The Engagement Rate

An industry bulletin for industry pros.

YOU’VE GOT TO FIGHT. FOR YOUR RIGHT. TO PARTAYYY 💃

We hope you’ve had a good Super Bowl weekend, and to those who only showed up for the half-time show, we salute you. Irrespective of whether you’re into football or not, we can all agree that the amount of influencer coverage across ads and campaigns surrounding this year’s game is something to truly celebrate and take learnings from as an industry. Here’s to many more! 

Influencer & brand wins of the week 🏅

🧴Pimples + patches + personalities 

Hero Cosmetics, renowned for its Mighty Patch pimple patches, recently named TikTok personality Alix Earle as its inaugural global brand ambassador. A good fit given Earle’s openness on her acne struggles in her content. The announcement coincides with Hero's debut regional Super Bowl commercial, featuring Founder Ju Rhyu. 

🐱Meow-maeyo-mayo

Hellmann’s took a unique spin by featuring Chipmunk the Cat as the star in its Super Bowl TV spot, where he played the fictional viral Mayo Cat. With over 380,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram, Chipmunk and his brother Squirrel have collaborated with brands like Meow Mix and Els Pet, making waves in the pet influencer scene.

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The 2024 Super-Influencer-Bowl in a nutshell

The Super Bowl pulled in a whopping 126 million viewers, breaking records and not just for the game itself but also for the advertising scene. And get this, Super Bowl ads are getting pricier, hitting $7 million each, pushing agencies and clients to get creative with social media teasers, influencers like Addison Rae and Charli D’Amelio, and even celebrities to build buzz and open up retail opportunities.

When it comes to diversity, XR Extreme Reach crunched the numbers. This year:

• Ads leaned more towards masculine expressions (59%) compared to feminine (41%) and non-conforming roles (0.6%). 

• There were fewer people of color featured this time around. Lighter skin tones dominated at 57.7%, while medium tones were at 28%, and darker tones only made up 14.3% of content.

• However a whopping 99.9% of in-game ads included closed captioning, a big jump from the 33% typically seen in TV and video ads. Great news for the 11 million hard-of-hearing or functionally deaf individuals in the U.S.

And guess what? Social media stole the spotlight even before and after the game. Advertisers used platforms like TikTok and Instagram, featuring not only influencers like Addison Rae but also celebs like Ben Affleck. It's all about building engagement early on, like with Rae's Nerds candy ad, where she teased it on social media before her background role in the CBS spot during the game - keeping Gen Z excited and the older audience in the loop. 

Celebrities and influencers join forces 🏈

It was celebrity 🤝 influencer in this year’s Super Bowl, forming an Avengers summit of ad campaigns collaborations for this year’s Super Bowl. Here's the lowdown on some of the celebrity/influencer pair-ups we spotted:

• CeraVe built anticipation for its Michael Cera ad by featuring him in social videos with creators Haley Kalil and Bobbi Althoff.

• T-Mobile showcased broadcast ad star Jason Momoa in videos with influencer chef Wishbone Kitchen, focusing on game-day pasta for enhanced Super Bowl engagement.

• E.l.f. collaborated with creator Benny Drama to tease its ad with Meghan Trainor and other celebrities (including the cast of Suits!), injecting humor into the pre-promotion strategy.

• Dunkin' enlisted creator Charli D'Amelio to promote its broadcast ad with Ben Affleck and other Boston celebrities, aiming for increased campaign reach and resonance.

According to Emily Brown from Billion Dollar Boy, it's the first year we're seeing this combo in full swing. This mix not only broadens the campaign's reach but also makes it more relatable across generations. It’s creating a pretty good blueprint, especially with influencers teasing the campaign on social media before it goes out, creating a pre-game buzz that brands didn’t have before. 

Some brands also opted out of a broadcast ad (I mean it’s the most expensive advertising slot of the year). Brands like travel company Priceline, worked with creator Victoria Garrick on its ‘Era’s to End-Zone’ campaign, in which it sent Browne from Tokyo to Vegas, inspired by Taylor Swift’s commute to the game. “That’s an example of leveraging cultural conversations and also being able to have that lead time,” Brown said. “That’s one of the smarter influencer plays I’ve seen in a long time.”

From flop to top, Cetaphil redeems beef with creator with campaign

Cetaphil's Super Bowl ad turned into a bit of a mix-up. They dropped a spot about a dad and daughter bonding over football, and turns out, it looked a lot like TikToks from creator Sharon Mbabazi. She noticed, her followers noticed, and things got interesting.

In her videos, Mbabazi pointed out the similarities, like her being black with a white stepdad, and the Cetaphil ad having a mixed-race girl with a white dad. Plus, there was this whole thing with under-eye lotion that looked a lot like her stepdad's content. Mbabazi called them out, and guess what? The skincare didn't brush it off. They reached out, owned up to the mix-up, and asked for credit. In a follow-up video, Mbabazi shared that Cetaphil acknowledged everything and made things right. And get this, she hinted at more stuff coming, like a follow-up to the whole situation.

Cetaphil's take? They say they didn't know about Mbabazi's TikToks when they made the ad, and it was just a coincidence. They were inspired by a trend of girls bonding with their dads over football on social media. Now, the ad is regional, meaning it's only in certain markets. The one airing during the game is a shorter version of the original, but hey, they're turning a mix-up into a moment. Brands aren’t always in control of bad optics like this, but 👏this 👏is 👏 how 👏 you 👏bounce 👏back! Props to you Cetaphil, the industry can take some serious learnings from this.