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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to OnStrategy Showcase. I'm Fergus O' Carroll in Chicago. Interesting that I sort of notice the more that I look at myself because we're on video, obviously more than we used to be because we're now on YouTube. I begin to see myself more frequently because I'm on the camera. And I've noticed that I'm getting increasingly pale throughout the wintertime. Being an Irishman, that's pretty much the way life is. So needless to say, like many of you, I'm just craving springtime, which hasn't arrived yet here in Chicago. But we get teased from time to time in terms of temperatures increasing. So I'm hopeful at some point we'll be back to getting a little bit of a different complexion on camera. Or maybe I need to get the lighting adjusted in my studio. It's going to be one way or the other over time. I want to let you guys know that our last stop on our live tour for this season is happening in San Francisco. It's March 12th at Uber headquarters. And I'm sorry, super excited about this because we're doing something a little bit different. We have around the table client side heads of marketing, people who are leading global brands, people that are working with startups, people that are working with scale ups. Each person around this table has come from the agency world and has that experience. And I'm really, really intrigued by that transition and what it's done and what one side brings to the other in both directions in terms of the levels of experience. But we're gonna be talking about life in the and the impact, the pivotal impact that marketing is now having in that part of the world. And we have a stellar lineup of folks I want to share with you. Danielle Hawley is global head of creative and brand at Uber, doing phenomenal work with the likes of Mother and the likes of Special Group. Just terrific work. Gareth Kay, vice president of brand at Coinbase, made a ton of buzz for the last couple of years in the super bowl. You may rem creative executions. Whitney McGraw is global head, brand and marketing, or brand marketing, excuse me, at Airbnb and she will be joining us. And of course, a brilliant body of work that has come out of that brand. And Brian Wakabayashi is head of brand for Colab, which is inside Westcap, which is a private equity and venture capital firm in San Francisco. And he can talk to a lot of the startup culture in that part of the world. So hope you'll make it. Thursday evening, March 12 at 6pm Uber's headquarters in San Francisco. I want to thank the Effies, I want to thank Tracksuit, and I want to thank Ipsos for being tour supporters and sponsors this past year. We are so excited that we had a great season. We're going to start the season earlier this year. We usually start in September, but for the 20, 26, 27 tour, we're going to start hopefully in May. And instead of the seven or so spots that we had or stops we had this past season, we're going to have 11. So going to some new markets and trying some new formats for the next season. So I hope to see you on the road. So back to today's episode. This is on the Spot where planners talk about brands they've never worked on. This month's guests are Emily Harvey, head of strategy for Zulu Alpha Kilo. If you don't know this company, she's out of New York City in the Zulu Alpha Kilo office. If you don't know this brand, you should get to know them. They're a great agency doing great work. We had them in our Toronto show also. Just terrific stuff coming out of the agency. And then we have Caitlin Cody. She is executive group strategy director for BBDO here in Chicago. And we are thrilled to have both of these guys joining us as on our Misfit panel. Now, one thing I wanted to mention because we highlight Rocket Mortgage as one of our brands and then what we did is instead of picking a second brand, we actually just had an open discussion about the Super Bowl. Little late to talk about this, but it was a fun conversation. But I wanted to point something out. One of my favorite spots, my number two favorite spot in the super bowl was Ring. Now, I love the campaign, the spot. You'll hear about it in the episode. But obviously there's been a ton of backlash in that Ring spot. And we're not ignoring that. That is a reality. But it's interesting to talk about whether that's really a consumer issue or it's sort of an advocacy group that's trying to to drum up some fear about their surveillance state. It's hard to tell, but certainly if you look at the rating that Ring got On within System 1 Super bowl rankings, the Ring spot was in the top 10, which made me the winner of this month's episode of on the Spot. So, you know, we'll see what happens with Ring long term. I loved that idea. I thought it was great. So here is Emily Harvey, Caitlin Cody, Matthew Herbert, Vanessa Chin, our panelists for this month's on the spot. Enjoy. So welcome back. This month it is on the spot with our band of misfits yet again, together with two new people that have joined us this month. And we're thrilled to have both Caitlyn and Emily along. Welcome to both of you. Big applause.
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B
Thank you.
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C
We'll take you apart.
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A
Actually, we should have a sound effect that adds applause, but we don't. So you just have to deal with this. It's like. It's like the clicking thing that people do all the time. That's basically what this is about.
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D
And maybe a few laughs as well when you. When you say your jokes. Burgers.
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A
Yes. Yes. I should do a little monologue of jokes. If I was actually a funny person, that would be a good thing, right? That would be gonna. That could be kind of fun for. For one person, maybe me. That's my next podcast. Yes. So we are, of course, planners talking about work we never worked on. So it is okay for us to have opinions. And sometimes they're perfectly shaped and framed, and otherwise, sometimes they're not. So if you say something that you regret, that's okay, because this is not about perfection. We are quite happy to be misinformed since it's not really about a client's business. There's no stakes at play here. We can actually just have fun with this. We picked Rocket Mortgage this week, this month as one of our brands, and we're going to talk about super bowl following that. So Rocket Mortgage, for me, I've always been sort of interested in Rocket Mortgage as a brand because it came out many years ago out of Detroit, and it did a lot of work for many years under a certain head of marketing. And they did some work that was interesting. They did some work. A lot of super bowl spots with high dive here in Chicago for a number of years that included people like Tracy Morgan and others who were a part of that. But things shifted two years ago when Jonathan Mildenhall joined. Has a great history of brand work behind him. He got on my radar, although he had worked at Coke before this, but he got on my radar, or the work from Airbnb got on my radar. And I was blown away by their brand film that they released back in the day. The belong everywhere. He spent a number of years there working on that brand and now is at Rocket Mortgage. And again, I think if I look personally at the connections between the Airbnb work and what he's doing for Rocket Mortgage, there is sort of a true line of belonging and there's similar themes that Bubble up within the work that he's done. But I'm curious. Let me start off with Emily. What do you think was at the heart of this work for Rocket? And then. And then, what do you think of it?
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C
Yeah. Yeah. Well, also, thanks for having us, Fergus, because as planners and advertising people talking about work we've never touched is. Is the dream.
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A
I'm glad that I can make your dream come true.
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C
Every week when I listen. The dreams coming true. Yeah. I mean, I think, especially in the context of what you're saying just now, I think that the brief, you know, I'd imagine it was probably around order owning that higher order, like, emotional equity of home work did that really well. And when you look at the old stuff, which I'll say, like, made sense for super bowl then, and it's like, absurd and just designed to get people's attention, I could imagine that the brief now was like, how do you really build a lot more emotional connection?
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A
You mean the old work, like the Jason Momoa work and the.
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C
Correct. Yeah, Jason Momoa and the Tracy Morgan stuff.
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E
Can we even afford this house?
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A
I'm pretty sure we can. Pretty sure with Rocket Mortgage, you can be certain, not pretty sure. What's the difference? Let me show you. I'm pretty sure these aren't poisonous. Pretty sure these are parachutes.
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B
Mine has a sandwich.
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A
That's mine.
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C
Clearly just wildly entertaining. But I think the insights there just maybe weren't as potent as the rich space of home and home ownership. And I think, especially given where the world is right now, you know, around just how far out of reach that dream really feels for people. Like, I think a lot of brands are afraid to, frankly, just, like, own the biggest emotional space they can. And clearly they. Clearly, they went for it and did an incredible job. So I think while everyone else is probably talking about interest rates and financing, to really own that bigger, the bigger thought and what home really means to people really, really came through.
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A
Yeah. What do you think, Caitlin?
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B
What I love about this mission that they've taken on is I feel like this is the year that they tried to remind people that what you're actually buying isn't a piece of property. What you're buying is community. What you're buying is togetherness, the belonging, as you said, and that's much more potent.
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A
Yeah. One of the interesting things for me was that. And I'm always surprised and delighted when CMOs do it and teams working on these brands do it. They claim the category benefit and then they work hard at communicating it in A meaningful way. Because one of my other spots, and we'll talk about it later, that I loved was the ring spot for the Ring security devices. That's a category benefit that they can own, and I see a lot of brands doing that these days where they might have shied away from it. And I can imagine creative directors and even some chief strategy officers when a strategist comes in and says, hey, here. That they're like, yeah, anybody could say that that's a very common thing said in strategy circles. But it maybe misses the big opportunity, which is. Yeah, well, nobody's saying that. Well, yeah. And you know, Emily, it's like, I don't know if you ever experienced that, but I have. It's like, well, everybody could say that. Well, shit. Yeah. But nobody's saying it well. And I think Rocket says it really well.
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C
Yeah, there's no. There's no worse comment. A strategist can give in a creative review or a client could give. It's like, that's not ownable.
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D
Yeah, yeah.
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C
Idea owns sport and potential. You know, I think it takes a lot of confidence to just recognize the biggest emotional role that a brand can play. And so I. You know, it's interesting to. To look at the first spot versus the new one for this year because they're related, but different. But I think that first spot, you know, that really introduced Own the Dream. I mean, it just. It's so deep and universal. It's like there's almost nothing you could sell that's more emotional forgetting even. What's contextually going on right now.
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A
Yeah.
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C
What it means to. To own a home for your family and the memories. I mean, as like a. As a mom of two with, like, a real emo streak, I. I was choked up. And I'm sure, Vanessa, you'll tell us that something like that's our job to really stir feelings in people, and I think we do. Fergus, forget that when we're trying to slice and dice, like, oh, we're the more trustworthy one, or we're the more, you know, certain one where actually, like, the trust that they think they were trying to build with the first work, you actually just build by helping people feel connected to the brand.
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A
Yeah. I can't wait to get there, man.
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C
Take me home to the place
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E
I love.
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A
How far, Mama? Take me home country road
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C
Take me
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A
home country road Matt, that first spot played in 2025. They're back again in 2026. Do you have anything that shows how the brand has shifted? Because things I've Read has been, it's been pretty significant in terms of definitely awareness but also things like consideration.
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D
That's right. I mean we've been tracking Rocket in the, in the mortgage category for the last year and a bit and looking at year over year, I'll keep this incredibly simple. Rocket has seen significant increases right through the funnel. The unaided awareness is up 9 percentage points, consideration up 4 percentage points, preference up, claim usage up. And so the culmination year on year and you know, I think we'll the trend and the way this is going under the guidance of Jonathan. And the emotional aspect and the impact on brand health, it's phenomenal in a category where the competition are not seeing that movement and so they are outperforming the category and the competitor sets when it comes to brand health. Big challenge for them ongoing is trust. Right? Trust. They're performing all right, but trust is the biggest driver of conversion. And so the emotional aspects, the feel good, the emotion aspects, plus can I trust this? Does it have the right products and experience and actually help me with the financial aspect? I think that's something to keep an eye on as well.
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A
So two things to follow up on that number one, is that a category issue or a Rocket issue? And then secondly when you say it's up a certain amount of points from what to what? Because that number seems. Feels low to me.
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D
Yeah. I mean if we have a look at unaided awareness has gone up from halfway through last year to where we are now up from 16% to 25%.
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A
Okay.
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D
And so that's pretty significant.
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E
That's a hard level to move.
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D
That's one of the hardest to move. That's that top of mind awareness when you're thinking of brands and companies in the mortgage space.
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A
25% and it's unaided. That's what's incredible about that.
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D
That's right.
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E
We saw fluency increase significantly year on year between the two Super bowl spots. So last year was out of 100, it was a 64. Now granted they had really light touch branding at the end and this year it was 80, which I thought was pretty significant considering it was co branded between Rocket and Redfin.
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A
One of the things that was again to the obvious conversation we had earlier, they've really moved away from this idea of it being about a mortgage to it being about a home. And the category plays in that world of mortgage. It's sort of product oriented, it's about sort of speed rate, convenience. And of course you're dealing, you know, mortgage companies are dealing they're up against major banks also in that space. But again, it was that. But stating and focusing on the obvious. It's the same idea of focusing on product versus focusing on brand. It's not about the mortgage. It's about sort of the home. It's about all of the beautiful, rich aspects that come from that territory of home. Caitlin?
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B
Yeah, I think, honestly, I think that's a shift they've made overall. But also, even in the last two years, I think they've continued to shift that further last year with the idea of American dream. I would say the American dream in this context is the home. It's the thing you have, the pride of ownership, all of that. And then this year they got into neighbors and this idea of community and belonging. And it sort of. We've taken it from five years ago being about more rational benefits like personalization and certainty to home, to community and neighborhood. And I just.
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C
I love that they are.
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B
That they're able to do that. In going all in on the emotional and all in on having a bigger mission than just selling you a mortgage rate. Especially now that they're connected with Redfin, I think that opens their storytelling opportunities.
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E
We did test last year's super bowl and then this year's super bowl, and the scores from a star rating are at the good level. So their last year was 3.6 and this year is 3.3, but the fluency significantly went up from 64 to 80. One thing that I loved seeing is going from more of a montage approach to actually, like telling one really strong story. And we know overall that that can really, really help. I think the one thing, the one watch out is because we talk about home that is so emotionally charged at this point that it's actually finding the viewer hard to get over the sadness. And so they really need to turn the corner to make that pivot to feeling a little bit more happy, a little bit more hopeful about the brand and not just sitting in that sadness.
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A
Your sense is that they're coming away with a sense that it's the downside of the.
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E
It's so emotionally charged that they actually can't recover from it.
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A
Who are these people? Jesus. Right, so let's talk about this current spot. So the switches, to your point, I think Caitlin or Emily brought it up. It's a switch to neighborhood and the importance of neighborhood. I mean, some of the little scenes in this year's spot, particularly the one where the family move in, and then he's completely dismissed by that neighbor who gives him Sort of an F you look when he greets him. That's a pretty powerful moment to include. Why do you think they included that? Because it's not like, oh, I don't know, my neighbor. So I was smiling quickly. I mean, it was like a fuck you sort of glance from the neighbor next door to his Hispanic neighbor moving in next door.
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C
Yeah, I mean, they're obviously. Doesn't take a detector to figure out what they're implying. I guess in terms of the moment we're in and all the horrific things going on, I think that broadly there is a sense. I was just talking to a friend in my neighborhood this morning, that like, community is even just sort of falling by the wayside at large. I think, like, I think one. And maybe I'm the only one in the group. And I think, yeah, Fergus, you want a healthy discussion? Like, I. I think because there was so much implied and so many themes that, like, were being danced and walked that. And there's part of me that wish they would have, like, went into for it a little more.
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E
I just went back and looked at the second by second face trace. And that scene is exactly where fear comes in. So in terms of interesting sadness to
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C
fear, how do you.
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A
How do you interpret. What do you think fear means in terms of how it's been interpreted by you guys? Fear of other.
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E
You know, I didn't. I don't have the verbatims on this one, so I can't say for certain. But, you know, in terms of the storytelling and that cold neighbor look, the question was, where is the story going to go? You know, who's going to get hurt?
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B
Honestly, my fear was not the fear of other, but I had that moment when that scene came up. My reaction was like, ooh. Because honestly, I was afraid of where they were going to take the story. I know, you know, Emily wants to go all in on that. I was feeling like they were dancing around it, but they. They say it pretty. I mean, even the name of this spot, you know, America needs neighbors like you. It's not just about like, the world needs neighbors like you or just, you know, it's good to be a neighbor. It's a. You know, it's a point in time and about our country. And I feel like just the look gets that. And so my fear was that they would go all the way in and try to make, you know, they're already taking one huge societal stand for home, for community. I was worried that they would go all in on, you know, end America is in trouble. Right now and we have to fix. We Rocket Mortgage can fix it. So I'm glad they didn't.
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A
I actually, I thought they, I thought they were going to round that story out. When I saw the guy come out with a chainsaw, I was like, yeah, go get that motherfucker. No, he was going to help his neighbor and cut the tree. So that was how I would have reacted at least. Big storm coming in. Thank you so much. Since we're together, we might as well
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C
say Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
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B
Won't you be my neighbor?
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E
Thank you so much.
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A
We'll be right back. Want always on brand metrics that deliver value to stakeholders this episode is brought to you by Tracksuit, a beautiful, affordable and always on brand tracking tool that helps consumer marketers and agencies answer the question. Is what we're doing working? A not so secret fact is that companies pay $100,000 or more for brand tracking, which is out of the question for many modern brands whose budgets are under pressure. Tracksuit provides enterprise level brand tracking without the big price tag. Their in house research experts do the heavy lifting using best in class practices to craft and launch your survey and get you results fast. Tracksuit is fast becoming the common language for marketers and agencies to measure and communic the value of brand building. Check it out@gotracksuit.com that's gotracksuit.com are celebrities the secret sauce to add effectiveness? What about music or brand characters? You can predict and improve advertising's commercial impact with System 1's test yout ad Platform. Test yout Ad is the creative effectiveness platform that measures consumers emotional responses predicting the sales and growth impacts of advertising. You can test creative for linear and connected tv, digital, outdoor, audio and print channels from early concepts through to finished film plus access. System One's Test yout Ad Premium platform. With more than 150,000 ads in the database, you get the most accurate view of your category with results and rankings updated daily. So create with confidence. To learn more, visit systemonegroup.com that's System One Group. Now back to the show. So let's turn the corner and let's talk about Super Bowl. So we thought since we're on here talking rocket and we're going to be, we'd be touching on so many of these things related to super bowl that we might as well stick on Super Bowl. So I've asked everybody here to kind of share their favorite spot and why. So why don't we start with Emily. Now Emily, you sent me an Update last night, which I did not share with Vanessa. So you're kind of putting Vanessa on the spot. On a little spot. Vanessa, about not knowing.
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E
I don't have all 80 memorized, but let me see what I can do.
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A
I think you're okay.
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C
I'll explain my swap shortly. Yeah, no, well, the. The first one I. I loved, I really, really loved was Novartis tight end. And we need to talk about this. So I. So I grew up in Philly in Eagles country, so I think, I think when brands remember, like it's a football game, like you're talking to people watching a football game, I always just have a lot of respect because obviously, you know, budgets are what they are and people are often want to use these spots the whole year. And that one might not make as much sense to run all the time, but I thought it was just so clever. I didn't see it coming. A real insight, though, beneath it. Not just like the antics. Not just super bowl antics. Like, I thought it was really insightful about the fear and worry of like those, those screenings. So, yeah, it stopped me in my. Really stopped me in my track. And I think they knew who they were talking to, which was guys. And not to generalize, sorry, Matt and Fergus, but like guy humor, they crushed it. It's pretty, pretty monkey brain.
- [26:02]
A
So for the listener who hasn't seen that spot, what they're talking about is your prostate exam test no longer requires your doctor to insert something into your bust. You can now be done with a. With just a drop of blood through a blood test. So they were playing off that excitement or that nervousness or natural reaction when a guy hears about. About anything that the doctor wants to do, which is the tie to the tight end. Have you ever in your life seen tight ends this relaxed? I am so relaxed. They're carefree, calm, serene. You know what these tight ends are so relaxed about? Prostate cancer screenings.
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C
They've learned there's a simple finger free blood test. Roughly one in eight men will be
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A
diagnosed with prostate cancer. And I was one of them. I'm here today because I caught it early. Gronk, what'd I teach you? Relax your tight end. Prostate cancer screening starts with a simple blood test.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And the spot featured, you know, former tight ends, current tight ends. I think the coach actually had survived prostate cancer. So I thought, I thought it was just really well done balancing such a serious message. I'm curious, Curious, Vanessa, how it, how it did.
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E
Yeah, sure.
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C
Planner's perspective. That was my first one that I was Jealous of.
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B
Sure.
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E
I mean, the category average for. For this segment is a 1.2. And so I just want to say that because there's so many rules and regulations on how much, you know, the. The 50, 50 split on, you know, get that fair balance. But at this kind of 50, 50
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A
split, meaning that half the spot is. Is all the disclaimer language and the half is the idea. Yeah, yeah.
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C
Y.
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E
So the star rating on this was 2.6, which is significantly high. One thing that I'll mention, and you did mention about football players, it does help you. We've analyzed every single super bowl spot in the last seven years, and you get a significant upwards of like a one point li. One star lift when you feature something sports. Football, athlete kind of related. And. But the thing about this is that what was. Were they trying to create awareness for the shift from, you know, the finger test to the blood test, or did they actually want to get credit for Novartis? And the brand fluency was a 37. It was very, very low.
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A
Meaning the brand is not recalled after the spot, only by 37% of people.
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C
Yeah, I think that's a good point. Like, if I were to be critical of that one, I'd say that.
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E
Yeah.
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C
The intent or like the takeaway, maybe it wasn't totally clear. Like, I had to watch it once or twice to, like, take away the blood test thing. Fergus. Versus just awareness for, like, prostate screenings, generally speaking. Yeah, that's fair.
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D
That's my. That's my takeaway here, Emily. I. I had. I had them in my. In my highly. Highly rated. Didn't take out my top spot, but highly rated. Hearing you talk about it and who the brand was, in my mind, I thought it was just awareness for prostate screening. I had no idea it wasn't about a finger and a blood test. I just saw puck butts and thought it was a good laugh for a football audience.
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A
That's because we guys are emotionally devastated by the idea. We get distracted immediately. Want to change the subject?
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C
Yes. We can move on to make you all.
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E
What other spots, guys? What other spots
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C
are we bouncing around?
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A
All right, so let's go to Caitlyn for Caitlyn's first spot, and then I'll come back around. Emily.
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B
One of the ones I really liked was Xfinity spot. That was the Jurassic park works. I mean, a lot of production going on in there between aging people down and going back to the original cast. But what I really liked about it, honestly, was the idea that it's never been a Dinosaur problem. It was always just a tech problem. So it made me laugh that they were able to take this again, this functional benefit of we have better technology, things like that, and connect it to the idea that the whole future could change because of it. So I loved that. I thought it was kind of fun. And I think Xfinity has, you know, they've had historically brand love issues probably many years ago when they were talking more as Comcast. But I liked seeing them go big and do what a creative team I love working with at BBDO calls dumb smart, where it's kind of the commercial that takes the smart thinking and makes it sound so dumb that you wonder a little bit if everyone was a little high while making this spot.
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C
But it's funny.
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A
Yeah. My thing is, I'm always surprised about the fact that these franchises that feel so. That are, in my mind at least very dated are still turning up in super bowl spots like the Muppets, Jurassic park and others. And people are bringing them back in. Of course, we saw Duncan do it. And we'll come back to that in a second. But I'm surprised they are still salient at this point. I mean, are they, Vanessa? I mean, are these. Are these sorts of things? Does that Jurassic spot test well? Because it's basically a Jurassic spot.
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E
Yeah, it did test well. It's one of my favorites as well. So it was a four star. The spike rating was a 1.3. It had really high emotional intensity and fast fluency. I mean, the fluency was 83 though. So we're not talking about, you know, the 90, 95 of, you know, Budweiser fame. Sorry to put a plug for Budweiser in there. But, you know, it was. I love the idea and how you can bring that idea forward in so many different ways. I mean, how many times in film or pop culture does the tech go down? Right? So even just, you know, logistically I feel like they could bring it forward. But the idea was so clean and the music choices with Jurassic park and Escape, I mean, it was delightful for me.
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A
Is that BBDO New York or who was it?
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E
I think that was goodbye.
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A
Was that goodbye? Yeah. We should give the agencies credit as we go through this.
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B
No, I love it. Selling a different show.
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A
I'm not on board with Jurassic park. But you are definitely winning when it comes to points here.
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B
I did have to look up, though, to your point, is there a new Jurassic park movie coming out? The answer is no.
- [32:37]
A
I don't have to pay people for their appearances in the AI version You
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C
know, it's funny with the Jurassic park, which I, I loved. There's. You've seen a bunch of ads and tech brands sort of go the route of like, what if X had been there? Like, there was a Google Ad with Kevin McAllister, you know, Macaulay Culkin. It's like, oh, he was home alone. But so it's a good premise and I think it's, it's like sticking with what people like. Like, it always, it always delivers that
- [33:03]
A
premise of like, it seems to deliver amongst the mad.
- [33:06]
C
Yeah, we don't, you know, it works. And we want to give the people what they want. The Super Bowl.
- [33:10]
A
Okay, Matt. What, what? Give us a spot that you liked and, and see how Vanessa can enlighten us here.
- [33:16]
D
I mean, as I was looking through them all, I, I drew a line around, is this ad relevant to, to football? And so that's, that's how I was judging them. Does this have any relevance? And so my top ad from super bowl this year was the UberEats with Bradley Cooper and Matthew McConaughey. Emily said monkey brain stuff. Maybe it's the monkey brain stuff resonating with me.
- [33:38]
A
It's a good, That's a smart campaign.
- [33:41]
D
It's a continuation of what they've done. I think I compare the UberEats to the GrubHub work. It's like UberEats was far to me, far, far more spot on and relevant to the Super Bowl. And so Uber Eats takes it out for me.
- [33:56]
A
When a quarterback runs, they call it a scramble. You want a morning scramble? Bradley, don't you have somewhere else to be?
- [34:04]
C
Think about it.
- [34:05]
B
Field goal post designed after a fork.
- [34:07]
A
That can't be true. Football's not selling food. You cannot keep this up. Players names CJ Ham. Malik Ham. You're cherry picking. Jarrod Cherry. Duran cherry.
- [34:19]
E
Oh, did you tell him about pancake blocks?
- [34:21]
A
Several times, yeah. I love that work. And they're year round that way. I mean, they're doing a fantastic job of continuing to build that brand. And that's one of the things we talked about in a conversation earlier this week in a different show is the idea that super bowl just can't be about a Super bowl spot. For example, if you're gonna do Jurassic park, be Jurassic park throughout the year. And Uber Eats is doing that. They have a consistent theme throughout everything. And they. I think they do. And so, so the super bowl is a spike in the year. It's. Maybe it's a way to launch another phase of a campaign, but it's not a single initiative that lives for 30 minutes or three days and then just fades off into non existence.
- [35:03]
E
So Uber Eats has been a really solid performer in terms of, like, who's won the football season. They. They are up there. And it's unbelievable what they're able to do. They're very consistently in the three star range, and the fluency is pretty high at this point. Let me see, it is 90. So they're getting recognition for this campaign idea. Something that. That. That's coming through on this particular spot. So they got a 3.3. Is there are some negative emotions tied to Matthew and Bradley fighting with one.
- [35:36]
B
Each.
- [35:37]
E
With one another the entire time. I know.
- [35:41]
A
Come on, come on, come on. People are overthinking over talking.
- [35:44]
B
No.
- [35:44]
E
And they just don't stop. They just don't stop fighting to the. For me, when. When it's like, it's a juicer. That's like one of my favorite lines for the Super Bowl.
- [35:54]
C
That was unbelievable.
- [35:57]
A
All right, all right. Vanessa, you don't get away with it by not actually saying which is your favorite. One of your favorites.
- [36:04]
E
Sure.
- [36:05]
A
Well, are you allowed to do that as a. As a member of system only? Are you allowed to have a personal preference?
- [36:12]
E
Yeah, I mean, I think so, but I mean, the problem is that Caitlin took it. It was Xfinity. Oh, that was my favorite. But I do have to give a special shout out to the Manscape team because the idea of how they articulated how they got to this campaign, I mean, other than, like little furry guys, were delightful and the music was really fun, and I love the song, but the strategy about how much care you put into your hair, you love it, you spend a lot of money on it, and then the second it leaves your body, it's the grossest thing, you know, that you've ever seen. And I just think that that has a lot of legs, and I'm really excited to see where it goes.
- [36:53]
A
Yep. Yep. Okay. So my. My first one was Rocket. That was mine. So I'll skip to my second one before we go back around. My second one was Ring. And it's. And just like I mentioned earlier for Rocket, I love the idea that it's a category benefit. I'm not a big fan of necessarily how it was executed, but it opens up such huge creative territories for that brand to own. A specific feature that really any camera could own if it has a larger network in your neighborhood or in your village or whatever. But I really like that because it was very clear what the benefit was. Of that spot, and they weren't afraid to talk about it. And it's also a whole new way of thinking about security that I think nobody else has played with. So I'm really excited about the simplicity of that. I'm also excited about where they take it. They need to work on production values and how to execute that in a little more of a polished way. But I loved it. I thought it was really good. Really strong, simple. Very memorable.
- [38:01]
E
Fergus, I don't know if you're gonna like this or not like this.
- [38:03]
A
I know I'm not gonna like this.
- [38:04]
E
It's in our top 10.
- [38:05]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [38:07]
E
You picked, out of all of us, the highest score. Yeah, the highest scoring. So it had a 4.5 star rating. The spike was 1.41. So totally off the charts. And the fluency was an 88. And that's. So the average for super bowl fluency is going down year on year, and it's at 78 at this point. And this is an 88, which is significant. So, like, one.
- [38:31]
A
Why do you think it worked? Do you have a sense of it or what are you. What are you getting from the ratings? That's. That gives you a reason why it's working. Do you have a sense of it? Just put a dog.
- [38:39]
E
Fluency and clarity of message.
- [38:43]
D
Sorry.
- [38:43]
C
And you add a dog and suddenly.
- [38:45]
E
And then you add a dog.
- [38:47]
A
We should. We should actually. We should just wrap up the show here. Now that I got a 4.5, nothing
- [38:55]
D
else is needed, people.
- [38:56]
A
Thank you.
- [38:57]
B
Did that one get a fear warning like. Oh, my gosh.
- [39:02]
E
Good question. Well, you guys chit chat and let me take a look. You guys chit chat.
- [39:06]
A
Let me take a look.
- [39:06]
C
Caitlin and I are the paranoia planners on the company. Oh, my God.
- [39:10]
B
I mean, I agree with everything Fergus said. It's a unique benefit or it's one that they have made distinctive, even though it may not be ownable. I love that. Makes me think of ring differently.
- [39:21]
E
But it follows our guidance, guys. So, like, it introduces sadness, and so that is the emotion that's felt, but it's 100% resolved with pure happiness. So, yeah, that's. That's. The special sauce is that. You know, the worst emotion is neutrality, you know, and the sadness really does create dynamism, and it defeats it, but it's resolved to feeling pure happiness for the brand and the story.
- [39:52]
D
Hey, Caitlin, how did you feel about the Alexa piece as well?
- [39:56]
B
Honestly? I had this a similar. Not the ring. I mean, my note. I was looking at my notes. I have in Capital letters, terrifying. So Alexa did not terrify me, but I had that same. Same thing where it shows the power of their product. It's very cool, but it didn't make me more likely to want one in my home. That said, I'm a person who uses all this technology at work, and then I come home and my TV is old enough that I have a dumb tv. There are no Alexas in my house. Siri is turned off. So this may just be that I'm a paranoid person.
- [40:28]
A
You are a paranoid. You will never be recruited into the category. Yep. All right, let's go back around. Emily, what about your second spot? Fun.
- [40:37]
C
Yeah. So my. My second wild card switch was good, was Goodwill. Duncan, the Dungan Donut spot. I. I mean, I think Dungan Donuts is just nailing it on so many levels across everything they're doing. But I think with this one, beyond just the amount of celebrity, which I think a lot of times in advertising, we, like, like to poo poo being like, oh, it's just relying on celebrities. But I think they. In this case, they really, like, just have such a clear understanding of what they have with Boston and Ben Affleck and, like, that world that they're occupying with him. Like, they just continue to play on that. And so I think that lore around the brand is just so, so smart. I love that they use the store like, it just in the store in a Dunkin Donuts shop, and then just. Yeah, that you want to just. Just delight people. And, I mean, one cast member after the next, I'm just, like, beyond the fact that this may have been the most expensive adult ad of all time. Like, we think, like, I think Artist Equity did that hit Ben Afflecks. You can feel that and the entertainment value of it. Like, it didn't feel to me like a typical super bowl ad. Like, just. Yeah, that. That was my. That was my last one. I originally was thinking Gemini, but I must have been very emotional at the super bowl because it was such a strong, Strong, like, emo reaction. But then I watched again last night, and I was like, oh, maybe it was just sort of. So. So I was just having a moment.
- [42:09]
E
My favorite thing that Duncan did was actually on TikTok, they aired all the old commercials from the 90s.
- [42:16]
C
Oh, awesome.
- [42:17]
E
And that was delightful. And so. So that was really fun. But Dunkin donuts got a 3.8 really strong score and a 91 on flue. The spike rating was, you know, 1.747. Anytime you've got celebrities, you're going to have a really strong emotional reaction to it. So really strong performance for them. Not one of their best, but solid.
- [42:42]
C
Yeah, Yeah. I liked it even more, I think, than the JLO one that they did. Yeah, I loved it. Thought it was delightful.
- [42:48]
A
Yeah, yeah. Nothing beats Ben Affleck and Tom Brady or Ben Affleck and Casey Affleck. Oh, my God. I mean, even. I know some of them seem like they're skits from snl and some of the best ones are, but.
- [42:59]
E
Yeah.
- [43:01]
A
Yeah. All right, Caitlin, your second one.
- [43:04]
B
My second one was Uber Eats. I do. I agree with Matt. I love the Hungry for the Truth. I think it, you know, to Emily's earlier point, it connects really well to the moment being it's football. So it's just giving that. That standard Uber, what do they do? Why do they do it? But putting it right in this moment. And honestly, it just made me laugh. Like the absurdity of all of the conspiracy theories. But if we've already talked enough about that, I can throw. I'll give Gemini a nod too, since Emily took it off. Thank you. Yeah, Gemini was another one for me. Where will I remember it for the rest of my life? Is it the best super bowl commercial ever? No. But what I did like about it was that in a year where I think we saw a lot of AI focus in the super bowl, and it's sort of. This is the year where they're trying to. All of these different companies seem to be legitimizing themselves through big game spending. I really liked that they. There felt like an actual Google version of AI. It wasn't just the category spot, you know, the just showing, making it clear how it worked, how, like, if you can use Google, you can do this. But connecting that to all the possibilities becoming realities through AI. So, you know, the functional, the emotional, they had the whole thing.
- [44:23]
A
I think it's Arts and Ladders in Richmond, Virginia, who did that spot? I think it is. And then I also. We should give credit to the special group in LA for the work on all of the Uber Eats stuff, which is a phenomenal body of work. All right, Vanessa, how did it. How did it score?
- [44:40]
E
Yeah, I mean, to see Google Gemini get a 3.5 when some of their other AI friends were getting solid ones across the board, I mean, that's a significant jump. And their fluence, I mean, it felt like a Google spot.
- [44:52]
B
It was.
- [44:53]
E
Of all the spots we've talked about today, it had the highest fluency at 93. So it just very much felt like Google and fit for them and had a really solid score at 3.5. As I said, when others were scoring one.
- [45:06]
A
Oh, we just have a couple of minutes left, so I want to go to Matt. Matt, do you have a second one that you want that we should talk through?
- [45:11]
D
Hellmans. Hellmans.
- [45:13]
A
Oh, yeah. That was interesting.
- [45:14]
D
I loved it because I think this is where there are songs that are made and I'm not sure whether where the whole of the us is sitting there waiting for each commercial and they're turning the volume up. But it was the song, which I loved, but it was also really well branded. And I think comparing that to again, to an Instacart or to a State Farm where it's got like a similar humor in terms of the song and the characters. Unless you were really listening to it. I couldn't tell it was Instacart. I couldn't tell it was State Farm, but I knew it was Hellman's the whole way through that. So if I'm grabbing another beer or my popcorn in the middle of the Super Bowl, I knew it was Hellman. So I thought that a. Well, a good job balancing. Balancing all of that.
- [46:09]
A
Helmet makes it taste so good. Yeah.
- [46:13]
B
Product through.
- [46:14]
E
I'm never going to forget ham touching ham from that.
- [46:19]
A
So I think that's Vayner X, by the way. I think that's. I think that was V. Yeah. Was it?
- [46:24]
C
I'll.
- [46:24]
E
I'll take a look. I've got like.
- [46:25]
A
They also did brand flakes with the Eric.
- [46:28]
E
Yes, they did. I did like that. We should have a special shout out for them. I've got like 20 tabs open at this at this point. But Hellman's was a 4.1. And one of the things that I thought about when I was. Which is great. Some people don't like mayonnaise and the fact that they're squirting mayonnaise through it. I don't know if you recall that. It created a decent amount of disgust. Best for some, but really, really solid, scary rejectors. Yeah, the branding was about 80, but I think that Hellman's have different brand names in. In different parts region. There's some regionality that comes into play with mayonnaise. So something to think about which may be dampening the score a little bit. But if you know Hellmans, you knew
- [47:14]
A
for Hellmans, so what. You know. So forget about our choices then as we wrap up here. Vanessa, who which spots were the most popular spots? Like who was the number one.
- [47:24]
E
So our top 10 NFL both of them you are special and champion. Budweiser, American icons. Universal Orlando Resort. Lil Bro was very well loved by our country. Michelob Ultra Ring, Pepsi, which I can't believe as marketers we went through this entire podcast and I was talking about Pepsi, But Red Bull, Lay's and Talmud's, those are our top 10 good.
- [47:53]
A
Interesting. That's. That is interesting.
- [47:58]
C
Nothing for Instacart.
- [48:00]
E
No, Instacart Love it did not score very well as much as, like, I used to work at a grocery store. I used to work at Aldi and so I could tell you a lot about bananas and they are right on in terms of how important bananas are to grocery shopping. So strategically, that's.
- [48:16]
C
Yeah.
- [48:17]
E
Right down the line.
- [48:18]
D
I, I really enjoyed it. When I was sitting down there concentrating, you know, prepping to. To provide some expert or opinion on these ads, I, I had to concentrate on the Instacart commercial. I had to concentrate on going. There is a lot going on here. It is, it is.
- [48:34]
A
It is funny.
- [48:35]
D
It is catchy. But I had.
- [48:37]
A
It was tough
- [48:41]
C
hear what they were.
- [48:43]
E
It has one of our most powerful tools, which is schadenfreude, essentially like a happiness at someone else's expense. So when Ben Stiller lands on the band, that was the peak happiness moment.
- [48:56]
C
I do believe he did his own
- [48:57]
B
stunts for that one too. So the shots he did. I believe so.
- [49:03]
E
Oh, my goodness.
- [49:04]
A
All right, so it looks like I won the day with 4.5 for rings. I will be accepting gifts.
- [49:11]
C
This is rigged. We know it's rigged.
- [49:13]
E
Football, Fergus, we're going to get you a system one ping football. That's what you're going to get.
- [49:18]
A
I'd like something else in addition to
- [49:19]
E
that, though, but I'll think of something.
- [49:22]
A
A large envelope full of cash would also be helpful. All right, well, thank you to everybody for being here. To Emily, to Caitlin, to Matt and to Vanessa. We are excited to have this tour down super bowl lane. And congratulations to Rocket for great work. Work and keep it up. And congratulations for shifting a category. And I think, you know, for me, as I said earlier with Ring and with Rocket, it's the same thing. Don't forget the category benefit and possibly just owning it, don't overlook it is my lesson of the day. Thank you all. Appreciate having you.
- [49:56]
E
Thanks for having us, Fergus.
- [49:57]
B
Thank you.
- [49:57]
A
And we will see everyone on the next episode.