To follow the ad we never made, in 2015 we wanted to be part of the Super Bowl conversation. But we still didn’t have $4.5 million dollars for airtime. So we took a cue from the sharing economy that’s made Uber, Airbnb and Kickstarter so popular, asking 20-30 other brands like ours to chip in for airtime with us, and then cramming all 20-30 brands in one ad. We essentially sold ad space in our ad. We called it The Band of Brands. Weeks before the game, we released a call for brands to join us, featuring uber-sarcastic starlet Aubrey Plaza.
To bookend our 2015 campaign we got inventive. Doritos was asking fans to make their ads for them in exchange for free airtime. So we hid a Newcastle ad within a “Doritos” ad, trying to "enter" their contest. The spot blew up, garnering as much attention as their legitimate finalists and kicking our 2015 campaign off in style. It was even included in the top 10 Super Bowl spots on ABC.
After the campaign wrapped, we launched the teaser for next years Super Bowl ad a whole 365 days early.
The campaign was a success, shattering last year's numbers to garner 400 news articles and 33 million views across 7 piecees of content, for a total of 2 billion impressions, double last years numbers. We were included in the Today Show's Super Bowl round up and on Late Night with David Letterman. But most importantly, we helped some very small brands get exposure on marketing's biggest stage... while mostly helping Newcastle Brown Ale.
