Influencers and celebs mix in this year’s Super Bowl campaigns

There’s TikTok famous, then there’s famous famous. Judging by their Super Bowl campaigns this year, brands have realized the benefits of both.

This year, we saw celebrity/influencer pairing strategies that included:

• CeraVe creating intrigue for its Michael Cera ad by putting him in social videos with creators Haley Kalil and Bobbi Althoff,
• T-Mobile placing broadcast ad star Jason Momoa in videos with influencer chef Wishbone Kitchen to create game-day pasta,
• E.l.f. working with creator Benny Drama to help tease its ad with Meghan Trainor and other celebrities,
• Nerds featuring creator Addison Rae in its teaser and at the end of its 30-second broadcast ad to “introduce” its brand mascot,
• Dunkin’ recruiting creator Charli D’Amelio to promote its broadcast ad with Ben Affleck and the rest of Boston’s finest celebs.

While we’ve seen influencers like D’Amelio in Super Bowl campaigns before, putting them side-by-side with celebrity spokespeople seems to be a newer phenomenon.

“This is really the first year that we’re starting to see that much of a marrying between the two,” Emily Brown, senior manager of strategy at influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy, told Marketing Brew.

In addition to helping integrate Super Bowl campaigns across platforms, Brown said combining influencers and celebs can maximize cross-generational reach and bring more relatability to a campaign. Plus, having an influencer promote a campaign on social is one more way to draw buzz ahead of game day, she added.

“If I’m starting to see influencers I follow talk about Jif peanut butter…on TikTok, when I see that ad during the game, that’s going to be in my head again,” she said. “Brands have more opportunity than ever to lean into retention because before it was just like, ‘Okay, we have 30 seconds during one game to get people to remember our ad,’ but now this whole new world has opened up to gain that retention over time.”

For brands that chose to opt out of a broadcast ad, like Priceline, influencer campaigns have proven to be another way to build buzz. The travel company worked with creator Victoria Garrick Browne and her husband on its “Eras to End-Zone” campaign, in which it sent Browne from Tokyo to Vegas, inspired by Taylor Swift’s commute to the game.

“That’s an example of leveraging cultural conversations and also being able to have that lead time,” Brown said. “That’s one of the smarter influencer plays I’ve seen in a long time.”