by By Maggie Delaney
Ah, yes, the sacred American holiday is upon us. It’s Super Bowl weekend. If you’re anything like me, this may be the only football game (besides the Ducks) you watch this year. And if you’re even more like me, you may not be watching for the football but rather the outside entertainment. I’m watching for the commercials…and random Taylor Swift pans.
It’s no secret that the Super Bowl is a time for advertisers to shine. Various brands cough up roughly seven million dollars for 30 seconds of screen time. If you do the math, that’s a lot of money for a teeny tiny amount of time. This makes it crucial for brands to get their message across, and with hundreds of other ads to compete against, they better hope it’s memorable.
This is why Nerds (yes, the candy) are already setting themselves up for success by partnering with popular Gen Z influencer, Addison Rae. Rae launched a sneak preview of the advertisement on her Instagram. The teaser features Rae in dance attire snacking on the Nerds Gummy clusters as she prepares to teach a mystery guest some sort of choreography. The said mystery guest is to be revealed on Super Bowl Day.
@addisonre Guess who I’m coaching…?! 🪩🕺🕺🎶🍬 tune in to find out!! @Nerds Candy 2.11 #ad♬ original sound – Addison Rae
The collaboration between Nerds and the popular TikTok creator helps Nerds, a perfect example of influencer marketing at work. The partnership allows Nerds to extend their message past the 30 seconds or so they have on Super Bowl Sunday. It’s already seen that in whatever deal was worked out between the candy brand and Rae, she had to post to her socials as well. This creates an even larger stage for Nerds to reach than the millions that tune into the big game. She also is perfect for Nerd’s younger target audience – if you’re Gen Z, then you (probably) know who Addison Rae is.
The choice to use influencer marketing seems like a no-brainer, but historically (aka last Super Bowl), many brands seemed to miss the mark. I honestly can’t remember a single advertisement from last year’s Super Bowl, but what I do remember is Rihanna’s halftime performance and her pulling out Fenty Beauty powder to reapply mid-performance. In fact, because of that 2-second bit, Google searches of Fenty Beauty immediately rose, making it among the top 4 most searched topics of the whole game.
If I could predict the advertisements to come this Sunday, I think we will see a lot more influencers…or at least we should. In a podcast episode from Fohr, James Nord explained that influencer marketing is going to become the mainstream form of advertising, and I agree. Influencers aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, and the cult-like followings they generate make it almost impossible for brands to plan a successful campaign without including influencer marketing somewhere in there.
