#5Things: This Week in Social

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welcome to the five things this week in Social this is the Webby award-winning podcast that
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looks at five stories from social data content AI Ecom and Tech to give you something smart to say
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when you're asked what event is the Super Bowl of advertising well it's obviously the Super Bowl of
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advertising if you're a marketer an Advertiser a Creator or anyone who makes a living by using
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social platforms then you are going to want to keep listening because today we are breaking
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down the five biggest Trends we learned from watching analyzing and roller skating our way
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through Super Bowl 58 the only TV program more watched than the 2024 Super Bowl was the 1969
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moon landing broadcast the quote unquote big game was watched on CBS Paramount plus and Nickelodeon
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to a whopping 123 million viewers according to neelen a 7% year-over-year increase from last year
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the game was in Las Vegas it was a spectacle for fans and non fans alike between Usher's halftime
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show and SpongeBob's kid-friendly broadcast tons of celebrities stunts a Streaker ads and somewhere
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in there was an exciting football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco
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49ers there was literally something for everyone including Beyonce fans we are here to break down
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the trends that we saw at gray that were the most exciting to us it's going to be a fun
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show we have a firsttimer on the Pod joining me for a very special one-on-one conversation from
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Gray its brand strategist Mijal Bucshbaum hello Mijal welcome to show hi Joey thank you I'm very
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excited to be here we're so excited to have you question for you what is your favorite Super Bowl
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food do you like the wings the chili the nachos that's a great question I have to go with wings
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it's a classic and then if you put Wings in a dip even better so good so good well I'm Joey
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skillo and this year I made a great turkey chili that I was very proud of okay here are the five
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things or rather the five Trends we should take away from Super Bowl 58 Mahal is going to break
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down first how brands are tapping into scarcity and second how the use of two celebrities is
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better than one one next we'll dive into the weird fever dream that sort of ruled the day number four
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mascots they never die and number five how could we have this conversation without discussing the
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Taylor Swift of it all did you really think we weren't going to mention Taylor and Travis all
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right friends let's get into it we've got so much to dive into Mahal kick us off with brands that
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are tapping into scarcity yeah I thought that this was a really interesting theme and Trope that we
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kept seeing in a couple of different ads this year we were just seeing brands that were tapping into
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good old human psychology so we saw that people were positioning their products as being scarce
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in whatever environment they was living in to really Drive interest among consumers so we
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know that scarcity drives urgency in consumers by associating the product with something that
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everyone really wants and something that you need to get your hands on before it sells out so
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it does create this illusion of something that is valuable and highly sought after that if you're a
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consumer you should also want the best example I think that we saw this year was the Doritos
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Damas spot with Jenna Orga from the teaser to the actual Super Bowl spot we saw the scarcity
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theme come up again and again with the teaser we were seeing that there were no bags left of the
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product in stores and then during the actual spot we just saw this like silly little theme of people
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fighting over the last bag so really playing into that another example that we saw this year
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was Mel of ultra that used Messi to chap into this theme so we see that Messi asks for Mel of
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ultra it runs out and I thought that was really interesting was that they had the bartender ask
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oh do you want another beer and Messi refuses so that was a really great way that the brand
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was able to position themselves as something with no alternative it's either Michelob Ultra
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or no beer at all yeah I think that's really interesting you know the Doritos ad was great
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I like Doritos just as much as the next guy but I'm not the person who runs out and grabs like
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the newest one but these actually looked really good and interesting so they they really did a
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good job of of bringing that one through do you think you know specifically in the Doritos add
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that this scarcity idea maybe Taps into a little bit of of fear I mean it was only a few years
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ago that people were fighting over the last R of toilet paper during covid so do you think there's
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some connection there do you think that's what the advertisers were going for totally I think
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that we can't deny that consumers have seen scarcity play out in different ways for the
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past couple of years I'm not going to say that this is a covid Trope but maybe it does have a
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little bit of its early days in Co we saw people you know back in 2020 fighting for toilet paper
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rules and then as a result of covid we then had other ways that scarcity played out with supply
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chain issues with you know people not being able to get cars because they couldn't get the chips in
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it and then I think that what we're seeing today in the modern day scarcity is when pro products
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are blowing up on Tik Tok and then it's impossible to get them because they sell out so consumers are
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very very familiar with not being able to get their hands- on products and it does really
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accentuate the fact that it's a beloved product yeah I love the idea of treating a bag of Doritos
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like a supreme drop you know like only certain people can get this or there's only one bag left
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all right well that's great what a cool Trend that you guys found there all right let's dive into our
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second one because it's number two two celebrities are better than one why don't you talk to us about
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how many celebrities were in all these spots there were a lot this year a whopping 56% of Brands were
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featuring celebrities in their spot a little over a half which is really crazy I think that every
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year we are seeing an increase in celebrities that are being used and it's no longer just having one
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celebrity in your spot it's really a star studded cast which is a new kind of invention that we're
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seeing in the Super Bowl ads so ads are really prioritizing integrating celebs naturally and
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creating an authentic spot for them to play in so that it doesn't just seem like you're having
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a celebrity for the sake of having a star in your spot I think that what Sarah ve did this year was
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really interesting by including Michael Sarah in their in their commercial obviously I don't
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think that Michael Sarah is known as a celebrity with the most Supple or moisturized skin but his
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last name literally has the brand in the name so I thought that this was a really interesting way
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that they were able to authentically tie in these two celebrities and brands in a way that felt
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interesting to Consumers yeah it's interesting you brought up the Michael Sarah spot it I
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thought it was really creative but not just the actual spot but all of the leadup around it like
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seeing him in a in a Brooklyn Bodega right buying the product or writing his name on the product it
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sort of felt a little reminiscent I think it was one or maybe two years ago with Michael bé doing
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the same thing with the bubbly but for some reason this one felt like it hit a little it sort of hit
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more on culture and people tended to gravitate towards it a little bit more but going back to
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having multiple celebrities I'm curious what what do you think is the secret is having more than
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one celebrity in a spot is that does that make the spot successful does that hit home for you did it
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work in some spots better than other spots right obviously everyone's talking about the Duncan
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ad that was like had it seemed like every shot had a celebrity in it versus like the Michelob bad
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that you mentioned that had a few random cameos what what works better for you in your mind when
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it comes to using celebrities yeah you can't deny Brands really put their money into celebrities
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with Duncan Paramount elf they all went for a lot of celebrities but I don't think that necessarily
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throwing your money into celebrities is always successful I think that you really need to be a
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part of the cultural Zeitgeist and understand what is happening around culture and that will lead how
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you should involve your celebrity into your Brands advertising so for example even Helman Mayo for
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example had a really great way of integrating a couple of celebrities into their spot and
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then referencing specifically how Pete Davidson was allegedly dating this celebrity cat and then
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they had a break up very quickly obviously Pete Davidson fans know that he might date around and
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have a lot of short-term relationships and thus that makes a lot of sense for them and it's just
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a little funny nod that I think gave them a lot of props with the fandoms so all to say you can have
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a lot of celebrities if you don't use them in the way that is maybe appropriate maybe natural maybe
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authentic it's not going to land yeah yeah well I mean we love celebrities in spots but this year
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it did seem like there were it was it was sort of turned up a notch all right let's let's dive into
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our third thing we're just like moving right along here this is great so another theme that
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you found across all of the Super Bowl Trends was Brand's diving into this sort of fever dream of
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some sort of reality or weird reality why don't you talk to us about that one I think that what
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seems like the line share of these ads to be frank leaning weird which I think is a spot to do it if
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you're going to be trying these wacky story lines the Super Bowl is the place to do it and I think
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that consumers are prepped to watch these ads in a way that is more interesting than a typical spot
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that is running throughout the year people want to be intrigued and people want to be pulled in
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by interesting stories and so anything from as I said earlier cats becoming super Superstars and
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dating Pete Davidson to Dan Levy breaking Windows of the homestock Cal office with a giant champagne
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cork or maybe Reese's fans smashing through walls in Anger there were a lot of wacky ads this year
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which I think a lot of us got some laughs out of so we might be seeing although there is still a
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space for them and we still saw them and some of them were big Winners maybe some brands are
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trying to lean away from those heartfelt emotional ads that have been ropes in the forever forever
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we've always seen these very heartfelt ads and we saw them again this year but I do think that the
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majority were a little bit more on the wacky side which which were some of your favorites I really
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loved the Pluto TV spot they had couch potatoes to represent couch potatoes so they brought consumers
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into a field where they were harvesting couch potatoes and all of these people dressed up in
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literal potato outfits were just talking about their favorite spots and I thought it brought
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a really fun American Pride aspect to something that is usually viewed as negative just sitting on
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the couch watching TV but they brought this whole like Americana feeling to it that was really cool
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yeah I ironically after the Super Bowl maybe not directly because of the ad but we we did
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download the Pluto app because there was a movie we wanted to watch and it is really cool it's kind
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of cool to watch TV again just like whatever's on you just watch yeah so good on Pluto that's
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awesome I'm curious with all this like weird stuff that was happening do you think do you
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think us as viewers are more primed for that kind of content because of things that we've seen on
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social media do you think that trickles into our viewing pleasure and that's why we're getting so
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weird Super Bowl ads have always been weird but now it seems like it's a little bit more I don't
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know just like a it's it's less shocking but we still like it absolutely I think that social media
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has completely changed how we see stories and the stories we find intriguing and even our ability
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to pay attention for prolonged periods of time so I think that a lot of these advertisers are are
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trying to obviously because the spot is very short and you need to get your point across quickly but
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also because attention spans are now very short we want to make sure that we are packing a punch very
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quickly and I think that also because of social media we're seeing that new things are humorous
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and new things are funny and it's really fun because I think it's giving advertisers a lot of
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room to play and and new ways to maybe try to tell stories that they might not have been empowered to
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do so before they can now try new things because social media is really giving us the ability to
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tell stories in a way that might not have been accepted traditionally if that makes sense oh it
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totally does absolutely does I think it's great all right let's move on to to number four and
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let's talk about mascots because it is a football game after all football teams have mascots of
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course but so to Brands so tell us about how the mascots never die so mascots as we know are just
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recognizable assets that Brands were not shying away from at all this year and as I said before
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with limited time to create memorability during a Super Bowl spot it's really important that Brands
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can create create association with themselves as quickly as possible and for a lot of them
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mascots are a really great way to do that so I think that a great moment this year was Mr P and
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Pringles so as we all know Mr P is the mascot with the mustache on all of the Pringles cans
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and what Pringles did was anthropomorphize Mr Pete into the Beloved Chris Pratt so so they had this
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really great storyline about him kind of getting confused with Mr P and all of the things that came
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along with that and that was a really cool way that they used their mascot which is something
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that we all know and that has become a part of their capital and really really really used it
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as an asset and used it to their advantage and then this led them to an entire social activation
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and a social campaign where users were prompted to find Mr P with the hash I see Mr P and then
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share it on social and so pretty much they were just asking people to look throughout their real
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world life and see if they could find anything maybe it was a crack in the pavement that looked
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like a man with a mustache like the typical Mr P mascot that we see so that was a really
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fun way that mascots were involved this year in ads that's great that Pringle spot I thought was
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great but maybe I'm a little biased gray did work with Pringles on that spot they're they've been
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a client of ours and we've done some Super Bowl spots with them before but objectively I did not
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work on the spot I loved it I loved seeing Chris Pratt in that role I'm a big fan of his from his
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work on going all the way back to parks and wreck and then of course Guardians of the Galaxy and
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whatnot so I thought it was great uh I'm curious do you know what reaction fans give whenever a
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brand doesn't use one of their mascots what have we seen in the past years when say a brand move
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tries to move away from some sort of mascot or brand identity yeah we've seen this happen
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a couple of times in past year specifically for example Budweiser decided to step away from the
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Clyde stales last year during their Super Bowl ad and their there was an uproar everyone was like
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where are the Beloved horses like where are they and so this year their spot centered completely
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around it and I think that specifically was great for them to show that they were listening that
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they are tapped into what their consumers are saying about them and they gave the people what
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they wanted which I think is the most important thing M&M's did this too by last year saying
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that their mascots were going to take a Hiatus their spokes candy as they call them and then
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of course they brought them back and this year we saw them in their spot where they deserve to
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be in a Super Bowl ad back with whatever Footwear they're wearing exactly we love those M&M's okay
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before we get to our fifth and final thing here I want to just say that this Trends report that
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you all put out had more than five things in it quite a few more if we could because we have to
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end with talking about Taylor Swift do you just want to quickly mention what the other two trends
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that you all found were yeah the other Trends we found was past campaign callback so pretty
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much we're seeing that some brands are choosing to instead of concepting an entire new ad they
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are building larger ecosystems that will continue coming up as the years go on in their Super Bowl
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ads so we're not saying that they're going to do it for a third year we're seeing that some
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of these brands are saying hey this was a success the people loved it let's do it again or let's do
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it in a different way that's interesting yeah and we saw that what from the kick of Destiny coming
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back and the E Trade babies were there any others that jumped out to you yeah Duncan bringing back
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Ben Affleck I thought was another great example of that yeah and then what was the other Trend
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that we found found the last Trend we saw was about sweep Stakes so a couple of different
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brands decided to try to do some sort of giveaway some sort of sweep Stakes but we saw that they're
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doing them in different ways that are a little bit more interesting than just enter to win for
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example door Dash giving away everything that was advertised during the Super Bowl was an extremely
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creative very cool very interesting way to do a giveaway that didn't just lean on giving away
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money or anything of that sort another thing that I did that I thought was really great was really
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making sure that they were there was a reason for them to do that they were trying to communicate
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that door Dash is for more than just ordering food you can order tens of thousands of other
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things and that was a really cool way to Showcase all of the different capabilities on the platform
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yeah I thought that was a great ad I thought it was a great campaign I don't know if anyone has
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won I haven't heard but um what a great what a I love when Brands work with other brands I think
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being in the industry we sort of understand how complex that can be and so I just thought kudos
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to Door Dash I just thought that whole idea everything you said it was just really really
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smart okay friends time to get into our fifth and final thing how could we talk about the Super Bowl
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without talking about the Taylor Swift of it all I mean some may say that she stole the show some
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may say she stole the season but I'm curious what do you say Mahal thank you for asking Joey that's
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a great question yeah let's be honest Taylor Swift has stolen the year everything has been
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Taylor which is really interesting when it comes to sports which is something that maybe a lot of
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us had never Associated her with but obviously her new relationship to Travis Kelce has completely
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changed that so before the Super Bowl social media was saturated with speculations on is she going to
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make the Super Bowl or not as we know she had a show the previous day in Tokyo and so fans were
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very concerned if she was going to be able to make it to the loss of Vegas Super Bowl in time
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but then there was also talk about people betting on how many times she was going to make a cameo on
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screen during the game so she was everywhere you cannot Escape Taylor Swift and Swift's
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influence really increased viewership among 12 to 17-year-old girls during the early NFL season by
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a whopping 53% so you really can't deny that she had a true effect on all things Super Bowl related
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beginning on the earlier sides of the Season by bringing a whole new viewership to the NFL and
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we believe that this is what likely influenced that ails ad and what they decided to develop
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by bringing a quote unquote singer in they didn't have an official partnership with Taylor Swift but
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they were making some very obessive references to her and Travis Kelsey but during their spot they
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kind of showed how there was this relationship being bridged between a father and a daughter
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by being able to watch the football game together which was a really interesting thing that we saw
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in general happening on social by people saying that you know they could watch the football game
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with their fathers what we've seen not just at the Super Bowl but throughout this entire season
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is that there's no denying the sup there's no denying the Taylor Swift effect there's only one
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Taylor Swift right there's only one NFL and she's not gonna what we learn from this is not going to
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be a recipe or a textbook or a master class in what every brand can do I think to Travis and
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Jason Kelce they've got a podcast that skyrocketed in the charts because of Travis dating Taylor I
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don't think this podcast will be as lucky unless somebody on the show starts dating Taylor Swift
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or somebody like Taylor Swift so these things are going to be really hard to recreate but I
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guess my question for you is what can Brands take away what is the takeaway this what we
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learned from watching Taylor Swift interact with the NFL and just being an icon this entire
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season I think that what BR can take away is the halo effect that she she has on so many Brands
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just by associating herself with them or seeing how Brands can tap into the culture that she has
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created around herself so for example Taylor wore a pair of sheer text tights to the AFC
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Championship Game immediately after that happened the product sold out immediately immediately and
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so I think that understanding that some sometimes it's just sheer luck no pun intended of maybe the
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Celeb already likes your product and it's going to have really great business effect but also
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if you understand Taylor and everything that's happening around her and what seemingly Ranch
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means then you can tap into it and you can have a lot of success on social and being able to speak
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about these celebrities and how they might relate to your product is a way that Brands can win quick
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and win easy on social but obviously with the warning of you can't seem gimmicky you want to
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be authentic you want to do it in a way that really makes your product shine and it doesn't
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just feel like a money grab or it doesn't seem like a place that your brand doesn't belong yeah
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so pay close attention to what is going on and the zeist and if you don't understand it it's
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probably not best for your brand to post it those are all great Trends great insights really awesome
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conversation Mahal thank you so much for joining us today thank you for having me Joey this is so
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fun yeah of course we're gonna have you back for sure okay well that does it for us if you don't
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already be sure to follow us share us review us like us or write to us with your questions
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comments concerns points of interest or complaints or just send us a thing you want us to discuss
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you can do all of that by emailing us at podcast gray.com connect with us on SP Spotify by sharing
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your thoughts on the show just for the Q&A field this week we have this week we have a whole crew
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to thank for helping us build this Trends report the team includes Gabrielle Marshon Claire heaps
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Samantha Fischer Jean Donahue Gabriella Mercier Gabriella Mercier shyen rinsky Emily Rizzo Montana
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Allen Brianna hunt will Leonard Alex black with special thanks to Ari Santana and of course Our
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Guest today Mahal bookbound Mahal like I said let's make it a thing this podcast is produced
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by Samantha Geller and Jayda Hinds postproduction by Amanda Fuentes guy rosemarin Kyle St aath and
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Ned Martin at grmarc parkk Studios the five things is hosted and executive produced by me
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Joey skillo you can now listen to this show on YouTube look for us at famously effective
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we'll be posting our episodes there and of course you can listen to us on all of the podcast apps
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a quick program note here the five things will be released every other week moving forward if
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you haven't subscribed to our newsletter you can do that in the show notes and that is it
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for us this week listener thank you and as always please be social grey is a global creative agency
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whose mission is putting famously effective ideas into the world check out more at grey.com