Doritos ad, a brother and sister are mad at Dad for not handing over his chips. In Hesp’s spot, which advertised the Young Director Award itself, the girl in the backseat is simply “Born to create drama.”)
Adweek wrote about the “Drama Queen” ad when it was made, as did many of the ad blogs. The YouTube version has 4.5 million views. It’s not obscure.
See both ads below.
According to the “Crash the Super Bowl” rules, “originality and creativity” are supposed to count for 40 percent of the judging score. (“Adherence to the creative assignment” counts for 30 percent, and “Overall appeal to the general public as a Doritos Super Bowl ad” counts for 30 percent.) Doritos picked the 10 finalists, meaning the brand either didn’t know how similar “Trouble in the Back Seat” is to “Drama Queen”—or didn’t care.
It might be a coincidence. Johnson talks about his inspiration for the ad in the video below, and certainly doesn’t mention an industry-targeted Finnish spot from five years ago:
Still, it could be awkward for Doritos if one of its in-game spots is deemed to be a rip-off by ad people. And that could happen. Doritos will air two of the 10 finalists on the Super Bowl. The brand will pick one, but the other—the grand-prize winner—is meant to be selected by public vote.
Com estreia marcada para a segunda-feira na Alemanha – e posteriormente por aqui também – o novo comercial de Axe continua com a assinatura e a proposta da interessante peça veiculada durante o Super Bowl.
Nesta continuação, as pinturas neo-clássicas que acompanham os ditadores mundo afora evoluem pouco a pouco, junto com a canção, que sai de um hino de batalha para… As Long As You Love Me, dos Backstreet Boys.
Particularmente, gosto da nova aposta, que deixa de lado aquela proposta de que Axe é uma espécie de “ímã de mulheres”. Eram vídeos muito bem produzidos? Sim. Mas o recado final era sempre o mesmo: com Avanço Axe, elas avançam.
Seria a escolha da música – pop, mas mais antiga – e a nova proposta de posicionamento da marca um sinal de que Axe acredita no amadurecimento de seu público? Será interessante acompanhar os próximos passos da marca.
Despite not actually airing a commercial during the Super Bowl on Sunday, Esurance had an extraordinarily successful night, thanks to its #EsuranceSave30 sweepstakes on Twitter.
The company snagged the first ad slot after the game, and vowed to give away the difference in price—it went for $1.5 million less than an in-game slot—to one lucky viewer who tweeted the hashtag #EsuranceSave30 within 36 hours after the ad aired.
John Krasinski, the brand's spokesman, helped to announce the winner Wednesday night on Jimmy Kimmel Live. You can see that video below. But also check out the social stats from the campaign, provided by Esurance agency Leo Burnett:
• 5.4 million uses of the #EsuranceSave30 hashtag • More than 200,000 entries within the first minute of the Esurance commercial airing • 1.4 million hashtag uses in the first hour and 4.5 million in the first 24 hours • 2.6 billion social impressions on Twitter • 332,000 views of the Esurance commercial on YouTube • 261,000 new followers on the official Esurance Twitter account—an increase of nearly 3,000 percent • A 12x spike in visits to the Esurance website in the first hours of the sweepstakes
Safe to say it was a successful stunt. Cue the copycats.
All this talk about the TV commercials on the Super Bowl, but who could forget about the radio commercials? Well, almost everyone. But not WestwoodOne, which aired the game on Sunday and just released a list of the five best radio ads of the night.
The big winner was Motel 6, which placed the top spot—an amusing ad from The Richards Group called "Autocorrect," narrated by Tom Bodett, the chain's spokesman for going on 30 years. The ads that placed second, third and fourth—for Tilted Kilt restaurants, Subway and Exergen—are honestly pretty wretched. Coming in at No. 5 is Taco Bell, whose ad will elicit some chuckles as well.
Using children in politically tinged advertising is often problematic. Some would say it's tantamount to propaganda. Still, the kids who sang "America the Beautiful" in other languages for Coca-Cola's Super Bowl ad are so charmingly innocent in these behind-the-scenes videos—and so optimistic about how the ad will be received—that it makes the whole ruckus seem extra ridiculous.
Of course, Coke isn't as innocent. It knew the ad, by Wieden + Kennedy, would be controversial. Even these clips from the recording sessions hint at that—why else would they ask the girls how people might react to the ad? And yet it's irresistible when Naomi, the girl who sings in Spanish, says: "They might feel joyful. They might feel like, 'Wow, America has all these different things.' And they might feel, like, really proud of their country, I hope. Cause I know I am pretty proud."
Coke released its own statement about the ad this week, saying in part: "For centuries America has opened its arms to people of many countries who have helped to build this great nation. 'It's Beautiful' provides a snapshot of the real lives of Americans representing diverse ethnicities, religions, races and families, all found in the United States. … We believe 'It's Beautiful' is a great example of the magic that makes our country so special, and a powerful message that spreads optimism, promotes inclusion and celebrates humanity—values that are core to Coca-Cola."
The ad's director, John Hillcoat of Skunk, has also spoken out this week. "We all know there are those kind of bigots out there, but I had no idea how deeply embedded it was. It seems that the divide in America has never been greater," he said in a statement.
Despite its optimism, Coke recognizes that divide, too. Tellingly, YouTube comments are disabled on all the videos featuring the girls—to protect them. Comments are enabled on the main ad, though, and are at 12,500 and counting. Wade into that debate at your own risk.
If there's one good thing to come out of the recent lunatic-fringe freakout over Coca-Cola's multilingual Super Bowl ad, it's definitely this parody featuring languages that didn't quite make the original cut.
Comedy troupe Garlic Jackson, which previously (and brilliantly) mashed up "Blurred Lines" with The Cosby Show intro, have dropped a new audio track on the Coke spot, "America Is Beautiful." The parody's additions include the dulcet tones of Star Trek's Klingon and Game of Thrones' Dothraki. I'll let you hear the rest for yourself.
In other pizza-related campaign news, what is a professional baby? How does one go about becoming a professional baby? At what point does an amateur baby turn professional? These and other questions come to mind after watching mcgarrybowen’s “Baby Waterskiing” spot from their #GoForGreatness campaign.
The YouTube inspired spot, which Whitehouse Post editors Tim Warmanen and Carlos Lowenstein sliced together for Pizza Hut’s YouTube-inspired “Go For Greatness” Super Bowl campaign (which also features the spot “Grandma Drummer”) shows several seconds of a baby named Ryder waterskiing before flashing the warning “Do not attempt. Professional baby.” At this point it becomes hard to pay attention to the rest of the ad, which promotes Pizza Hut’s new hand-tossed pizza, because how you can you not dwell on the “professional baby” disclaimer? The 30 second ad ends by inviting viewers to “Upload your greatness” to Pizza Hut’s YouTube page. Especially if you have a professional baby in the house. Stick around for “Grandma Drummer” and credits after the jump. continued…
Esurance definitely pulled off a last-second marketing coup at the close of last night's Super Bowl, but now spammers are seizing the moment as well.
More than 100 fake Esurance accounts have been created on Twitter in the past 24 hours, and thousands of users are following and retweeting the accounts in hopes of winning $1.5 million.
While it's a clear bonanza for Esurance, it's also posing a potential security risk for aspiring millionaires. Fake accounts using the brand's logo and hashtag have gained large followings and promised "extra entries" to those who connect to their accounts.
The promotion ends at 4 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, Feb. 4., so if you see some friends retweeting bogus accounts between now and then, you might want to tell them to watch for that little blue "verified" check mark on @Esurance's official account before following or sharing.
Though Sunday’s game was a rout and a dud, the Super Bowl is so iconic an event that Fox was able to set viewership records even as the game’s intrigue faded.
A golden lab puppy who refuses to leave his Clydesdale “bud” won plaudits; a Coca-Cola spot evoking the nation’s multicultural populace drew mostly positive reactions, but some raw comments as well.
If you’re Seth MacFarlane, how do you get people to view your three minute long “restricted” trailer for A Million Ways to Die in the West? You take out a Super Bowl ad claiming that you tried to show the trailer during the Super Bowl, but the powers that be decided it “wasn’t family friendly enough” and then direct viewers to your site for the “restricted” trailer. Not exactly an original method, but it’s worked in the past, and MacFarlane was never one for originality anyway.
MacFarlane’s Super Bowl spot, created in collaboration with Santa Monica production company Detour Films, also calls on Ted, the titular talking stuffed bear from his last movie (which, hey, I forgot existed), as a way of reminding fans of that movie that this is the same dude. The restricted trailer for MacFarlane’s new movie is, in fact, too explicit for television, thanks in large part to Sarah Silverman‘s role as a foul-mouthed prostitute, as well as MacFarlane’s own raunchy dialogue. That’s not to say that the Super Bowl teaser itself is wholesome by any means. Between Ted’s “Oh yeah, drunk before the kickoff: new record” line and the suggestion that a certain actor starring in A Million Ways to Die in the West has an abnormally large schmendrick, it stands out as one of the more explicit ads in a particularly tame Super Bowl.
The British drama, perfect counterprogramming by PBS, was the second-most-watched show on Sunday night with 6.8 million viewers, a 3 percent rise from last year.
Mekanism concluded their “Get Hyped For Halftime” campaign last night with “Pepsi: Sound Check NYC,” the lead-in to the Bruno Mars Super Bowl halftime performance which acted as a much-needed respite from the ridiculously one-sided game.
The 30-second halftime intro “sound checks” New York City, with giant hands strumming the Brooklyn Bridge like a guitar, playing the Guggenheim like drums, mixing levels on a NYC subway train board and scratching Columbus Circle like it’s a turntable. Other landmarks include the Empire State Building and surrounding skyline, and the East Side Pepsi sign. The spot ends at Met Life Stadium (as you know, located in East Rutherford, New Jersey) with Pepsi’s “Live For Now” tagline. It’s a simple, yet clever little introduction to the halftime show, even if the game itself didn’t take place in New York City. Because, let’s face it, no one wants to see East Rutherford’s top landmarks.
Since few would argue that the commercials were more interesting than the game last night, chances are you saw RPA’s “Hugfest” spot, featuring Bruce Willis and SNL-alum/Portlandia star Fred Armisen.
The simple, straightforward spot features Willis urging viewers to hug those around them that they care about — “the people that matter to you, matter to us” — as a way of emphasizing Honda’s commitment to safety. Armisen then appears and hugs Willis for the duration of the 60 second spot.
“Our simple, yet engaging, big-game spot is intended to highlight not only Honda’s deep concern for the safety of our customers, but the actual industry-leading crash test results that back up our commitment,” explained Mike Accavitti, senior vice president of auto operations at American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
The campaign extends beyond the big game spot, with a large social media component utilizing the hashtag #hugfest. During the Super Bowl, Honda posted “real-time video reactions from Willis about events such as penalties, fumbles and referee calls on the brand’s @Honda Twitter feed.” Immediately after the spot aired, Honda encouraged viewers to send virtual hugs (actually Willis hugging the camera) to loved ones who they couldn’t be near during the big game. Today, Honda is collecting hugs via Twitter by asking people “to send a picture or Vine of their hug with the hash tag #hugfest.” Bruce Willis will then respond with a “meme appraisal of the hug.” Additionally, Honda will have a homepage takeovers at MSN and ESPN, where a 30-second spot “How to Hug” video featuring Willis and Armisen will greet visitors to the sites. You can view “How to Hug,” along with credits after the jump. continued…
Most businesses can only dream of growing big enough one day to advertise in the Super Bowl. So when an 18-month-old startup finds itself running an ad in the game for free, there's no playbook to plan what happens next.
Game maker GoldieBlox recently won Intuit's "Small Business Big Game" promotion, which promised a 30-second ad valued at $4 million in this Sunday's Super Bowl. While GoldieBlox proved itself a savvy marketer with a successful Kickstarter campaign and a highly popular video about empowering girls to invent, the business also ran afoul of intellectual property law and took some heat from the public when it used the Beastie Boys track "Girls" without permission.
Given the odd path that's led GoldieBlox to the big game, it's hard to predict how its Super Bowl ad, created by longtime Honda agency RPA, will be received and how the company will evolve in the year ahead.
So we decided to ask GoldieBlox founder Debbie Sterling about the contest, the controversy and the mission that have all shaped her company's unique fate.
AdFreak: In some ways, it seems like you won a $4 million lottery, but it's not like you didn't have to work for it. How did you react to hearing you'd won the Intuit contest?
Debbie Sterling: It's almost hard to describe how I feel and how I felt the moment I found out we were the grand prize winner. I felt almost like it wasn't just a win for GoldieBlox; it was a win for girls around the world.
One hundred million people are going to see our message about empowering girls. It feels just incredible, incredibly validating that America voted for us and wants us for their daughters. It's not just an ad; it's almost like a revolution.
GoldieBlox seemed to have an early lead in the contest, especially when your video was going viral. Then the debate over the Beastie Boys track seemed to change the tone. Did you worry it would distract people from the contest and supporting your product?
There was a lot of misunderstanding in the media at the time. A lot of people thought that video was supposed to be our big-game commercial, which it wasn't. It was a really hard time for us as a company and me as an individual.
Soundtrack aside, that online video was pretty ambitious. How did it come about?
My team and I were having lunch at a Mexican restaurant, brainstorming ways to get girls interested in science and engineering. We came up with this idea to create a Rube Goldberg device out of toys.
We had remembered seeing the OK Go video, and we wanted to set it to a girl power anthem. We're a pretty small team, but we're really passionate, and we made it ourselves (with OK Go collaborator Brett Doar).
You can never know if something's going to go viral. We had no idea. We made a video we felt kind of encapsulated our mission and we hoped would spark some interest in kids.
As great as it must have been to see the video getting all this love and attention, it must have been jarring when the legal debate started and it all got so negative so fast.
It was a really hard time. The controversy around it, it took away from our mission. If you ever come visit GoldieBlox headquarters, you'll see we have written on the wall, "The mission is more important than the company."
The last I heard, the Beastie Boys had filed a countersuit looking for damages and fees. What's the status of the legal debate over the song? Is it still going?
There's still legal stuff going on.
So nothing's been settled?
I can't comment on any of the legal stuff.
Your team is small, and I'm sure allocating resources is a big part of your daily life. Between the Rube Goldberg video and the Intuit contest, how have you made time for product and R&D along with the marketing?
Our main focus is product. We put a lot of work into our product each day.
We think of our marketing and advertising almost as a product, too, in the sense that the videos we've been creating and the community we've been building on our Facebook page, on Twitter and elsewhere in social media, they're all kind of bubbling up to the same goal. In a way, it almost feels like our marketing and product are one.
For most global brands in the Super Bowl, there's a lot of debate about how many millions of products they'll need to sell to make the ad worthwhile, but obviously you're in a different situation. Do you have any sales goals or other metrics for how you'll define a win from your ad this Sunday?
For me, we've already won, because the ad sends a very clear message that girls deserve more than the "pink aisle" has to offer. Having 100 million people see that and talk about it at the dinner table, or have a dad encourage his daughter to invent something … that already is going to come out of this, and that's a win.
This time around it was free. So over the next year, you just have to set aside $5 million or so to buy your next Super Bowl ad.
Hahah, yes. I hope this is not our last Super Bowl ad.
Debbie Sterling graduated from Stanford University with a degree in engineering before becoming the founder and CEO of GoldieBlox. The company now sells three games available primarily through independent toy stores, Toys-R-Us and Target. She hopes to expand the brand into animation and video games in the near future.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
In both ads, after parents get pulled over by the police, kids in the backseat hold up “Help!” signs, pretending they’ve been kidnapped. (In the Doritos ad, a brother and sister are mad at Dad for not handing over his chips. In Hesp’s spot, which advertised the Young Director Award itself, the girl in the backseat is simply “Born to create drama.”)
