Striking, vibrant colors and an unmistakable, barely-there grain throughout Volkswagen’s Super Bowl ad make it obvious from the first frame that the work was shot on film.

The vintage look of the ad, created by creative shop Johannes Leonardo and directed by Leigh Powis, was “very intentional in terms of the vibe, in terms of the tone…we wanted it to feel [like] real life,” Rachael Zaluzec, CMO and SVP of customer experience for Volkswagen of America, told Marketing Brew. “We wanted it to feel approachable and not too polished.”

Volkswagen isn’t the only brand to go old-school for this year’s Super Bowl. Squarespace and the religious nonprofit Come Near also recorded their spots on film, while Instacart used tube cameras to capture its own spot spoofing ’80s Europop.

The way brands make ads used to be something only ad aficionados cared to understand, the kind of inside baseball that agency types on LinkedIn appreciate. But in the age of AI, the ways ads are made are increasingly under the microscope—and there’s a growing consumer appreciation for practical craftsmanship behind big-budget advertising. It certainly helps that nostalgia—in arenas like fashion, vintage tech, and TV programming—continues to be a cultural force.

Continue reading here.—KM

Yorgos Lanthimos has directed four Oscar-nominated movies, including Bugonia, which is up for Best Picture this year. He’s amassed more than 32 wins, from the BAFTAs to the Cannes Film Festival. And as of this year, he’s also made a couple of Super Bowl ads.

On Sunday, the director is bringing his instantly recognizable and eccentric film style to hundreds of millions of Big Game viewers for the first time, working with both the food-delivery app Grubhub and website platform Squarespace.

Lanthimos has previously made ads for Gucci, Prada, and Jameson Whiskey, and he isn’t the only director to be doubling up this year: Taika Waititi is behind this year’s ads from both Pepsi and Xfinity. But the brand marketers working with Lanthimos are betting that his style and offbeat humor is the right vehicle for their brand messages at this year’s game as other marketers make more conventional creative choices.

“We needed something that would buck convention, make the familiar seem strange, be highly watchable and funny, but in a way that really made you stop and think about what you were seeing and hearing,” said Marnie Kain, VP of brand marketing at Grubhub, which tapped Lanthimos for its first-ever Big Game ad. “Yorgos’s cinematic abilities, his meticulousness in the characters that he develops, and how he tells the story was really the right fit for coming out on the Super Bowl stage.”

Read more here.—KH

Super Bowl Sunday is typically more about consuming calories than burning them, but this year, beverage brand Yerba Madre is encouraging people to do a little bit of both.

The yerba mate company known for its distinct yellow cans has been carving out its space in the sports world in recent months, and there’s no bigger stage in American sports marketing than the Super Bowl. Yerba Madre CMO Emily Kortlang said she knew she wanted the brand to have some sort of Super Bowl presence—just not in the traditional TV sense.

“We don’t have the budgets to do big ads, but even if we did, I don’t think we would,” Kortlang, who previously worked in marketing for brands including Apple, Beats by Dre, and Red Bull, told Marketing Brew. “The world of advertising at the moment, and the world of content, is very broadcast. It’s brands talking at people, and the DNA of our product is…all about sharing, community, and conversation. In that sense, having an ad which kind of shouts at people doesn’t feel true to the product.”

Instead, Yerba Madre is running a social and experiential campaign called “Trailgating,” which encourages people to take a hike before watching the game, putting the brand’s typical earthy spin on the traditional tailgating experience.

The campaign, developed in partnership with creative agency Public Display of Affection, centers around a Super Bowl Sunday hike at Oak Canyon Ranch in Los Angeles County, Yerba Madre shared exclusively with Marketing Brew. The hike itself is about an hour long and culminates in a woodsy tailgating party complete with games, giveaways, snacks, yerba mate on tap, and a screening of the Super Bowl.

“It is a full branded experience, but it feels more like a hangout,” Kortlang said. “It’s got all the tropes of tailgating, but done in our own way.”

Continue reading here.—AM

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• Creative Traffic Manager at Expedia Group
• Senior Social Media & Influencer Manager, Media & Entertainment at Autodesk
• Manager, Media Performance at Home Depot
• Manager, Consumer & Cultural Communications at Lyft
• Senior Marketing Specialist at J.E. Dunn Construction Company

Stories we’re jealous of.

• The New York Times wrote about the “subtle marketing move” contained in Justin Bieber’s stripped-down Grammys performance outfit.
• The Times also wrote about the proliferation of AI-generated content around major news events and how it’s affecting public trust and understandings of truth.
• Business Insider wrote about how advertisers are largely playing it safe creatively in this year’s Super Bowl.