“They had a simple idea and a great execution,” Millington said, “because they started from that point.”
At the same time, it may be more challenging to stand out during the event amid brands like State Farm, Dunkin’ and Verizon that invested in one-minute buys.
“30s don’t just get judged against other 30s,” Millington said. “And 60s have an upper hand.”
While 60-second ads seem to get an inordinate amount of attention, having that become the standard would “sound so privileged, and it might suggest that new brands can’t enter the space, and that’s not true,” Millington said. “The 30s just have to be done really well.”
Much depends on the runway to the Super Bowl, Millington said, and in crafting a 360-degree media plan around the ad launch “to make more of the moment.”
“You have to tell a great teaser story,” Millington said. “You have to be standout or cheeky, different, controversial, have talkability and have a really smart social plan in place to react to that.”
In the real world, outside of the Big Game arena, “30s are a luxury on a normal broadcast,” Millington said, noting that brands are asking for more 15-second and 6-second spots.
Agencies are increasingly accustomed to working with shorter slots “and what’s required is that you really embrace the time constraint,” Millington said.
For Kawasaki’s first Super Bowl ad called “Mullets,” Goodby Silverstein + Partners worked with production house The Mill (which also produced Super Bowl ads for BMW, Doritos and Starry) on a 45-second spot that debuted on digital and social media on Jan. 22.
The extended Kawasaki spot contained a number of hairdo jokes, the central conceit, giving follicular makeovers to Stone Cold Steve Austin, a grizzly bear, a bald eagle and other human and animal characters.
