While Sunday’s Super Bowl was the biggest night in American football for a majority of the population, it was also an exciting night for us as marketers. Although a majority of spots on the big screen weren’t in Yeager’s sphere of B2B tech marketing, we were eager to get our scorecards out for this year’s productions.
Ever since the first episode of our new webinar series, “You’re Not Marketing Like the Leaders (Yet)” went live in December, the team has been especially focused on the topic of brand. Internal conversations often center around which companies are doing it well, which ones are completely missing the mark, and why. And for extremely passionate marketers like ourselves, heated debates often ensue.
Our leaders, Renee and Mark, define a winning challenger brand as one that aligns with category-level frustration, builds a brand that their customers see themselves in, and stays consistent with the brand they have built—visually, tonally, and emotionally. While we were glued to the screens, we couldn’t help but see each ad through the lens of these themes and engage in internal discourse about each one. Keep reading for a collection of the team’s thoughts, and let us know if you agree.
Filling In the Gaps
A common theme that’s discussed at Yeager is category-level frustration: the idea that there are gaps or frustrations in an industry that buyers have just come to accept. These gaps provide challenger marketers with an easy entry point into satisfying those buyers. Our team members saw a couple of brands do just that. Here’s what they wrote:
Raisin Bran: Will Shat
“The core insight is a widespread “fiber gap” and the all-too-familiar feeling of “gut regret” after heavy snacking, which is framed as a common consumer frustration with their current eating habits and low-fiber diets. Using Shatner as a tongue-in-cheek “bran ambassador” with scatological humor makes Raisin Bran stand out from conventional, family‑friendly cereal advertising that rarely addresses serious gut-health issues, and bathroom-related outcomes, so directly.”
-Vince Cimino, Account Manager
TurboTax: Dedication
“The casting of Adrien Brody for this ad was a smart play for TurboTax. His characters are typically very intense, so depicting him struggling as a TurboTax expert trainee painted a clear picture that TurboTax is quite the opposite. Their brand depicts calmness. They paired him against a very light-hearted woman who was his trainer, and she was able to explain to him (and to the audience) that, with TurboTax, taxes are stress-free. It was a simple value proposition that clearly tapped into the common frustration that taxes are extremely stressful.”
-Junelle Bautista, Content Director
GrubHub: The Feest
“GrubHub steps in and solves a category-level frustration of their customers’ concern of too many fees, and too much extra to take advantage of food delivery services. The actors at the FEEst, personify the other greedy brands that pass the fees onto their customers. George Clooney represents the brand and says, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll EAT THE FEES.’ Eating the fees is a clear reference to Marie Antoinette’s ‘let them eat cake’, which speaks to an elite class not concerned about the lower class bearing the burden. GrubHub becomes the hero of the common man who sees their angst and provides a solution.”
-Michael Carmigiano, Creative Director
Building the Tribe
The second theme our team looked for was a brand’s ability to create a story that their intended audience can see themselves becoming a part of. This goes beyond who their ideal customer is and speaks to who their ideal customer wants to become.
Poppi: Vibes Thing
“Piggy-backing off the continued success of Charli xcx’s latest album, brat, Poppi adopts branding from Charli’s film “the moment” to create a tribe for a specific and niche audience. Seeing that Charli and Rachel [Sennott] drink Poppi makes me think that if I also want to be a ‘cool 18-30-something party girl,’ I should think about drinking Poppi too.”
-Callie Gartland Crosby, Demand Generation Associate
Ring: Be a Hero in Your Neighborhood
“Ring’s ad targets the audience’s “ideal self” by framing the Search Party feature not as a home security tool, but as a tool for community benevolence. By centering the narrative on the emotional stakes of finding lost dogs, the ad appeals to the user’s desire to be a helpful protector and connected community member. They highlight social proof (more than a dog a day has been returned home since launch) which emphasizes the message who you can be if you use their product: a hero.”
-Danielle Moran, Demand Generation Manager
NFL: Belief is a Superpower
“This spot resonates with anyone who has coached kids. They’re listening, even when it doesn’t look like it. That quick flash of kids in helmets, sweating, silently mouthing the coach’s words, is the moment that gets me. This ad isn’t about the coach or the game. It’s about what kids carry with them long after the season is over. Great coaching doesn’t live on the field. It shows up later, inside the kid.”
-Mark Yeager, Co-founder and President
However, not all the brands we saw won in this category:
Salesforce: Mr. Beast’s Vault
“Mr. Beast is a popular YouTuber with a mostly Gen Z/Gen A fanbase. Salesforce’s buyer personas are, at the very youngest, millennials. With this in mind, the collaboration between the two fell short for me. While the spot was an interesting way to get the mass public involved in a competition, Salesforce failed to appeal to its actual buyer personas and instead decided to focus its strategy around virality.”
-Junelle Bautista, Content Director
Staying Consistent
The third theme, and a great way to honor the work that has been put into creating and curating a brand, is the effort the organization puts into brand consistency. Whether they’re tapping into the nostalgia of their long-standing brand or showing a consistent look and feel as a newer brand, these companies did it right for the Super Bowl:
Budweiser: American Icons
“The young Clydesdale references classic Budweiser advertising while the eagle reinforces the brand’s American patriotism. The song, “Free Bird “by Lynard Skynard, further ties in these points. These concepts reinforced their brand attributes: classic, all-American, rural/western, blue collar, etc.”
-Maddie Jenca, Art Director
Base44: It’s App to You
“Base44 created a clear value proposition as a newcomer (I haven’t heard of them) in the industry. Their fun and humorous tone was consistent throughout the spot as they connected to a variety of personas both in and out of an office setting. Their tagline was clear and concise (“It’s app to you.”) while staying true to their witty tone.”
-Junelle Bautista, Content Director
Sunday night proved that the gap between being just another brand and a true category leader is found in storytelling. If you’re looking to uplevel your brand like these companies, it might be time to take a deep dive into the frustrations in your industry, who your customers want to become, and if your brand is visually and tonally consistent.
