Last year’s Superbowl was an inspiring, come-from-behind story of a team who had not won the championship in 50 years. I remember featuring on my podcast the leadership of coach Andy Reid and his message to keep believing in yourself, even when you’re down. This year, although it was impressive that the Chiefs once again made it to the Superbowl, we definitely did not witness the same level of gamesmanship. Fortunately for me, I’m a total marketing nerd and while I love a good football game, I’m honestly more excited about the ads, so today, I thought I would reflect on some of my favorites, and the takeaways for small business owners.
Coming in at number 5 on my Superbowl inspirational ad countdown is “Drake” from State Farm. Being a Miami girl, I remember three years ago when Drake made a surprise visit to Miami Senior High to record his video “God’s Plan”, leaving a check for $25,000 for the school. He’s a class act. So combine Drake with the viral ad campaign for Jake from State Farm, and you have a winner! That campaign has already become a household name and is a great example of using humor to make an emotional connection with your audience. In the case of State Farm, Jake made them relatable, and their humor was used to reinforce the concept of the company always being there for you. Using humor to entertain while reinforcing a message is key if you’re inspired to give this a try with your brand.
My number 4 was the “Believe You Will” ad from Guaranteed Rate, featuring real people who have overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges like a blind man climbing Mount Everest, and several examples of underdogs in individual sports coming out on top. The common theme? They all believed. As the ad says, “They believed in themselves, and they believed that their dreams, their goals in life were more than just imaginable, they were possible.” Then, of course, being an ad, the parallel was drawn to realizing the dream of owning a new home, and why you should work with them. But I can’t think of a more fitting connection to what it takes to be an entrepreneur than to believe you will. Many years ago I remember listening to a conversation between a pathologist and another physician. The pathologist was commenting on how many times he had operated on a body after the person died and was amazed that they had lived as long as they had, considering what was going on inside. It seemed it was sheer tenacity that kept their bodies going. Small businesses can be like that. I have seen entrepreneurs pull their business out of pretty deep trenches, making the personal and professional sacrifices they needed to in order to survive long enough to get things back on track. We’re witnessing a lot of that today with our neighborhood restaurants trying to scrape their way through the pandemic. I encourage you to remember that there is an entrepreneur just like you behind each of those doors who believes they will succeed. Let’s show them our support.
Clearly, mortgage companies are jumping on the home buying boom in this country right now and Rocket Mortgage also believed in the ROI of a Superbowl ad, so their ad landed in my number 3 spot for creativity. As many Superbowl ads tend to do, theirs took more of a humorous approach, starting with a family walking into a home for sale and finding SNL comedian Tracy Morgan in the bathtub! The theme is that it’s better to be “certain” than “pretty sure”. To make the point, Tracy takes them through a number of scenarios where being “pretty sure” isn’t that comforting. Such as, being “pretty sure” a mushroom isn’t poisonous, being “pretty sure” a school backpack is a parachute, which is quite important to know when you’re about to jump out of a plane and being “pretty sure” you do not run when faced with an angry bear. He continues by making a comment that he’s “pretty sure” the dad can take down former wrestler and MMA fighter Dave Bautista. Let’s just say that didn’t seem to end well. It goes on, but you get the idea. The message is that when you’re buying a home, “pretty sure” isn’t enough. You need to be “certain”. The parallel for entrepreneurs is clear. While many of us tend to move fast and break things until we get the model right for our products and services, being “pretty sure” that contract you downloaded from LegalZoom is valid for your specific situation, being “pretty sure” that a client will be able to pay you, being “pretty sure” your business liability insurance policy will cover you, or being “pretty sure” your employee benefits plan will come through when your team needs it, are simply not areas where you want to take chances. So as much as many of us like to think of ourselves as risk takers when we’re feeling “pretty sure” about a market direction, there are clearly some areas where it’s best to be “certain”.
I would be remiss if I didn’t include a beer ad in my Superbowl top 5 so this year’s number 2 spot goes to Michelob Ultra for their inspirational ad. I love the concept. “What if we were wrong this whole time? Wrong in thinking that joy happens only at the end, after the sacrifice, after the commitment, after the win? What if happiness has always been there, fueling the run toward greatness? It’s not a distraction, but instead, something more vital. What if joy is the whole game, not just the end game? So ask yourself, are you happy because you win? Or do you win, because you’re happy?” Tagline – “it’s only worth it if you enjoy it”. Damn, that speaks right to my values. You’ve often heard me talk about choosing to go into business not because of the money, but because of the passion. I firmly believe that a successful business owner simply must be passionate about what they do. The love of making a difference must come through loud and clear in your voice when you speak to prospects, clients, and employees, or frankly, you’ll never make it.
But my number one spot for most inspirational Superbowl ad is a true rags to riches story. Where conventional wisdom tells us that location is everything, it’s the story of a small business in Philadelphia who unfortunately found itself located next to an adult store and across the street from a crematorium. This tiny, woman-owned business received an incredible, yet unexpected opportunity one day and kind of rolled with it. Through a fortunate coincidence in name and a pretty clear mixup with its upscale hotel namesake, Four Seasons Total Landscaping was asked to host a press conference in their industrial parking lot during the recent Presidential campaign. The resulting publicity was viral. A Wikipedia page now describes the event and its business. Forgive my marketing nerdiness but there is simply no more valuable link for SEO than a Wikipedia page. They score 100 out of 100 on Domain Authority. They made over $1.3 million selling t-shirts. Their Yelp views were so high that Yelp temporarily activated an unusual activity alert because they thought it was a fraud. They inspired a run for charity that raised $63,000 for a food bank and a similar bike ride to raise donations. In May they plan to host a surf and turf gala to support ALS charities unable to fundraise in 2020, initiated by the same man who started the viral Ice Bucket Challenge. They created a virtual background for Zoom. They were on the late-night talk shows. They were the subject of a song. And as of last weekend, Fiverr featured them on their Superbowl ad, a spot worth $5.6 million that garnered over 100 million views, inarguably the premier spot on network television, for free. And all this because an entrepreneur found herself in the right place at the right time and seized the moment. So yes, when it came to big corporate Superbowl ads, we laughed, we cried, but in this year where small businesses took such a beating, isn’t it fitting that one of our own came out on top, not only for themselves but for their community?