PR Roundup: 2017 Super Bowl Edition

06 Feb PR Roundup: 2017 Super Bowl Edition

By Michael Mezich

The 2017 Super Bowl has come and gone, and with it goes many brands’ attempts to connect with consumers past the seconds-long commercials they ran. Some brands will be talked about for the next few days, and others will have PR professionals shaking their heads. With that being said, here are the public relations highs and lows from this year’s Super Bowl.
 
 

84 Lumber

With the current political climate, it was obvious multiple brands would run a commercial with a slight or not-so-slight political message. The key was doing something that stood out among the general embrace of diversity. While Coke gave us a good but old ad, and Audi made a valiant effort with its inspiring commercial on sexism, the brand being talked about most is 84 Lumber. The company ran an ad focused on a mother and daughter’s journey from Mexico or Central America to the United States. Having their original script rejected by Fox, the company instead used the commercial to raise interest and direct people to their website to see the end of the story, which featured a border wall with a gate and the message, “The will to succeed is always welcome here.” The commercial was so successful that their website crashed during the game.

T-Mobile

T-Mobile had four commercials this year, each with varying degrees of quality. The biggest chance for PR magic was the Justin Bieber commercial, which asked viewers to post their best touchdown dances with the hashtag #unlimitedmoves – the best would be retweeted by Bieber himself. What made this potentially special was that Bieber had been off Instagram for months, reviving his account for this campaign. His Instagram post with the commercial received over six million views and 400,000 comments. The problem? He never shared a single fan post (at least by 10 a.m. the next morning). For their part, T-Mobile did respond to people who posted their dances throughout the night, but this really feels like a missed opportunity to keep their hashtag trending with an influencer with a massive following. The moral of this story might be that you should be careful when intertwining your campaign with a celebrity.

Mr. Clean

Some of the best Super Bowl commercials are the weirdest, and Mr. Clean proved it with a commercial featuring a sexy version of the brand’s iconic mascot. The quality ad immediately got people talking, even inspiring a dance off challenge from the Pine-Sol Lady. What’s more, the brand took advantage of all the companies that released their Super Bowl commercials with great tweets commenting on many, including some great Mr. Clean images that showed obvious prior planning. Companies can take two things away from Mr. Clean. First, if companies are going to give their commercials away early, they should definitely plan comments ahead of time, so they can be part of any conversation and ride the wave created by others. The other takeaway is that if you don’t want rivals getting in on your commercial’s fun, don’t release your Super Bowl ad before the Super Bowl.

Verizon
Verizon decided against having a commercial in the Super Bowl this year, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have a plan. Competition between phone providers has been vicious, with Sprint and T-Mobile both taking shots at Verizon in their Super Bowl ads this year. Since both companies teased their commercials ahead of time, Verizon was able to counter most punches thrown its way via Twitter. However, it doesn’t seem that the brand was ready for T-Mobile’s wonderfully creepy commercial featuring Kristen Schaal. Their response was an uncomfortable tweet that T-Mobile’s CEO saw as jealousy. It showed that if your competitors are going to get dirty or weird, it may be better not to follow them.

Michael Mezich is a McLeod Communications intern. Majoring in PR, minoring in art. Professional child wrangler. Expert sleeper. Will create content for food. Follow on Twitter: @MMezich.