Expertise
Super Bowl dreams and branding nightmares
Often, the best marketing is not the loudest, but it is the smartest. Real partnership means having the courage to say, “Let’s not chase the biggest stage” but, ”Let’s build the strongest foundation.”
The hardest “no” in advertising
To be clear, I love the Super Bowl. I love the pageantry, the anticipation and the storytelling. I revel in the fact that, for one night, appointment television reigns again and advertising becomes entertainment on a grand scale. I love the idea that brands can step onto the biggest stage in America and make people feel something: laugh, cry, cheer, remember.
And there’s a part of me–the creative, the builder, the entertainer and lifelong brand guy—that would love nothing more than to see work I’ve helped create reach that kind of mass audience. An audience of one hundred million people, focused on one moment, as a brand holds our cultural spotlight.
So it surprises people when I tell them that, more than once, I have talked brands out of buying Super Bowl commercials. Sometimes it is a no-brainer, such as the time I turned away a potential client who wanted a rushed and ill-conceived Super Bowl ad. It was a good call, because the CEO’s career and company imploded shortly thereafter.
I turned them down not because I don’t believe in big swings, but because I believe in doing what’s right for the business. Brand building first, brand awareness second. Entertainment should come only when it suits a business goal, never as an ego play. (Especially mine.)
The most expensive stage comes with the highest risk
A Super Bowl ad is the most expensive, glamorous media buy on Earth. But with less than a minute to showcase your brand, the pressure is high to perform. Choose wisely. Unlike the big names who perform, for exuberant salaries, you are paying for the privilege to either cement your stardom or destroy it faster than a Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction.
A single 30-second Super Bowl spot starts at $8 million, with some placements surpassing $10 million for the first time ever. And that’s before production, celebrity talent and the media spend required to amplify it beyond game day—costs that can easily push the total investment past $20 million. Millions more may be required just to make the moment matter. Entire successful brand campaigns have been built for far less.
Yet, sometimes that moment is worth it.
But often…it’s not.
Some ads bomb memorably, even with massive budgets and star power behind them. Nationwide’s 2015 “Make Safe Happen” spot is still cited as a cautionary tale in which an earnest message about child safety landed as manipulative and tone-deaf, prompting immediate backlash and apologies.
Some ads fall victim to poor-timing. What seems like a good idea a month before the big game can suddenly be a bad look on game day. Brands have learned this the hard way when ads collided with reality in the days leading up to kickoff. Budweiser learned this in 2017 with Born the Hard Way, a beautifully produced spot celebrating its immigrant founder that aired just days after a heated national debate on immigration ignited. The work itself was strong. The timing turned it into a political flashpoint. The problem is the timing. And once you’re locked in, there’s no pause button.
But more often, ads simply fail to connect, or resonate. Think about some of the brands that have advertised in the last five years. How many do you honestly remember? Dr. Squatch Soap Co., Robinhood, Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, Hims & Hers, Angel Soft, Fetch Rewards, Homes.com. Each paid the same premium for the same cultural moment, yet most disappeared almost instantly from collective memory. None lacked ambition. But ambition alone doesn’t earn recall. It’s a reminder that visibility is not the same as impact, and that even the biggest stage in advertising offers no guarantees.
The ROI people don’t expect
There’s another layer to this that people don’t always see from the outside. I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the largest companies in the world—real legacy brands, global leaders—as client partners for decades. And in all that time, I’ve never once recommended a Super Bowl ad.
Not because we couldn’t produce at that level. Much of our work is absolutely Super Bowl quality. Cinematic. Emotional. Funny. Human. The kind of creative that could hold its own on that stage.
But the Super Bowl was never the right vehicle for the client’s true destination. The destination was always brand growth, customer movement, market leadership, long-term business outcomes based upon the belief that brand value is shareholder value.
And those things rarely come from one loud moment. They come from building something quieter. More precise. More culturally intelligent.
When $8M can be better spent
So let’s look at what that Super Bowl moment could buy you instead. That same investment, often even a fraction of it, can build:
- a full brand ecosystem
- always-on creator partnerships
- performance media with measurable CAC
- retail and experiential distribution plays
- owned content IP that compoundsa year-long demand machine
Look, I still love the Super Bowl. I still watch every commercial. I still believe in the power of storytelling at scale. And if a brand is truly ready, if awareness is the bottleneck, if distribution is set, if the business can absorb the spend, then let’s talk Super Bowl.
But most of the time, the best marketing is not the loudest. It is the smartest. It is the most intentional. And it is personal. Real partnership means having the courage to say, “Let’s not chase the biggest stage. Let’s build the strongest foundation.” Because in the end, the goal is not to be seen for 30 seconds. The goal is to grow for 30 years.
We’ve helped major brands and industry leaders do exactly that. And the best work, the work that really moves people, is not always the work everyone sees. Sometimes it is the work that quietly changes everything.
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