As anyone with a pulse is certainly aware, we are inching ever closer to one of the most sacred days on the American calendar: Super Bowl Sunday.
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And just as the NFL Playoffs are whittling down a field of hungry competitors to two lucky participants, advertising agencies across the globe are cutting excess footage and tweaking taglines in preparation for the industry's most prominent showcase.
Though many brands and their agencies will no doubt be frantically piecing together their strategies all the way up to gameday, some have started to give us a taste of what we can expect to see in between the action of Super Bowl XLVIII. They include mainstays like Budweiser and unknown newcomers like Squarespace.
We've summarized everything we've learned here, and we'll continue to add updates as they become available — right on up until kickoff.
Bud Light
This year's Super Bowl is an especially big one for Bud Light, the official beer of the NFL. Amid slipping sales, Bud Light will introduce a new tagline — "The Perfect Beer For Whatever Happens"— in three ads totaling 2 minutes of airtime.
In the coveted A1 spot, the first ad of the first quarter, Bud Light will promote its new reclosable bottle with a 30-second ad, called "So Cool," from the St. Louis agency Cannonball. The ad will feature the world debut of a song from a well-known artist. Bud Light has also said the ad will offer consumers some sort of "digital reward".
Bud Light's other attraction will come later in the form of a 60-second ad and a 30-second ad that together will tell a cohesive story called "Epic Night". The first Super Bowl work from BBDO since it was named Bud Light's agency of record earlier this year, "Epic Night" will seek to win over millennials with surprise celebrity appearances from the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Don Cheadle, and Reggie Watts.
Bud Light has hinted in teaser videos that "Epic Night" will also include reality element involving 412 actors, 58 hidden cameras, and one unsuspecting Average Joe, who will have to decide whether he's "up for whatever happens next" in the wild ride Bud Light has planned.
The campaign will include digital integration from the agency AKQA, and represents Paul Chibe's last Super Bowl as the head of U.S. marketing for Bud Light's parent company, A-B InBev.
Here's one of Bud Light's teaser videos for "Epic Night," starring Don Cheadle and a llama:
Wonderful Pistachios
Last year's Wonderful Super Bowl commercial featured Korean pop star Psy getting all "Gangnam Style" with dancing pistachios. This year, Stephen Colbert will star in two ads for the company.
The commercial will kick off a year-long campaign with the Emmy-winning host of "The Colbert Report."
"Since I was a child, I've dreamed of working with America's premiere nut company. The fact that it turns out to be the good folks at Wonderful Pistachios is just the pistachio on top of the ice cream sundae," Colbert said.
Here's the teaser video for this year's ads:
H&M
H&M's commercial will star retired soccer icon David Beckham and allow viewers to purchase products from his Bodywear clothing line directly from their TVs.
The 30-second spot will run during the second quarter and promote nine new styles from Bodywear, which Beckham has helped design since 2012. H&M says its internally produced ad, enabled by technology from the firm Delivery Agent, is the first to allow people to buy products seen in a commercial via their TVs.
H&M released a teaser for this year's ad, giving viewers a chance to determine how it will end:
See the rest of the story at Business Insider