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A Super Bowl Campaign Comes to Pornhub; Direct-to-Consumer Marketing Is Getting Tougher |
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PHOTO: KRAFT HEINZ CO.
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While many marketers obsess about appearing only in uncontroversial “brand-safe” environments, Kraft Heinz’s Devour frozen food brand ran ads on Pornhub yesterday, part of a campaign built around a Super Bowl commercial with a “food porn” theme.
Super Bowl advertisers regularly try to get extra mileage out of their buys with elaborate PR plans, and Devour, a first-time advertiser in the game, has been no exception. It has generated publicity for its ad by announcing that CBS rejected an initial edit and promoting an “uncensored” version depicting a woman describing her boyfriend’s addiction to “frozen food porn.” Advertising on Pornhub, though, takes the stunt to another level.
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The Golden State Warrior's Draymond Green with Raden smart luggage in 2016. PHOTO: ERIC KAYNE/AP IMAGES FOR RADEN
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Direct-to-consumer marketing is hot, but established brands facing would-be Warby Parkers can take this solace: DTC is difficult, as a look at three once-promising, now-defunct startups illustrates.
Cocodune’s killer app was free home try-on for swimsuits before customers bought anything, but its prelaunch publicity alone generated some 50,000 emails of interest, according to its founder. “The virality of it was terrifying,” he said. The result? “Crazy high shipping, return and cleaning costs.” Another disruptor, the smart-luggage company Raden, sought less venture capital than others to minimize pressure from investors, but could have used the money when events turned against it.
All the while, incumbents have been catching up, Raden founder Josh Udashkin said. “You didn’t reinvent anything, you found a new clever way to sell it,” he said of many DTC players. “And things revert to the mean.”
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| ASMR Brushes the Super Bowl |
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Zoë Kravitz will whisper amid the noise on Super Bowl Sunday. PHOTO: ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV
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Ads seeking attention with ASMR ploys are familiar by now. (ASMR stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, a tingling sensation that can be triggered by certain sounds and has spawned a YouTube genre.) But on a very noisy Super
Bowl telecast, an ad for Michelob Ultra Pure featuring hushed murmurs from Zoë Kravitz will stand out if nothing else. (Does the line “Let’s all experience something together” make this another “unity” ad? Maybe that’s where we are in 2019: whisper campaigns for unity.)
Pepsi is also bringing ASMR to the Super Bowl: Keep an ear out for Cardi B’s nails on a can in the spot it released yesterday.
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Budweiser’s popular 2014 Super Bowl commercial “Puppy Love” might not have done as well if it aired this year, according to Bryan Buckley, who has directed more than 50 Super Bowl ads. “It is essentially an all-white cast,” Mr. Buckley says in a Wall Street Journal video report on how to make an iconic Super Bowl ad. “In 2019, diversity is the most important thing that our work has to—It’s no longer a, ‘Hey, should you…,’ it is essential.”
But Volkswagen’s 2011 spot “The Force” still packs one of the best narratives in Super Bowl ad history, Mr. Buckley says.
Related: This year’s Stella Artois Super Bowl spot uniting Carrie Bradshaw and the Dude won’t topple past giants, according to Vice.
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“The subjects are dicey. It’s like, ‘this girl vanished from her farm. What happened?’ Presented by Sprite!”
| — Ringer founder Bill Simmons to The Wall Street Journal, on why his company’s sprawling menu of podcasts avoids true crime |
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Slicing critiques of political logos are back, at least for Kamala Harris [The Bulwark] and Howard Schultz [Jesse Lehrich].
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TikTok, the popular short-form video-sharing app, has started testing ads. [Digiday]
Facebook’s year-and-a-half-old Watch section “is a jumble of ads with no hit shows and a tiny slice of overall video revenue.” [Bloomberg Businessweek]
Brands from Red Bull to Ralph Lauren have refashioned themselves into content-creating machines as traditional journalism stumbles and media companies shutter. [WSJ]
T-Mobile is returning to advertise in its sixth consecutive Super Bowl, CEO John Legere announced in laborious fashion on Twitter. [Adweek]
Skittles’s non-Super Bowl ad, a mini-musical on Broadway starring Michael C. Hall, includes songs such as “Advertising Ruins Everything.” [Deadline]
Correction: Yesterday I said Amazon hadn’t confirmed that it’s back in the Super Bowl. It has.
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