Month: February 2023

It’s unclear the details of State Farm’s Super Bowl spend as the company declined to offer details. But this year, TikTok is offering ad credit incentives between 3 to 5% for advertisers shelling out between $50,000 and $300,000 in its push to become the official second screen of the Super Bowl, per previous Digiday reporting. (State Farm did not respond to a request for more information around the insurance brand and TikTok’s Super Bowl offering by press time.)

Super Bowl LVII will be at the State Farm Stadium in Arizona. Meaning, State Farm has naming rights and there’s some built in buzz about the brand ahead of the Big Game. 

Digiday caught up with Griffin to talk about the decision to skip out on a traditional spot this year, leveraging naming rights and the growing importance of TikTok. 

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

State Farm is skipping out on a linear Super Bowl spot this year to instead leverage TikTok as its key platform. Why?

We’re not anti-30-second spot in the Super Bowl and we may show up there again. But this year, for us with our naming rights, we thought, “How could we drum up excitement before [the Big Game]? What can we do to get people engaged during the entire broadcast, not just 30 seconds in a four hour extravaganza?” We just thought, “How can State Farm stadium’s name be top of mind this year because we have that opportunity [with stadium naming rights] versus one point in time in a very, very crowded [Super Bowl ad] spot?” For us, digital is a great way to do it. We’re now taking risks in ways that we haven’t seen some brands do. And we have the opportunity to test and learn. There’s a lot of learning and innovation that will be ahead of competitors by having had this opportunity. 

The Super Bowl has a lofty $7 million price tag. How does that cost compare to what State Farm will spend on the TikTok activation?

It’s less. Of course, we can’t comment on the contract that we have with Khaby in particular, or any of them. We think that TikTok and this opportunity provided us the ability to not have to spend on big production. Because it’s not just the spot. The $7 million is the spot and of course, we would want great placement and we’d probably be on the high end of that price. But there’s also the production and all of the fees that go along with that. With naming rights this year, we don’t need to spend like a different type of year. 

What does State Farm expect to get out of going all in on TikTok? 

We think that we will get more engagement than just eyeballs. We want to be able to measure the effectiveness of our spend in ways that isn’t only eyeball reach. So digital and linear will be a part of it. We will get eyeball reach. We also wanted engagement. With Khaby’s partnership also driving to the Jake from State Farm TikTok account, we’re looking at increase in subscribers or followers on Jake’s account, and increase in engagement so that we can prove out, one way or the other, what we get from a Super Bowl passive eyeball viewing versus what we get when we’re asking for active engagement and signups and things. There’s more measurable elements here with the way we’ve constructed this particular campaign.

Experimentation seems to be important for State Farm right now. Why?

We’re looking to push the boundaries of what’s expected of insurance marketers. We’re in a competitive category, and insurance always has and will continue to be. What we want to do is get ahead of competitors. We’re in the metaverse, we’re in gaming. My point of it is, this is in line with this broader innovation mandate digital plus human that is in our DNA as a company at State Farm, and this mandate to use innovation and marketing.

Reaching Black-owned stations in 104 markets in the country through its radio distribution, More Than That’s topics delve into issues that affect the Black experience in the United States — but the business goal is ultimately to rectify some of the inequities of the advertising supply chain. Season three’s first episode revolves around education and historically Black colleges and universities. Past guests include Baratunde Thurston and Jemele Hill, and future guests will include DJ Envy and more male guests to balance out what’s been a female-heavy guest list of the last two years.

Peppers said the show first came to life amidst the social upheaval of the Covid pandemic and George Floyd’s murder, with an aim to give voice to “the pain that our community was feeling and real conversations we were having about how to balance being in the midst of so many pandemics — a viral pandemic, a racial pandemic and a societal pandemic.”

“We want this to be to a certain extent like a franchise, where we’re continuing on with new seasons, and building more content, and really giving information that is critical to African Americans,” said Mark Prince, senior vp and head of economic empowerment with Dentsu Media. “Having some great blue chip advertisers that can tailor their episodes to topics that are important to them, or things that they’re trying to amplify as well, has made a big difference” for the program.

Prince explained the sponsors find ways to fit appropriately into each episode’s topic. For example, Kroger would serve as a sponsor for an episode about healthier eating. “We are very purposeful in terms of which episodes that our brands want to go into,” he said.

The program is said to have delivered over 750 million impressions over its first two seasons, and it’s received ad-industry trade awards as well as a Microsoft social impact award. Prince pointed to brand lift studies Dentsu has done which show More Than That sponsors are outperforming the average radio ad by 95 percent, as well as lift in brand consideration and differentiation. “It’s important that we look at different tools in terms of what defines the KPIs or the metrics for success,” said Prince.

Peppers herself, who serves as an executive producer of the podcast, also hosts other programs including VH1’s Black Girl Beauty and BET’s Black Coffee. She’s got both journalism and agency experience, having worked at KBS for a year on its BMW client at the time.

“I hope that this shows other major brands and major ad agencies that investing in the Black community and Black content and partnering with us on a major scale is a successful thing to do,” said Peppers. “We on the editorial side … do our job to make sure that the conversations that we really want to have work with some of the brands that are interested. Because it has to be a natural alignment with the storytelling.”

Meanwhile, Dentsu isn’t the only holding company taking steps to promote Black- and diverse-owned businesses. IPG’s Magna unit on Wednesday is wrapping the third year of its Equity Upfront, a two-day event that seeks to grow investments in diverse-owned media companies.

Over the first two years of the effort, Magna saw a 61 percent increase in participation from Black-owned media partners, noted Magna president Dani Benowitz in her opening comments on Tuesday. 

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence bot developed by OpenAI that has been drumming up buzz throughout the industry among advertisers and brands alike. Giant Spoon, which has worked with clients like Netflix, Petco and General Electric, will leverage the AI tool on Super Bowl Sunday to generate live tweets during the big game.

While there will be someone from the Giant Spoon team who will plug in necessary keywords to generate the copy, the operation won’t be anything reminiscent of a Super Bowl war room, all-hands-on-deck effort, per Cottrell. “It’ll be Giant Spoon tweeting about the ads, and also about the content and about everything that’s happening in the Super Bowl. But there will be no human [team] behind it,” he added. 

Part of Giant Spoon’s ChatGPT Super Bowl initiative will be an effort to boost awareness about the agency’s creativity. However, it’ll also be a test for ChatGPT and artificial intelligence capabilities, what the technology can do and what it will mean for the advertising industry.

In the past, Giant Spoon’s experimentation with ChatGPT has been limited to internal graphics, pitch decks and some content creation. Should all go well during the Super Bowl, it could be a glimpse into AI’s potential for future use in client-facing work. 

In recent weeks, ChatGPT and AI have been major talking points throughout the marketing industry, with some using it to pull and aggregate information for client briefs, copy writing and other parts of the creative process, similar to Giant Spoon. Others are using the technology to streamline workflow processes. BuzzFeed recently announced plans to leverage ChatGPT for quizzes and other types of content, as the publisher looks to AI to play a bigger role for the company this year. 

As AI gains popularity, some marketers are moving beyond the basics of tools like ChatGPT and embracing subscription services. Meanwhile, Google is reportedly testing its own AI chatbot, Bard A.I., that could have similarities to ChatGPT. 

But for all of the buzz ChatGPT creator OpenAI has generated, there’s hesitancy in the industry to fully embrace AI, at least for now. To that point, Avocados From Mexico rescinded plans to use ChatGPT in its Super Bowl ad plans, backtracking its original idea to create user generated content during the big game, according to AdAge. 

“ChatGPT on the surface may look like the future of creative writing but if you dive in and take a deeper look, it’s approximative at best,” Adan Romero, chief creative officer at Publicis digital agency FKA, said in an emailed statement to Digiday. “It’s a tool that might help you get an idea out of your head but it’s not ready to be my copywriter.”

Despite its status as the latest marketing craze, Romero and others in the industry have yet to be convinced that ChatGPT can be used for consumer-facing initiatives, especially during the biggest advertising moment of the year: the Super Bowl. That’s not to say there’s no hope for AI, which does have marketing applications such as building upon creative ideas and delivering visual concepts.

“It’s years away from really being something that can talk to society,” Romero said. “We’re really trying to figure out how do we use it and what’s the best way to utilize it as a tool.”

At Giant Spoon, ChatGPT is still in the experimental stage and it is yet to be determined if the AI function will play a role in consumer-facing work after the Super Bowl, as Cottrell did not disclose plans for the future. 

“We’re going to be sending out whatever it generates. It could be fun,” he said. “This is a stunt activation thing to shine a light on our company.”

On Jan. 7, Nichols, a 29-year-old Black father, was pulled over by the police for driving recklessly, according to police. He was beaten by police after an attempt to flee on foot, according to a video released by the police. He died in the hospital three days later.

In 2020, brands ranging from Airbnb to Sephora to Adidas to PepsiCo to Busch Light Beer to PayPal made pledges and commitments to the Black community and to support minority-owned businesses in the weeks after Floyd’s murder. None have publicly acknowledged Nichols’s death. Spokespersons from those companies did not immediately return requests for comment.

Marketers speculated that over the past few weeks, brands have held off on making public statements because they are afraid of backlash, especially after the 2022 Juneteenth celebrations when brands created tone-deaf-deemed campaigns to acknowledge the holiday.

Some said the circumstances of Nichols’s death — that the majority of law enforcement involved were also Black — have also affected any type of reaction.

“The media plays a crucial role in shaping the world’s perception of the Black community, which impacts what narratives should be prioritized,” said Detavio Samuels, the CEO of Revolt, a cable television network. “With no recollection of our past and biased storytelling of the present, brands will become less inclined to take a stand.”

In response to Floyd’s murder in the weeks after his death, brands posted black squares on their Instagram pages, donated to Black businesses, and used hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter and #JusticeForFloyd to align themselves to the movement. The total expenditure on racial justice TV advertising totaled $1.6 million in that time, according to Numerator, a company that provides data and technology services for businesses.

For some, that period served as an exception — not a new precedent for how brands would react to social issues. Floyd’s murder happened amid pandemic lockdowns when attentions were not as divided, noted Janis Middleton, evp, executive director of inclusion strategy at the brand agency Guided By Good.

“When you’re sitting at home, which is what we were doing in 2020, the eye of scrutiny was big and there were many of them on brands,” said Middleton. “Right now, I don’t want to say brands are getting a pass, but I think there’s so many other things going on and the news cycle is saturated at this point.”

So went the significant pressure on brands to respond to these issues, said Middleton and Samuels.

“Most brands got in the game for a headline and not to drive actual change,” said Samuels, adding that it’s a necessity for brands to invest in Black-owned media to “deliver our stories in an unbiased manner.”

How future generations could force permanent change

Younger generations might change the pressure they put on brands to respond. Gen Z, for example, tends to be more vocal about criticizing brands. According to a study conducted by Accenture, brands have been pushing for brand purpose because Gen Z is driven by it.

“I envy the younger generation who can put so much aside for the things that should never be left alone like the demand for us as a nation to remain intolerant to such heinous acts,” said Lauren Petrullo, CEO and founder of digital marketing agency Mongoose Media.

Despite this generational belief, a majority of the industry’s efforts now to mark Black History Month this year amounted to little more than checking a performative box, per Samuels as he pointed out that, “It is evident that actions were not backed with authenticity because the same fury that was birthed in 2020 is non-existent now.”

According to Alfred Edmond Jr., svp and executive editor-at-large at Black Enterprise Magazine, a Black-owned multimedia company, it is safer (for now) for brands to remain silent instead of taking a stance because their stakeholders are not asking for it.

“Brands are still navigating their follow-through on the DEI and other initiatives launched in efforts to fulfill the pledges and promises made in the wake of George Floyd’s murder,” said Edmond. “The death of Nichols does not change that, though it may bring renewed pressure for them to remain committed to those initiatives, even in the face of a possible recession and only time will tell.”