Famous Characters Win Big at Super Bowl LVII

It’s no secret that Super Bowl advertising requires a frightening amount of investment. How can advertisers minimise the risk of that investment not paying off? 

Brands are increasingly recognising that one of the best ways to get bang for your buck is by bringing back loved characters from film and TV. The surprise element of seeing a popular famous character from the past in an unexpected setting creates a winning formula of nostalgia, entertainment, and talkability. 

It’s crucial that the chosen character makes sense for the campaign and is not lazily shoehorned into creative. This year advertisers successfully leveraged the generational popularity of loved characters from film and TV in standout creative that made sense for both the character and the brand messaging. 

Cher Horowitz from Clueless x Rakuten

Cher Horowitz from 1995 film Clueless was the perfect match for Rakuten’s campaign centred around shopping. The spot opens with Alicia Silverstone and Elisa Donovan reprising their roles as Cher and Amber, recreating the classic debate scene from the loved movie. The pair debate whether 'fiscally responsible shopping' is an oxymoron, with Cher highlighting the ease of earning Cash Back when shopping with Rakuten. 

Derek Zoolander x Pepsi

Ben Stiller plays various roles in this Pepsi spot (including an action hero, an astronaut, and a man proposing to his girlfriend), but it’s no surprise that the headlines in the press focused on his reprisal of the character Derek Zoolander from the hit 2001 movie. Pairing loved characters with A-list talent is almost guaranteed to secure share of voice. 

Jessie and Walt from Breaking Bad x Popcorners

Fans of the show have been longing for a reunion of Jessie and Walt. This spot for Popcorners brilliantly delivers bringing back the pair with a hilarious spoof that also features popular character, Tuco. 

Captain Pike, Dora the Explorer, Beavis & Butt-Head x Paramount+

We love this example of bringing together famous characters from different universes. The combination of animation characters interacting with live action characters on Paramount’s ‘mountain of entertainment’ further adds to the spot’s uniqueness. The spot brings together Captain Pike from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Beckett Mariner from the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks, Dora the Explorer, Reno 911’s Lt. Dangle, and Beavis and Butt-Head. Sylvester Stallone and his daughters are the cherry on the top promoting new reality show ‘The Family Stallone’. 

These are our favourite examples of using famous characters for this year’s Super Bowl spots but we wanted to give a shout out to some other examples that leveraged entertainment IP with a different approach. Michelob Ultra’s homage to Caddyshack featuring Serena Williams is a brilliant follow up to last year’s homage to another classic, The Big Lebowski. For T-Mobile, John Travolta, Donald Faison, and Zach Braff put their spin on the song ‘Summer Nights’ from the loved musical Grease, with a Saturday Night Fever pose thrown into the mix. Both campaigns license thematic elements of popular movies to get the attention of their target demographics.