The Super Bowl is the epicenter of the sports, media and pop culture world. Enterprising brands struggle to cut through the thickest clutter of the year with wall-to-wall press coverage, stunts, advertising gimmicks and high-stakes Super Bowl commercials.
This year, as the world descended on Houston, Texas for Super Bowl 51, AKA and Skittles collaborated on an adventurous piece of global content.
Skittles, known for poking holes in reality and zigging when other brands zag, sent it’s biggest fan to Houston, Scotland. Why? Because Skittles, that’s why.
In a series of videos produced by AKA, retired Seattle Seahawks running back, Super Bowl champion and Super Bowl Media Day legend Marshawn Lynch finds himself in a foreign land talking to locals about Scottish history, the Super Bowl and of course, Skittles.
- Marshawn decided to pull some wheelies during a break in the action, which created a clip that went viral, raising expectations that Skittles was shooting a Super Bowl commercial in Scotland.
- Videos were broken into a dozen shorts for sharing on Instagram earning more than a million views in the first 24 hours.
- The video content smashed through Super Bowl advertising clutter reaching 60 million earned impressions across all media and delivering more than $2,000,000 in ad value for the brand in the first 24 hours.
Catching lightning in a bottle with Marshawn Lynch and Skittles for a third time is not luck. Marshawn’s “fake news” press conference, and his appearance selling Skittles on the home shopping network Evine were each executed perfectly, driving the desired results for the brand: hilarious, sharable content and Billions of earned impressions across all media.
AKA has supported brands with video content, satellite media tours and live-streaming events at the Super Bowl for almost 20 years. The space is crowed, expensive and risky. Your brand can easily fail with tired tactics and lackluster ROI. Super Bowl 51 is the seventh for Tom Brady and the 17th for AKA.
Recognize this guy?
Tom Brady Got Milk? Ad 2002
For Super Bowl 52 in Minneapolis, the marketing game starts now. Timing, talent, experience and execution will give your brand a chance to succeed and slash through the clutter like Marshawn Lynch sliding through Scotland on his BMX bike.