If you haven’t dropped a teaser video yet, are you even advertising in the Super Bowl?

Brands that release videos hyping up their ads ahead of the game are taking part in a trend that’s been in the making for about a decade, according to Rick Suter, a senior content strategist at Gannett and editor of USA Today’s Ad Meter, which has tracked Super Bowl ads since 1989. Around 2014, teasers were relatively informal, perhaps in the form of social media polls or posts about ads to come, he said, but by 2020, Planters took the concept to new heights with the death and reincarnation of Mr. Peanut.

Now, there’s no denying it: “This is a thing,” Suter said.

Why tease a big ad buy, sometimes weeks in advance of game day? Some brands do it to generate buzz, while others deploy teaser videos exclusively for social media, execs told us. Whatever the reason, marketers said they still see the merit in dropping teasers—even though there are potential pitfalls.

• Chris Symmes, senior marketing director for Unilever’s North American dressings portfolio, said Hellmann’s dropped a teaser for its ad this year to capitalize on existing audience interest in Super Bowl ads. Plus, there was plenty of material: When the brand was filming the ad, which features comedians Kate McKinnon and Pete Davidson, “all of us were just laughing hysterically, and we were all saying, ‘We have to use this as the teaser,’” he told us.
• Todd Allen, SVP of marketing for Bud Light, said the brand did it in order to “give all of our fans a little taste of what to expect” ahead of the game.

In some cases, teasers can lead to earned media coverage in addition to generating hype, Jason Harris, co-founder and CEO of creative agency Mekanism, which has worked on about a dozen Super Bowl ads, said.

“You can do it without paying for placement, and people will still search it out, or it’ll be in a million articles,” he said. “It has a longer shelf life than that one day.”

Continue reading here.—AM

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When Pringles began thinking about its plan for the Super Bowl this year, something stood out.

Across social media, users were posting about seeing things that resembled the chip brand’s mustached mascot, Mr. P: Their relatives, clouds in the sky, and shapes in their coffee, explained Kellogg’s appropriately titled VP of global salty snacks, Mauricio Jenkins.

It was out of those posts that this year’s Pringles Super Bowl ad was born.

For its seventh consecutive Super Bowl appearance, the potato-chip maker recruited mustachioed actor Chris Pratt to star as himself in a 30-second spot, in which he goes viral for his uncanny (excuse the pun) resemblance to Mr. P. The spot will air at the end of the first quarter, Jenkins told Marketing Brew.

In addition to the game, the ad will also air on Univision, which is broadcasting the Super Bowl in Spanish, and it will be promoted organically on social platforms, including the brand’s YouTube channels.

It might seem obvious, but Pringles is activating at the big game because it is a time when people get together and snack, Jenkins said. Sales for Pringles tend to spike leading up to and during the Super Bowl, he told Marketing Brew, and Pringles is one of several snack brands that have opted to advertise in this year’s game.

“It is one of the most important moments for the salty snacks category as a whole,” he said. “The other piece for us is, it’s such a big cultural moment.”

Continue reading here.—JS

Each week, Marketing Brew recaps what people are talking about on social media, the trends that took over our feeds, and how marketers are responding.

Teasing it out: Anticipation for the Super Bowl is heating up, and that includes the ads. Of the many teasers, influencer posts, and seemingly staged paparazzi pics we’ve seen so far, here are some that seem to be getting some buzz ahead of the game:

• Michael Cera’s CeraVe campaign, which has sparked what is likely confusion-driven engagement in the last few weeks over stunts like creator Haley Kalil seeing Cera in a pharmacy and Cera walking out of a staged interview with creator-podcaster Bobbi Althoff. This week, it was revealed that the stunts were part of a Super Bowl campaign.
• Paramount+’s ad featuring a slew of stars, characters, and athletes streaming on its platform—and Creed—also seems to be resonating, and even inspired a response from the creator of Hey Arnold!
• Uber Eats’s teaser, which references Victoria Beckham’s viral humbling moment in Beckham where she claimed to have grown up middle class in a household with a Rolls-Royce, seems to be a hit. But the ad itself, which appears to make light of peanut allergies, is sparking some discourse.

Musically inclined: Following the Grammys on Sunday, where Taylor Swift announced her next album, The Tortured Poets Department, Teletubbies saw a pun opportunity and ran with it.

In an ode to another Grammy nominee, Lana Del Rey, Bratz re-created her recent Valentine’s Day shoot with Skims, which reportedly earned millions worth of media exposure for the brand. Perhaps the doll brand wanted a piece of the pie?

Makeup brand Pat McGrath Labs also saw some strong engagement by posting a clip of Grammy-winner Miley Cyrus’s performance at the awards, noting that she was wearing a full face of the brand’s makeup.

Read more here.—KH

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Clearing it up: A look at Meta’s new disclosure rules for AI-generated content.

Boost: Tips on how to increase your following on X.

Start prepping: Nielsen’s guide to this year’s Upfronts and NewFronts.

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Stories we’re jealous of.

• Vox wrote about why TikTok is full of microterms and phrases like “girl dinner,” “mob wife aesthetic,” and “dinner and couch friend.”
• The Wall Street Journal covered Google and Yahoo’s new rules for bulk email senders and what it means for email campaigns.
• Digiday looked at how Taylor Swift’s presence is affecting advertisers’ Super Bowl plans.