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From the campus of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, this is Marketing Matters on Business Radio.
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Hello and welcome. You're listening to Marketing Matters here on Business Radio
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Series XM 132. I'm Barbara Kahn, the Patty and Jay H. Baker Professor of Marketing, and I'm joined by my co-host
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Americus Reed, the Whitney M. Young Jr. Professor of Marketing and the brand identity theorist. And today we're going
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to recap our 2024 Super Bowl commercials. Americus, did you see any of them? I loved it all. Yeah, okay,
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Barbara, you got to tell me your top commercial. Tell it Tell it to me. I'll
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give you mine first, okay? Dunkin' Donuts. Oh, that one was great. I loved it, and here's why. I think
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there's so But first of all, one of the big trends is that there were tons of
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celebrities jam-packed into these ads. I think the the ones that really stood out
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tried to really just really saturate with lots and lots of celebrity. But I loved it because Ben Affleck has been
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sort of blasted in the news about being this sort of low-energy guy. He's not
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fun. He doesn't seem to have fun when he's with J. Lo, and I thought that
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attempt to really sort of make fun of himself was actually pretty cool. And then just have, you know, Tom Brady
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there and Matt Damon and Fat Joe and J. Lo, and they're sort of all in this mode, and he's really He really went in
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on that. And so I really appreciated that from a humor perspective. Yeah, you know, I don't do favorites. I usually do
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the ones I don't like. That's just my personality. That's But I got to say, Barbara, that's
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so on brand for you. I should I tell you the one that I DIDN'T I MOST NEGATIVE ABOUT? I did not love
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the Dove one. Okay. Because I did not like the fact that here's this big sporting event, and we're really
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interested in female athletes, and we're showing this video of little girls falling. And I understand that wasn't
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the point. The point was that they're resilient and they can pick up from falls, and it was a body image, body
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confidence ad, and I get what Dove was saying, but the this rule of fact of watching these powerful athletes in the
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Super Bowl do incredibly athletic things. And then watching these little girls fall? Oh, wow.
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like that juxtaposition, and it really bothered me that they did something like that. So even though I applaud them for
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what they're trying to do, I I felt like in context it wasn't the right place for Interesting. Well, we're
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going to need a guru to step in and help us out, you know, really unpack all of this stuff. What do we got from them? So
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enough of what we think, right? Let's bring in someone who knows what they're
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talking about. So we have as our guest today Jameson Fleming, who's Adweek's
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managing editor of marketing and agencies, and he focuses on the business of marketing. And he Have you watched
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every single ad, Jameson? I have probably watched every ad about 10 times over 10 or 8 years since I've been doing
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this. Okay, so forget about what we There's nothing that slips by me these days. Well, let me ask you then. We gave
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you two ads that are pretty well-known, prominent ads that a lot of hype before and will likely have a lot of hype
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after. Um it was a hit and a miss in our in our definitions. Um Americus gave you a hit
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in Dunkin' Donuts. I gave you what I thought was a miss in Dove. What is your
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feeling about those two ads? So I liked both of those ads. Uh I I tend to not love celebrity-heavy ads,
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but Dunkin', because they made it very much an ensemble, uh and it felt like everybody played a
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key part and everybody was memorable from that ad, because you're going to remember Tom Brady and J. Lo. And I
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mean, Matt Damon is what made that ad work with, you know, his punchlines. And then Ben Affleck's, you know,
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performance is also extremely strong. Uh and so I thought that one worked extremely well because it was a true
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ensemble performance where nobody really stood out over anybody else, and it was
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just a fun ad. With Dove, uh you know, we really liked that ad. I totally get where you're coming from in terms of
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that juxtaposition, but I think what Dove was really trying to say is, you know, if we if we support little girls
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and teenage girls as they come up through sports, and we help them overcome some of the issues that they
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face, like they're not going to get knocked down as, you know, as they do in
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the beginning of the ad. And so I like the overall message. the message. get where you're coming from in terms
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of, yeah, it does kind of look weird to like have girls getting knocked down, uh you know, in this kind of context.
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Yeah, no, I definitely like the message, and I applaud their messages over the years. They're We definitely use them
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as, you know, role model ads for for position of women. I just It just did It just didn't land good on
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you. work right for me in in this setting. You know, there was a Talking about celebrity, there was another ad set that
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came up a lot that had a lot of celebrities, and I think it was what you were talking about, not the best use of
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uh celebrities, which was the home.com ads. Um did you have a reaction to those ads?
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Yeah, the homes.com and, you know, even the apartments.com ad with Jeff Goldblum, I thought they landed
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decently. Um you know, because there were so many, some of them I think did better than the others. Like I think the
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the 30-second one where they're in the salon was pretty hysterical, but, you
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know, the 60-second one where they introduced the campaign was was fine. I think Jeff Goldblum at the end kind of
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saves that one. And I think he also kind of saves the apartments.com ad because the writing that one was okay, but Jeff
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Goldblum's just such a, you know, good performer that you know, it overall feels like a good ad, but
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uh yeah, it was kind of interesting to see, you know, one brand like that go so heavy with, you know, two and a half
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minutes of airtime across two brands and four commercials was a pretty bold move
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by, you know, a brand that isn't a traditional big-time advertiser. So another one who's not a traditional
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advertising. This one I thought did really well, actually, and I think it's very interesting what they were doing.
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Americus and I were talking about it last night. We watched a lot of these together. You actually had a party.
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Watching watching ads, watching the game. So one I thought was very interesting interesting brand is Poppi.
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Poppi. What it And that came in at the last minute. It's, you know, the new age
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beverage. What did you think about that? Yeah, the Poppi commercial is interesting because
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you know, the copywriting in it is really strong, and it the the strategy behind it is great of they were
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basically telling 100 100-plus million people that the new age of soda begins today, and that new age is us. Right.
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Right. It's It's a really strong message and a bold claim, and I I'm going to
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imagine their short-term sales are going to go through the roof of people wanting
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to try this beverage. I didn't love all the imagery. Like at the beginning of
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the ad, it's kind of comparing Poppi to some of the most monumental achievements
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in human history. Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch. I thought that was a bit much, but I
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thought the overall kind of positioning that they put out there was really fascinating. And if you're going to kind
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of try to change an entire category, what better way to do it than in front of 100 million people? And let me just
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Sorry, let me just say really quickly, Barbara, because I was talking to some folks in our cohort, and they were like,
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Poppi, Temu, what is this stuff? When I was walking my daughter to school today,
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They all know. They all know. I was going to say that Poppi ad is a big hit already on TikTok.
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And you said it's really for this younger crowd in this TikTok generation, right? And also, it's going to follow up
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with a very strong online follow-up. So they're going to use this to get more
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awareness. They already have pretty much awareness, and then they're going to
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follow up with a pretty detailed strategy online on Amazon and on their social media. So uh they're crazy like a
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fox kind of brand, you know? And the idea that they I think they last minute I think I read in one of your
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stories that they last minute got the spot. They weren't They weren't sure
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they were going to do it. Do you know anything about that? Like it wasn't preplanned so much?
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No, they haven't talked to us much about the strategy. It's conver- conversation
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one of our reporters is going to most likely have with them this week to better understand it. But I mean, the
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other thing I want to point out with that was they were really smart in terms of how they spent their money. They
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could have bought 30 seconds, got celebrities, and had the total cost of the ad come out to the equivalent of
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probably two you know, a full minute of airtime. But because they did something that, you know, was definitely low
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budget, they were able to buy a full minute and really stretch their you know, their budget way further than if
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they had gone a celebrity route with a, you know, a big-time ad agency that would have had a huge So it was a really
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economical use of their money, too, which was pretty impressive. You know, talking about celebrities, I don't think
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there's anybody bigger than Queen Beyoncé. So what did you think about Verizon's
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strategy and the way they introduced her? First of all, Barbara, are you on Are you a Verizon customer?
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What? No. Yeah, I'm trying to think. No, I'm AT&T. What are you? I'm Verizon, yeah. Do you
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think that we were reacting to it differently? I I just I It was just a hypothesis that I had, Barbara. I loved
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her ad. I loved her ad as well. I don't love Verizon that much. It's more or
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less kind of, you You know what the right answer is about Beyoncé. I do know what the right answer is. It's I know
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what to say very clearly, cuz the Beyhive will come after you. But yes, but it it was very interesting. What
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were your thoughts on that specific commercial, Barbara? Well, they also did breadcrumbs on it. So they They didn't
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really Like the Dove commercial, for example, I saw before the Super Bowl. But I don't think you could see all the
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Beyoncé stuff before, and she made big announcements, and she used it to get her own, you know, music out there and
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what her announcements were and the brand. And I was looking forward to seeing that. And I thought the breadcrumb kind
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of strategy really worked for me. So I thought it was a great ad. But Jameson, what did you think?
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Yeah, I mean, we we ranked it very highly at Adweek. You know, we we were under the in
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We were under We kind of thought there was going to be announcing a residency in Las Vegas and
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so we were kind of surprised when it was you know hinting at new music at the end
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which you know like 20 minutes after the ad aired you know she announced that there was going to be new music coming
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but from a business standpoint with Verizon it was a very smart play cuz a they kind of left the breadcrumbs out
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there as you said like the first teaser there was six references to Beyoncé the second teaser there's one very obvious
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reference to Beyoncé and so you know something is coming her fans are starting to get excited cuz they're
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going to get some kind of Beyoncé announcement last night and you know Verizon did deliver the ad itself was
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pretty fun you know Verizon and Beyoncé have worked together in the past on different
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initiatives and so for Verizon I thought it was extremely smart to continue to tie themselves to Beyoncé because other
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than Taylor Swift there is no other person on the planet right now than Beyoncé so
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you know it was really smart if you're not going to get Taylor Swift get yourself on the Beyoncé train.
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Yep yep absolutely. Jameson Fleming Adweek's managing editor of marketing joining us on this special post Super
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Bowl game show. Jameson I have to ask you a question you as well Barbara in terms of contrasting ads
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Jesus I I I just I I was thrown off I mean the the washing the feet thing I mean the
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imagery was beautiful but I just it was weird man I mean the at the you know risk of sounding sacrilegious Jameson
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what did you think about the Jesus ads? To their credit they went with a positive message this year last year
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they had a very divisive ad that very much played on the left-wing versus right-wing cultural war type stuff going
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on in this country and I thought it was arguably one of the worst ads that have brought in the Super Bowl this year they
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at least went with a very you know strong message and to their so I'll give them credit for that but yeah in terms
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of it being in the Super Bowl I don't know it just feels so out of place I I might gravitate towards stand
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up for Jewish hate from the foundation to combat anti-semitism that was much more about you know if you
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see hate say something and it was all hate you don't even realize that this is
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you know targeted towards one specific group until the final couple seconds of the ad so I thought that was a much
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better message and much more effective message cuz it really you know raised all people up as opposed to just one
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specific group. So you keep alluding to this list you guys have like what's on the top of the
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list what are you what are your three best ads? Yeah so we we went with Sarah V as our
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number one overall ad I was just about to ask you about that one. Yeah so that was interesting because it
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was one of the most brilliant lead up campaigns that we've seen in the last half decade for the Super Bowl but they
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did all this influencer work like Verizon they left all these breadcrumbs of like this feels like it's going to
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end in a Super Bowl ad but nobody knew for sure or if this was just kind of like an influencer play that they were
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working with and so we'd never seen anything like that that a brand do and so it culminates the 30 second ad was
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good but the longer cut is one of the best ads that we've seen in a long time
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and so even though the 30 second didn't live up to the you know full minute 16
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version of it we still thought the overall campaign made it you know the best ad in the game the second one was
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the Paramount Plus entertainment a mountain of entertainment and that's a campaign that they've been running for a
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handful of years and we thought this one was just the best version of it you know you put in Creed Patrick
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Stewart you know Arnold from Hey Arnold and then the punchline at the end with Peppa Pig
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where they're looking for a pigskin is just too good and then the final final
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one in our top three was State Farm that was a late buy in the game as well State Farm had initially said we're not
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going to advertise Highdive their agency came to them with this great concept and they shot it they
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made it and they said we're going to be in the Super Bowl and they delivered you
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know absolutely hysterical spot spot with Arnold Schwarzenegger with kind of the twist ending with Danny DeVito to
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throw back to twins days and it was just really well done. Yeah that was one of your favorites too wasn't it Barbara?
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very very funny for me and I think that it's super interesting in the sense that
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to your point Jameson talk a little bit about this because when you lean in on a
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specific cultural nostalgic moment that's a bit of a risk because if you don't if you don't know the history of
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say for example a Christopher Walken or Arnold Schwarzenegger or the Danny DeVito Arnold Schwarzenegger
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relationship you're not going to get it and I think Barbara you were saying like
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it just didn't land because you didn't have that context so talk a little bit
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about that Jameson the idea of leaning in on some really powerful cultural moment and the risk of some people just
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not getting it because they're just not aware of that cultural iconic context.
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a number of ads that were harkening back to something you need to know to get it. What are your thoughts
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on this Jameson? Yeah it's a bit of a risk but it also is if you do the right cultural references
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it's one of those things that you know it's one of those if you know you know
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and that is so valuable for brands right now if you can tap into a community and
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kind of trigger that if you know you know response from people it's going to
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go over really well what was really smart about the State Farm ad was you didn't really need to know what twins
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was to enjoy that because it's only the last you know seven seconds of the ad
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and even if you don't know that the two of them were in an ad or in a movie together just the juxtaposition of
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Arnold Schwarzenegger next Danny DeVito is funny in of itself and so they were really smart that they didn't go all in
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on twins and that you get 50 seconds of Arnold Schwarzenegger saying neighbor over and over again and saying labor and
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like all of those jokes and they land really well but it is it is risky cuz like a couple years ago Verizon did a
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Cable Guy reference Cable Guy wasn't even that popular when it came out and so
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someone like me who's in my mid-30s like I had never seen Cable Guy I didn't get
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that reference and I think you know it is very risky you have to be very smart about what
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kind of IP you're going to play off of. Interesting. So what about the traditional ads that we usually see like
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you know Bud and Volkswagen the car ads and what do you think about the Budweiser ads or the Volkswagen ads or
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BMW Yeah BMW well I think we talked about BMW. Christopher Walken. Yeah but BMW and
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say Bud and Bud Light. Yeah I mean the it was interesting the Anheuser-Busch portfolio and even the
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whole beer portfolio if you look at Coors Light bringing back the silver bullet train I thought a lot of those
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generally fell flat I mean Michelob spent God knows how much money on Lionel Messi to kick a football or kick a
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soccer ball at the beach and Budweiser I mean it was a fine ad you know I think it's probably the best ad with the
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Clydesdales since puppy love a decade ago And it ended the same way as puppy love.
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Yeah I mean it panders to a very specific audience who loves that kind of nostalgic play it's overall going to do
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well but like is that going to sell beer in this day and age Well you got to remember they're trying
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to un-sell controversy and get back to sell beer you know so like maybe what you're saying is exactly what they were
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going for let's like cut the controversy a little go back to what we used to do.
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Interesting and I will say Messi is a much better kicker than Gronk. Yeah yeah yeah that yeah. So I think it's time for
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FanDuel to probably retire the kicker dynasty. So that that's an interesting question
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though I wanted to ask we were talking about that last night so we know what's
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a 30 seconds or a minute is 7 million I mean it's very expensive to buy time on
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Super Bowl right? And then when you pay for all those celebrities they do they charge their
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full price or like I mean how much does it cost to get all those celebrities? I mean it's expensive I mean if it's a
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true A-list celebrity like my guess for Messi was he was probably north of 8 million and that's just kind of my own
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speculation but my guess is that's probably about what he was and when you get to some of the lesser
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celebrities you're looking three to five million and then kind of you it's a lot of money and so when you look
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at it's 15 million dollars on air time but that's celebrity it's crazy. Yeah that's
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what I was wondering cuz when you hear about how expensive a Super Bowl ad is it's just buying the time it's not the
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production value and then you have you feature all these celebrities they can't
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come cheap. Yep and the game itself I mean we're talking about you know $7,000 tickets
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right? Yeah well and that Travis Kelce spent a million dollars on his suite for his
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family and Taylor's family which he told us over and over wasn't worth the
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Yeah. So so okay so those were your top three which ones do you think really failed?
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Or let's let's just say which ones were challenged. Okay okay. Barbara I got to I got to lift
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your spirits I'm going to have you more optimistic. Which ones didn't land as well as they
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might have? Yeah I mean there's kind of like two different buckets to that there's like
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the advertisers that you know have low budget ads like CrowdStrike and Bass Pro Shops and the ones who aren't trying to
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just like wow you like they have a specific purpose in the game and by the fact that they keep coming back like it
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must be working for them Skechers is another one then there's the the ones that are like the high budget brands
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that do seem like they were really trying to you know win over consumers and fell flat Oreo was one of those for
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me where you know they were trying to make you know twisting happen where yeah consumers twist Oreos but they don't
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make decisions off of them and they were trying to make that happen as a as a thing that just didn't resonate with me
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Uber Eats I struggled with because I just didn't think the jokes were good for the most part Uh, and they even had
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to edit their ad at the last second because they had a a peanut somebody having a peanut reaction not remembering
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that it was peanut peanut butter. And so all the food allergy networks went after
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Uber Eats like how dare you do this? So they had to edit their ad at the last second. They got bad press for that.
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Uh, and so it's like those kind of ads where you know they were high budget and
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then they just they didn't work. Uh, those to me are the fails of the night because if you've got a
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CrowdStrike or some of these lesser brands who were just happy to be there and have a specific reason like I'm not
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going to yell at them for having a bad ad. Interesting. Interesting. Let me get really quick Jameson let me get your
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thoughts on uh, halftime show. What were your thoughts on that? I mean Usher was
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a Usher it would appeared Barbara in some of the ads. And so but it's really
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really hard to come out there and be phenomenal during the halftime halftime performance. What were your
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thoughts Jameson on that as a as a marketing opportunity as a you know opportunity to to elevate things like
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that. Yeah, I didn't really come away from the halftime performance thinking like oh I
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need to go check out like what Usher is up to. Like last year was Rihanna. Well she was awesome. She was my favorite.
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You would have to Google what with Rihanna after that performance. Usher and all the guests that he had on there
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you know Alicia Keys and I forget who the other musicians were off the top of my head. You know it didn't you didn't
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come away going like oh man I'm going to go listen to some Usher this week. And
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so it didn't feel like the walk down memory lane that maybe we thought we were going to get with Usher because he
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was such a strong presence for the 2000s. And it just I don't know I just didn't come across that way and I feel
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like the social reaction was generally the same of you know it was a fine show but you didn't come away going like oh
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man Usher like I forgot about him. He's great. Interesting. So I was just going to say Barbara
00:21:38
really quickly here's a question for you trivia question. Who sponsored the halftime performance? A brand sponsored
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the halftime performance. What brand was that? Do you remember? Was it Apple Music?
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Apple yes. Isn't that something? I was we were having this conversation it was
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like oh yeah it was Apple. It that that might have been a miss quite honestly right? What are your thoughts?
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Kaylin but I only knew it because I knew it. Yeah yeah right right. So interesting
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because Apple is really you know a prominent brand that's out there and you you expect them to do like phenomenal
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things. I mean they had that very famous 1984 classic you know think different Super
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Bowl commercial directed by Ridley Scott and so on and so forth. So you always expect them to be at the top of the
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entertainment spectrum in terms of you know showing up at these sorts of events. So that was a little bit
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interesting as well. Didn't you? And and you know Las Vegas and that whole thing
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we talked a lot about that before the started with the sphere and they kept showing pictures of the sphere. What was
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your take on how did the sphere play into any of this? Did you have any Yeah, what are your thoughts Jameson on the
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sphere? Yeah, I mean it seems like a great brand play during events. For how much they
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charge on it regularly I don't feel like it's probably a great brand investment
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when there's not a big event going on but Las Vegas definitely proved itself
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to be the ideal location for brands to have a Super Bowl because they were activating all the way up and down the
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strip with huge impressive uh, you know activations like we really haven't seen at a Super Bowl. And so I
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if it was up to brands they would probably want the Super Bowl back in Vegas as often as the NFL is willing to
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do it. And you know another thing that people sometimes forget to ask about what about
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the football? Oh yeah there was a football game too. the first half of the game was
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relatively boring. The second half of the game was awesome. And what about the placement of
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the ads? The ones who got Did you track like the ones who were later in the game
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and earlier in the game and how that worked out for for the success of the ad placement
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within the game? It's interesting cuz it's such a gamble on when you where you
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place your ad because you're guaranteed high viewership in the first half and
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then the second half you really don't know. And then this had the ad in wrinkle overtime where brands will offer
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the opportunity sort of on the spot do you want an overtime spot? Oh that's interesting.
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And so we only saw one brand out of those five ads that were was in the game and that was State Farm cut down their
00:24:04
60 into a 30 second. The other four brands were either pregame or not at all. So you had Discover which was a
00:24:10
pregame ad. There was I think a cereal brand that was one of those ads and then I think
00:24:16
you had two movie trailers from Universal that were not during the game. It's a Universal you know essentially
00:24:22
upped their spend by 15 million dollars to show two more trailers in overtime. And so CBS walked away with an extra 35
00:24:29
million dollars in ad revenue. That's super interesting cuz I was thinking it
00:24:33
was a very long game. And then we were thinking went into overtime. I read I think that there's
00:24:38
only two Super Bowl games that went into overtime so you don't predict that's
00:24:41
going to happen. Plus that was such an exciting conclusion. So you have everybody watching that with intensity.
00:24:48
interesting Barbara two tailed hypothesis. If it's close and you're in the game are you distracted from the
00:24:54
commercials? No you need the relief. Are you kidding me? You are so tense. Like what is going
00:24:59
to happen to Travis Kelce? That is what you're worried about. Fair enough but if
00:25:03
I'm bored I'm like I don't know it's like okay the ads let me at least pay
00:25:06
attention to the ads right? But you're saying that that is it's a it goes up.
00:25:10
research about that you know? Like if you get that relief it helps with the intensity.
00:25:15
I personally think those ads at the end got really good placement. And if they had to make the money you know the
00:25:20
decision last minute that's pretty interesting. So and so how does that work? They just
00:25:26
decide and then they run it like somebody's making a split second decision like that. Is that what you're
00:25:31
saying actually happened Jameson? Um, so some brands in advance may raise their hand and say like hey if the game
00:25:38
goes to overtime we're in. But CBS will off also give brands an opportunity to
00:25:44
say like hey we could be headed to overtime anybody interested in buying. So I know Discover was one of those
00:25:50
brands that they had an opportunity in the fourth quarter where CBS came to them because they had already had a
00:25:54
pregame ad and said hey do you want to go in overtime? And I would guess because Discover went pregame they
00:26:02
probably got a saw good response to their ad and said like hey people liked our ad let's go for it it's going to be
00:26:08
worth the 7 million to do it. So so the price so the price doesn't change Jameson. Is that correct? Is actually
00:26:14
cuz I could imagine you know I guess if you're if you're asked to do it and you
00:26:18
haven't been sort you haven't raised your hand I guess they could charge more
00:26:21
to a certain extent right? But you're saying you get that locked in price no
00:26:24
matter what. You just get first right to refusal if you if you've already said
00:26:28
hey I'm interested in being potentially putting an ad in the overtime part. Is
00:26:32
that correct? Uh, from our knowledge yes CBS has never outright said that like it's 7 million
00:26:38
dollars but based off of previous reporting work we've done we're pretty
00:26:42
confident that you get somewhere around that rate. You know it might be give or take a couple hundred
00:26:48
thousand dollars either way but it you know it's basically the same rate as you
00:26:51
get in the game. You know Jameson thank you so much for joining us today and where can our listeners go to keep up
00:26:57
with you? Yeah, just go to adweek.com. We cover the Super Bowl in and out and then the other 360 days of the year.
00:27:07
You know we're the most read publication for advertising media and marketing. So
00:27:10
we cover You do a good job Jameson. Yeah, you're the Patrick Mahomes of advertising
00:27:17
gurus. Thank you very much for being on our show and helping us debrief the Super
00:27:21
Bowl. We're going to take a short break and up next is Allison Griffin State
00:27:26
Farm's head of marketing. This is Marketing Matters Business Radio SiriusXM 132.
00:27:33
Welcome back to Marketing Matters here on Business Radio SiriusXM 132. I'm Barbara Kahn the Patty and J.H. Baker
00:27:41
Professor of Marketing I'm joined by my co-host Americus Reed the Whitney M.
00:27:45
Young Jr. Professor of Marketing and the Brand Identity Theorist. And today we are talking about the marketing
00:27:51
highlights from the 2024 Super 2024 Super Bowl. Super Bowl 58 Barbara. 58 yeah. And now
00:27:59
it's time as you just heard for our spotlight segment and who we want to spotlight in this this is a special
00:28:04
moment for us is the State Farm advertising campaign because they did something pretty iconic and we'd like to
00:28:11
unpack what happened there. Before you jump in Barbara can I just say this? You ready for me? Okay.
00:28:14
Like a good neighba State Farm is there. Okay that wasn't my best Swartzenegger
00:28:19
but you get the It was close absolutely close. So that was the ad it was that was the movie as he set it up on who's
00:28:28
uh, Jimmy Fallon's show. And to talk about this and the idea and whether or not it went over but I think it did go
00:28:33
over yes was Allison Griffin who's State Farm's head of marketing. Welcome to our
00:28:39
show Allison. Thank you for being here. Uh, thank you so much for having me. It's a truly my pleasure. So let's in
00:28:45
case anybody didn't see it which is like what planet are they on? But let's just
00:28:50
assume. Why don't you just debrief very quickly what the ad was and then we can
00:28:54
unpack the campaign and what how you decided to do it cuz it was really an unusual ad and an unusual idea.
00:29:03
Yeah, thanks so much. So it was a 60 second spot that appeared to start out like a movie where action hero Agent
00:29:11
State Farm Arnold Schwarzenegger is saving puppies and says like a good neighba State Farm is there. And then you
00:29:20
realize cut cut a director then says hey Arnold it's neighbor. I'm hearing
00:29:25
neighba. And it then proceeds for 60 seconds different scenarios saving from a house fire a lady in labor
00:29:35
from a an explosion in a factory a helicopter scene so several quintessential action hero spots where
00:29:43
over and over Agent State Farm is saying "neighbor" sort of incorrectly. And
00:29:51
and then the twist at the end is the script change comes in and Agent State Farm is actually replaced by an
00:29:58
additional Agent State Farm in the form of Danny DeVito who delivers the line the iconic line perfectly and at the end
00:30:07
Arnold says Danny, "You're a backstabber." So, "I'm a backstabber."
00:30:15
Fantastic. Yeah, it was great. So, like there was a lot to this ad. Like you started off
00:30:20
with having Arnold joining Jimmy Fallon to break the news and I watched that bit. That was hysterical. So, like did
00:30:28
that come after the fact or that was all part of the campaign or like how did you
00:30:31
build this whole thing up? So, I'll I'll kind of take two steps back and I promise we'll get to the
00:30:37
Fallon activation part of it. You know, so like any good marketer you have a brief and this year our brief was
00:30:48
solely cemented around our slogan like a good neighbor State Farm is there. Several years ago when we were trying to
00:30:56
sort of catapult the asset Jake from State Farm, we also had a linear television Super Bowl ad where Drake
00:31:05
from State Farm iconically delivered a line and that we saw and learned that that
00:31:13
Super Bowl execution kind of cemented the visibility of Jake from State Farm reinvigorating that brand asset and we
00:31:22
could then build over time from that moment. So, we want to do is this cultural moment to do the same for our slogan.
00:31:30
Yeah, and this let me I want to jump in really quickly Allison because this is something I want to get your feedback in
00:31:34
on Allison and you two Barbara. The notion of the category. We're talking about insurance and so it's not
00:31:40
something you can see and touch. It's kind of a different product category, right? You don't really know you you
00:31:45
don't really want to buy it but you know you need it and so the way you market
00:31:49
that kind of a product is going to be completely different. You need a different way to connect with people
00:31:55
and is this part of the strategy here? what you're saying. I agree and that's
00:31:58
what Allison is saying. With insurance you the slogan is very meaningful. Very meaningful.
00:32:03
And the idea of doing an ad which is what I think she's saying about that slogan which is speaking to the unique
00:32:09
selling proposition of the of the brand is a very interesting strategy. Yeah, so we are under no delusion that
00:32:18
anyone in the country cares at all about the category of insurance. Let alone I'll say Gen Z, Millennials,
00:32:27
younger Millennials, right? Their attention is is hard to catch. They are distracted across all the different
00:32:35
avenues and platforms where their attention is being, you know, sought after and again insurance isn't a
00:32:42
category that they'll stop and go, "I wonder what the insurance category is
00:32:46
doing today." And so in order to set yourself apart, you know, humor is one
00:32:51
that most of the category uses today. You can see it pretty much across the board but being relevant, so Jake from
00:33:00
State Farm is one way we've become more and more relevant where he is the personification of what it means to be a
00:33:07
good neighbor. He's not a pitchman, he doesn't sell anything. He's just a good
00:33:11
neighbor. And then the slogan like a good neighbor State Farm is there and the jingle
00:33:16
associated with it is really important and for young people today and you guys, you know, sitting with college students
00:33:23
more often every day than I am, you know this better than I do but being able to break through and a brand to
00:33:31
share its purpose and its meaning matters more and more today. And so celebrating just the words like a good
00:33:40
neighbor and then from here we will catapult into well, what does that mean? Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
00:33:46
That's interesting because what you're doing in this ad is making the slogan
00:33:51
literally more familiar but you're not digging into the meaning of it because
00:33:55
the execution of this ad isn't really about the meaning. Whereas with the Jake
00:33:59
campaign it was about the meaning of what Jake was. Here it's really about familiarity of the slogan.
00:34:06
I'll say both things. We did have the the deliverer of the line is Agent State
00:34:12
Farm, the superhero who is there [Laughter] I'll say a little bit there is a little
00:34:20
bit in there by design but but to the point our goal for this year going into 2024 is to continue to unpack that
00:34:28
meaning. So, I mean look, we know that the jingle is iconic. I mean it's not unknown today,
00:34:35
right? People know it. And but we want to reintroduce it to those who may not realize or pay attention and to the
00:34:44
point that you just stated, we want to continue to create meaning for it throughout the year. And so for us
00:34:49
taking a step back, the brief was around the iconic slogan making it famous. So, then the creative and now
00:34:59
this is getting to I know your question was Jimmy Fallon but the creative for us
00:35:03
and every year if you want to later talk about what we did in 2021, 22, 23 and and then now 24, there was a lead up in
00:35:11
how we came to get here. did want to talk about that but For this one though, where where we are
00:35:20
is how do we cement it and then create meaning and so the creative drove the celebrity. So, I know there's a lot of
00:35:28
talk in Super Bowl ads of cost and celebrities and do you need celebrities and all of that and
00:35:36
Yes, our feeling is that you the best creative is one where it couldn't just
00:35:42
swap out oh well we'll approach this celebrity and if she can't do it we'll
00:35:46
go to her and if she can't do it we'll go to this person down the line. If Arnold wasn't available or willing
00:35:54
this spot would not have been what Okay. No, that's a that's a fantastic
00:36:01
got the brief, we got the celebrity. Yeah. So, now so then we had we were like, all right, well if we've got
00:36:08
Arnold and we always had the creative was always around an action hero and Agent State Farm because we've got
00:36:14
nearly 20,000 independent contractor State Farm agents across the country and they're in communities in every zip code
00:36:21
here in the United States and they are doing these superhero type things for their communities every day. So, there
00:36:29
was like that notion of who are we? What do we mean? How do we, you know, get Arnold to to demonstrate this
00:36:36
superhero-ness to lean into what do we mean that we can impact for the rest of the year and so
00:36:42
how do we make the most interest around a spot if we're going to make the investment and if we're going to spend
00:36:49
the time and energy to do a spot, then what's the surround? And the surround
00:36:54
including Jimmy Fallon was hey, let's for fun launch a pretend trailer. So, we started
00:37:01
several weeks ago and said movie. Then and we said nothing about it. We had an IMDb page. We had Arnold
00:37:10
Schwarzenegger and Jake were caught by the paparazzi working out at Gold's Gym
00:37:16
in Los Angeles. And really got paparazzi photos of them there which was part of it, right? That the two of them are
00:37:24
working on a movie. And then and then slowly but surely thinking about well, what would a movie star do
00:37:31
if they truly were launching a new movie, they would go on Jimmy Fallon. And I'll pause here around Jimmy Fallon
00:37:38
and say he's not just a celebrity we hired to be one of our current spots. He
00:37:45
currently is in a service campaign around our jingle. He shows up when someone says, "Are you
00:37:51
joking?" three times. coming. So, he's not around this topic because of that. We are working with him in a
00:38:01
deeper collaboration and we have Jimmy in the writing room with us. And so that was way before this spot, this
00:38:10
particular spot. And so when we solidified the spot and when we knew what we were doing, we said, "Hey Jimmy,
00:38:19
you know, what do you think and help us come up with a spot?" Oh, so that's a much bigger deal about
00:38:27
Jimmy. That's why you you held off for a second because the Jimmy Fallon point is
00:38:31
a much bigger point. We were talking about humor that doesn't work. I mean one of the best ways to mitigate that is
00:38:35
to hire really good comedy writers like Jimmy Fallon and work with these most, you know, creative people.
00:38:41
in pro he's good at improv so that he can go with something and he can take it
00:38:45
and move it in interesting ways. And that makes it very interesting to then have Arnold come on his show. I mean I
00:38:51
didn't know all that backstory. That's really interesting. Yeah, and it was fun. So, we worked with
00:38:57
NBC and Jimmy Fallon of course and Arnold's team and and Jake from State Farm. So, we had two segments
00:39:03
on the the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. One was the typical Arnold at the desk and he's, let's say, hawking
00:39:10
his new movie and Jimmy was such a great a great support in how we rolled that part out.
00:39:17
And then in addition, they did one of those game that the Tonight Show does with some celebrities where they play a
00:39:24
game in the you know, the second segment and we brought Jake from State Farm out
00:39:28
and if you watch that spot and noticed the roots were playing our jingle subtly in the background.
00:39:36
So, as you're talking through this, this is like a lot more depth than I expected. It you know, even in the Jimmy
00:39:42
Fallon question. Well, so was that considered a paid ad or was that I mean, did you have to pay to do that or how
00:39:48
did that work? No. That's beautiful. The other thing that I think is super interesting Allison is this idea of
00:39:54
Barbara and I talk about it all the time. How the storytelling part, the narrative piece, and entertaining
00:40:00
people. And you know, a story that runs through various different threads is very different when the when the
00:40:07
promotional piece stops becoming the promotional thing necessarily and it's more entertainment and creative and
00:40:12
entertainment first and then oh by the way it it creates a connection of resonance for your brand potentially.
00:40:18
Can you talk about that? We've talked about this Barbara flipping the sort of
00:40:21
script if you will. It It sounds like that was the strategy here. Is that correct Allison? Yeah, 100% and that and
00:40:27
that was where we were like this 360 on steroids that you know, everything from the movie page and the paparazzi moment
00:40:35
and creating a movie poster. Oh, we had a theme song by the way. A very very popular TikToker Lauren Gray wrote the
00:40:44
score as any action movie would have. Of course. Of course. A big bond. Right? You've got a a big famous score. And so
00:40:52
so we did that and then of course there was a concentric circle of internet influencers that would do get ready with
00:41:00
me videos of lifestyle of we're going to the premiere. So we had a red carpet
00:41:05
event. Wow. So smart. Oh my god. It's very deep. Yeah. Yeah. It kept going. And then the
00:41:11
other the other way to get more and more again more of the Gen Z younger audiences interested is we also
00:41:19
contracted with very talented internet influencers who were artists all in different genres. Like painting. Wow.
00:41:31
Models, figures. Um songs, dancers. Wow. You know, so there were I think 13. We We could get the exact number here if
00:41:42
we need the exact number but it was about 13 to 15 influencers who were all also driving excitement and interest
00:41:49
around Agent State Farm. Again, without anybody knowing that the actual joke um was Neighba over and over.
00:41:56
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So they were just sort of riffing on superhero and an agent being a hero. So it was
00:42:03
subtly another way that our um meaning was being interpreted to wider and wider audiences in the lead-up to the actual
00:42:14
spot. I like about this in addition to what you're saying and in how it's building
00:42:18
up this whole narrative and what and what America's been saying also but what
00:42:22
I like about it is you don't put all the weight on the commercial. Right. So if
00:42:26
the commercial doesn't land which is possible, you know, you might think it's
00:42:30
funny but maybe in the moment when it plays it's not that funny. You have all
00:42:34
this other stuff going. So you have it invested all this money in one spot and then it falls flat which we were just
00:42:42
talking about. That happened to some brands. Their ads just didn't hit. You don't have that problem because you have
00:42:47
so much else going on. And anything that happens that hits creativity. Yeah, it's going to promote the slogan
00:42:55
which is what your point is. So you can't lose. I'll add one more layer here. This is so
00:43:01
appropriate that it's it's insurance. It's so appropriate. Yeah, risk averse. It's
00:43:07
well thought out. It's It's going to be there for protection no matter what.
00:43:10
Absolutely. Yeah. Exactly right. We are not going to get caught flat-footed. Yes.
00:43:15
That's so funny. The other concentric circle is our agents. And and you know,
00:43:20
I I never underestimate the power of those 20,000 independent contractors because what we did also in advance was
00:43:29
prepare social content and heads-up and excitement for what was going to happen so they weren't caught off guard out in
00:43:37
a community somewhere. And they were ready en masse to attack the internet with their social posts and
00:43:46
promotions and leaning into Agent Immediately. State Farm. Right. And that was yet
00:43:51
another way what I was saying Poppy was doing also. You have so it's a multi-pronged uh
00:43:57
campaign. You don't just have the Super Bowl commercial. You have all this stuff
00:44:02
around it. So let's switch gears just a little cuz you mentioned this and I'm
00:44:05
curious. So the historic State Farm ads were pretty interesting too and quite different from this. So can you talk
00:44:12
about the campaign that happened before and a little bit a little bit background
00:44:17
like you're giving on this campaign about those previous campaigns? Sure. So last year we did a TikTok. So
00:44:22
the last two years actually we did TikToks and I'll and I'll back up to tell you why. So So the one before that
00:44:27
was Drake from State Farm that we already talked about. That was to launch the asset Jake from State Farm and and
00:44:33
start to cement it. Great. Check. Did it and he's become a cultural icon if I may
00:44:38
Right. Um So then the next year we had So we always look at the business conditions,
00:44:46
the market, what's going on, what do we need, what are we looking to achieve
00:44:50
when we think about the Super Bowl and that year after Drake from State Farm and the launching of that asset Jake was
00:44:58
we put Jake from State Farm on TikTok as an influencer. He's over 1 million followers today. Oh wow. He's getting
00:45:06
pretty big actually already. Um and at that time we put him on in the month of November and of course the Super Bowl
00:45:13
would be the following February and we thought we've got to more than a linear
00:45:20
spot on television, we need to drum up the interest and excitement around the TikTok account. So we did a contest
00:45:26
where somebody could win being in a commercial with Jake and that was the goal. So it wasn't about we have to be
00:45:35
on television this year. It was about make that TikTok platform uh You know. Create awareness and make it relevant.
00:45:42
So that was that year. I'll pause. Should I keep going? Yeah, keep going. Yeah.
00:45:47
Just making sure. Okay. So then the next year so we had a lot of success with TikTok and Jake's following grew quite a
00:45:53
bit then and we've since continued to get smarter and smarter about that asset
00:45:58
and about that platform. Um so it continues to grow but then the next year of course the question comes up, "Hey,
00:46:04
are we going to do a Super Bowl ad this year?" And what we knew was we had stadium naming rights last year. It was
00:46:12
the Super Bowl was at State Farm Stadium. And we were thinking to ourselves well, I don't need to buy a 30
00:46:18
or 60 second spot on television. My brand's going to be on television for 4 hours. So we aren't aware of brands
00:46:27
leaning into stadium naming rights in a way we did last year. So as you know, a typical or at least last year
00:46:34
viewing for the Super Bowl is about 110 million people and we had the naming rights. Um so we're like, "Okay, that's
00:46:42
good. How do we create interest in the brand but do it on TikTok again to drive Jake and again to be creative and think
00:46:51
out of the box. And again, the creative drives the execution. Because we had naming rights, there was
00:46:57
the biggest TikToker at the time Khaby Lame and he very famously Yes. shrugs. I He speaks zero so I'm
00:47:04
hoping in a podcast this is coming off. Imagine me going Yes. Yes. Yes. But we had an activation on TikTok
00:47:12
that said "We don't need to go to the big game. The big game has come to us."
00:47:17
Ooh. pointing at the stadium logo. Wow. And that TikTok got 220 million views Wow.
00:47:29
And so we thought that was a really good compliment And Allison Griffin State Farm's head of marketing, this is
00:47:36
unbelievable. And so that that was a mic that was so that was a flex. So I I just I'm not I you know, it's
00:47:42
hard I'm thinking insurance. Why are you all so cool at State Farm? Why are you
00:47:47
so good at what at this? This is incredible. It's like this is so amazing. Like how do you come up with
00:47:52
these ideas and in and like make sure that they're so deep and so well thought
00:47:56
out and so well executed? I mean, how does this happen? So we've done a lot, you know, we've
00:48:02
refreshed our brand in 2020. Um and new you know, the leadership of the company was on a march toward making the brand
00:48:11
cool and setting ourselves apart because listen uh it's a tough category. It's
00:48:16
competitive. We actually have the smallest of the budgets of our competitors in the market um which is
00:48:23
well known and documented not sharing anything private there. And so in order to punch
00:48:29
above our weight and in order to resonate especially with younger and younger audiences cuz look, we all know
00:48:35
any global marketer, not just the US, not just insurance there's a tsunami of
00:48:39
wallets in young millennials, Gen Zs, and now even Gen Alphas coming that the world has never seen. Yes. And they are
00:48:47
a tough audience to reach. We know that having a great State Farm app can't just
00:48:52
compare to another in insurance industry app. It's that the standard is Amazon or Apple or things.
00:49:00
We're smart enough to know that the global market is dictating attention where people are paying attention and if
00:49:09
we need to set ourselves apart, we've got to be innovative and cutting edge.
00:49:13
And our whole mission is to create the conditions over time that allows us to take advantage of things like the Mama
00:49:21
Kelsey moment. Ooh. Well, that was what I was going to ask you because you had in your old ads Andy Reid and Pat
00:49:27
Mahomes and all that in your old But how did all that play into it? Because those
00:49:32
ads were very different what you're talking about. They seemed almost hokey.
00:49:35
Like Andy Reid's not that good an actor, you know what I mean? So, like it was a
00:49:39
very Andy Reid is lovable. So, what we do is contextually relevant ads. So, that's
00:49:43
not our general market ad. We only play the um football ads in football. So, he's known there, he played there. We
00:49:51
only play the NBA ads in NBA play. Target marketing. And then we have general market is where
00:50:00
you'll see someone like a Jimmy Fallon or a Ludacris That's genius. or Jake
00:50:05
from State Farm or just the representation of an agent and no celebrity. 100%. So, the point is you'll
00:50:11
never ever see an Andy Reid ad outside of the football context, no matter what. That's that's smart. And I love the
00:50:19
idea, Barbara, the point is that, you know, all of this investment right now for these younger people, at some point
00:50:24
they're going to say, "Hmm, I I guess I need some insurance." What's going to be
00:50:26
popping in their mind at that moment? It'll be It'll be there. IT'S GOING TO
00:50:30
BE THERE, MAN. That's a top of the funnel strategy. But, that's interesting because I didn't
00:50:34
realize it was a local ad because, of course, Andy Reid was in the Super Bowl. So, he became a national figure.
00:50:41
Um so, I thought Well, and we were we were so fortunate. Um we had Travis Kelce in an ad before any of this Taylor
00:50:47
Swift came up. Um you know, we filmed those last summer, the Mahomes in MaAuto. And so, that was an interesting,
00:50:55
you know, again, create the conditions to which you could take advantage of a moment in the moment. And but look, it
00:51:02
takes a lot of intestinal fortitude and go and take a risk like that, especially
00:51:07
in the insurance category where we are in the risk business. Exactly. Exactly. Well
00:51:13
thing to do is taking big risks, but um but creating those those moments. And so, when um Taylor Swift showed up to
00:51:21
Travis's game, 1 week later we had Jake from State Farm in the stands, but not
00:51:25
at a Chiefs game, of course, famously at an Eagles game supporting the other brother.
00:51:32
There you have it. Right. And that is like the biggest story. People are talking about that
00:51:36
Kelce story is the biggest story in the our cultural moment. Well, Allison, thank you so much for joining us today.
00:51:43
And so, now that you've told us this deep deep marketing strategy, where can
00:51:48
our listeners go to follow what you're doing and everything that's going on at
00:51:51
State Farm? Oh gosh, I'm on LinkedIn and um I love talking about marketing. So,
00:51:58
do. Well, you're very good at it. And you're excellent at it. Well, thank
00:52:01
you. And I love the 360 campaign. It's great. Yeah. Well, thank you. And this year we're excited about
00:52:09
continuing to lean into our jingle. You'll see more and more and fun activations around the actual notes are
00:52:16
coming soon to a to a commercial near you. Oh, that's very cool. Uh well, that's all we have time for today. We'd
00:52:23
like to thank our producers Dan Simpkins and Dana Cash. We're here every Wednesday from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. Eastern
00:52:29
Time. And we replay our show several times throughout the week. This has been Marketing Matters. I'm Barbara Corcoran
00:52:35
here with America's Read Business Radio SiriusXM 132. [Music]