Campaign Trail: CeraVe got weird with Michael Cera to win the Super Bowl

Tremendous Bowl LVIII was the most-watched telecast in U.S. historical past, delivering a nail-biting contest, a taut halftime present, a pop star romance and one other 12 months of celebrity-fueled, play-it-safe adverts to greater than 123 million viewers.

On the promoting entrance, the months-long marathon main as much as the large recreation is a chance for manufacturers to preview their campaigns to construct buzz and get each attainable cent of worth out of their $7 million-for-30 seconds price ticket. And whereas the crush of tweets and teasers is usually tedious (a reality parodied by BMW… in a teaser for its advert that includes Christopher Walken), one model made the a lot of the alternative on the best way to airing one of many evening’s standout moments.

Within the weeks main as much as the NFL championship, CeraVe teased its first Tremendous Bowl advert with an immersive marketing campaign throughout social and earned media. As an alternative of hiding the shock for the large recreation, the L’Oréal skincare model leaned into weirdness throughout Instagram movies, paparazzi photographs, influencer unboxings and podcast appearances that requested the query: What does Michael Cera need to do with CeraVe?

The hassle climaxed simply days earlier than the sport with the launch of iamcerave.com and a minute-plus-long video that offered Cera because the mastermind behind the equally named model. Shot within the model of dreamy fragrance adverts from the ‘90s and soundtracked by twinkling New Age music, the artistic options the actor in quite a lot of situations — talking with a narwhal, hanging with male fashions, climbing a mountain and serving as his personal masseuse — as he asks customers to “let my cream hydrate you.”

The model then pushed again on Cera’s declare that he “is CeraVe” by assuring customers that it “is and at all times has been developed with dermatologists.” On recreation day, a shorter model of Cera’s video was revealed to be the actor’s pitch to an unamused CeraVe board. The spot was one of many evening’s most memorable and ranked as the best Tremendous Bowl marketing campaign on TikTok by advert analysis firm DAIVID.

CeraVe developed and executed the marketing campaign with assistance from WPP, led by Ogilvy PR North America. The hassle represented an utility of a shared view between model and company that nice earned media amplifies paid media exponentially, based on Adam Kornblum, senior vp and world head of digital advertising and marketing at CeraVe.

“We each pushed one another to rewrite this grammar for the Tremendous Bowl advertising and marketing,” Kornblum stated. “It wasn’t actually about an advert, it was about constructing a world, earned first, so when the advert hits, the story is on the market.”

Marketing campaign growth

The Cera-CeraVe connection started with social listening as Ogilvy sought out intelligence, insights and inspiration. A handful of Reddit posts through the years drew out the attainable relationship between the actor and model: not sufficient to symbolize a groundswell, however sufficient to point out potential. 

Past the same names, the concept of getting Cera take credit score for CeraVe tied into a bigger branding want. For years, CeraVe has leaned into its dermatology bona fides and the ingredient — ceramides — from which it takes its identify. Lately, it has seen opponents leverage related verbiage and lingo of their advertising and marketing. Within the marketing campaign, Cera serves as a stand-in for copycats.

“There’s so many layers of technique and messaging which are actually aligned completely to the model and what we have to say on a deeper degree,” Kornblum stated. “The identify is a quite simple connection, however on a deeper-rooted degree, there was lots of storytelling to be stated in all alternative ways to totally different audiences, particularly people who find themselves in skincare.” 

However regardless of how sturdy the concept, the marketing campaign hinged on each CeraVe taking a giant artistic swing and Cera agreeing to take part. After CeraVe was on board, Ogilvy pitched the concept to Cera, who liked it and even had most popular administrators. His checklist included eventual helmers Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of manufacturing firm Prettybird (and comedy duo Tim & Eric), who had been excellent for the “fever dream idea” the company hoped to movie, stated Charlotte Tansill, president of Ogilvy North America’s PR, social and affect observe.

“We took them via the script, informed them in regards to the social, we stated that is actually a marketing campaign that’s far greater than the spot — it’s as a lot in regards to the encompass sound as it’s in regards to the conclusion of the story,” Tansill stated. “They had been jazzed and understood instantly.”

Chopping via the muddle

As soon as the workforce for the ultimate product was locked, Ogilvy set into movement a plan that adopted CeraVe’s strategy to constructing cultural relevance by being a social- and influencer-first model, a method that has made it Gen Z’s high skincare model by a large margin, based on Piper Sandler’s newest “Taking Inventory With Teenagers” report. The collaborative effort required not only one concept however myriad concepts throughout shopper and company groups and social, influencer and PR specialists to be generated and executed for various audiences and channels.

“Each touchpoint was simply as essential because the advert itself, and I believe that’s actually a important factor,” Kornblum stated. “The ask wasn’t simply ‘make a Tremendous Bowl advert and let’s construct some buzz round it,’ it was ‘let’s create a world.’”

Ultimately, what separated CeraVe’s marketing campaign from the slog of teasers and trailers was a dedication to letting earned media lead the hassle.

“Earned-first creativity is frightening, since you surrender a way of management. For those who create an asset and you then put it in paid media, you’re talking at individuals, however on this case, we wished to create an expertise that was participatory, that that was constructed to be shared, co-owned and co-created,” Tansill defined. “It’s an enormous testomony to L’Oréal and CeraVe for taking this kind of threat as a result of that’s typically what stands in the best way of high quality work.”