P&G Asks Super Bowl Viewers to Help Craft Its Big Game Commercial
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Procter & Gamble has long studied consumer behavior to help it determine how it should sell popular supermarket staples like Tide, Crest, Pampers and Swiffer. Super Bowl Sunday will be no different.
P&G intends to let its customers help create one of its Super Bowl ads, a star-studded affair that is slated to involve Sofia Vergara, Rob Riggle, Troy Polamalu, Isaiah Mustafa, Busy Philipps, and Manolo Vergara, as well as products such as Bounty, Mr. Clean, Febreze, Olay, Charmin, Head & Shoulders, and Old Spice. People who visit the site WhenWeComeTogether.com will be able to choose how they want to see Vergara and her guests tackle a massive and messy Super Bowl party messy surprise. The most popular scenarios chosen among viewers will be featured in a 60-second ad that will be created just minutes before it airs during the fourth quarter of Sunday night’s game.
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“It’s going to be really unique,” says Riggle, in a brief interview.
Others have attempted to add a real-time element to Super Bowl advertising. In 2018, Kraft collected photos and videos contributed by families via Twitter and Instagram and assembled them into a 30-second spot that aired in the third quarter of NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl LII. In 2017, Mars Inc.’s Snickers tapped actor Adam Driver to star in a 30-second Old West-themed spot that was broadcast live on Fox during a break from Super Bowl LI.
“We are re-inventing advertising through an interactive experience that reinforces the benefits of our brands in a fun and innovative way,” said Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer of Procter & Gamble, in a prepared statement. “We’re looking forward to seeing how fans live up to the idea that when we all come together, it is amazing what we can do.”
Letting customers in on the process can often create anticipation for a commercial. Anheuser-Busch has asked customers to help it pick one of two possible ads for Bud Light starring Post Malone. Fans will have to watch the gridiron classic February 2 on Fox in order to see which of the duo makes it to game play. Frito-Lay for a decade enlisted the help of amateur filmmakers in generating a bunch of quirky Super Bowl ads for its Doritos in a promotion known as “Crash The Super Bowl.”
Procter & Gamble has become a much bigger presence in the Super Bowl ad game in recent years, finding ways to create ads that stand apart from the pack through clever methods. In 2018, P&G ran four ads of different lengths and subject that, in the end, were revealed to be commercials for Tide. In 2017, the consumer-products giant managed to sneak a stain on to the front of Fox announcer Terry Bradshaw’s shirt. After he discovered the spot, he began to wander from the set, and a taped commercial began to play showing him trying to find ways to get his clothes clean.
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