With millions of advertising dollars riding on the Super Bowl, you can find most marketers at the edge of their seats leading up to this weekend. But that doesn’t mean agencies aren’t having a little fun in the spirit of the game.
Agencies are going beyond Super Bowl squares and pools this year, hosting everything from football food-themed lunches to viewing parties. RPA will host a party on Friday where it’ll show each of its three spots this year and also have the creative teams behind them talk about their concepts. Some are going even further, such as giving employees the day off after all the craziness of this Sunday. StrawberryFrog, which created the spot for SunTrust this year, is calling Monday “Super You Day Off,” giving employees the chance to celebrate all the hard work they put in.
Here’s what five agencies are doing for the Super Bowl:
Wunderman
Wunderman New York is putting its own little twist on Super Bowl Squares, only with ads. It’ll assign numbers 1-9 for each spot and employees can then buy into the pool for $5 or more. Participants will pre-select their boxes in the grid at random during a party on Friday. After the game on Monday, when 10 Most Watched Ads on YouTube and the USA Today Ad Meter results are released, the winners will be announced.
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“The Super Bowl pool is a fun way to inspire our team to look at every aspect of consumer data — in this case, our perspective is more qualitative and we’re also looking at social,” said Jamie Gallo, president at Wunderman New York.
BBDO San Francisco
With San Francisco at the center of all the action, the BBDO office there didn’t want to miss out. Matt Miller, its executive creative director, came up with the idea of hosting a pre-Super Bowl party on Friday replete with football food and some of the all time top classic Super Bowl ads — from Wendy’s original “Where’s the Beef” commercial to Volkswagen’s “The Force” — while gorging on wings and dogs.
“The Super Bowl may have been San Francisco’ed, but there still won’t be any kale salad,” said Jim Lesser, president and CEO at BBDO San Francisco.
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Omelet
Omelet celebrated its very first Super Bowl spot for Pokémon with a pre-party on Wednesday, with wings, cupcakes and beer. Employees proudly wore their new custom, “Omelet Super Bowl 50” T-shirts, and the agency shut down early so everyone could gather and watch the commercial as well as fan reactions from YouTube, the CBS special interview, press coverage and its own behind-the-scenes footage from the shoot in Rio. The party was kicked off by founder Ryan Fey. One of the art director’s mothers even made Pikachu-themed cupcakes for everyone.
Neo@Ogilvy
Neo kicked off its “Neo Tailgate” on Wednesday, as part of its weekly happy hour program 52 Hours of Happy. The agency served wings, potato skins, french fries, mozzarella sticks, Super Bowl cookies, Baked By Melissa themed cupcakes, chips, pretzels, veggies, dip and drinks. It also had Super Bowl décor, including employee art on a chalkboard, and encouraged everyone to dress up to show their team spirit.
David&Goliath
With two ads in the Super Bowl this year the agency will be taking over an entire restaurant and bar Sunday to celebrate near its office in El Segundo, California. The agency produced Kia’s spot as well as a regional one for Jack in the Box called “Declaration of Delicious.”
“Imagine being in an extra-large room full of people who care more about the commercials than the game itself. It will be epic,” said David Angelo, founder and chairman of David&Goliath.
Homepage Image via Omelet.
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