As AI dominates the zeitgeist, some brands are going retro for the Super Bowl

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.

Using film is typically more expensive than digital recordings and, due to the limitations of the tech, often makes for a lengthier shoot. But it can help communicate other messages about the brand and its ethos that, for many brands, may just make it worth the investment.

“Heighten the drama”

In the case of Volkswagen, “we’re a car company who’s so focused on precision engineering and craftsmanship, we wanted to make sure that that same attention to detail came across in the [way] the film was made,” Zaluzec said. “The work is made just like the way our vehicles are made.”

But communicating craftsmanship wasn’t the only reason marketers opted for film this year.

Squarespace, which is returning for its 12th Big Game ad, opted to use black-and-white film (specifically 35mm Kodak 2302) in a spot starring Oscar winner Emma Stone in her first Super Bowl ad, in which she, frustrated, burns and smashes computers upon realizing her preferred domain name isn’t available.

The use of film is designed to reflect “the emotional weight of the story,” Mathieu Zarbatany, group creative director at Squarespace, wrote in an email.

“We felt that shooting in black and white on film would be the most powerful way to heighten the drama and sense of gravity we wanted to convey,” he said. “From the beginning, we believed the humor would emerge precisely because we treated the story with complete seriousness, from the performances to the set design to the way it was shot.”

The ad itself was directed by Stone’s frequent collaborator, Oscar-nominated director Yorgos Lanthimos, who works exclusively on film, as well as Oscar-nominated cinematographer Robbie Ryan. Zarbatany said the brand “drew inspiration from classic films of an earlier era,” and noted that after Stone brought the idea to Lanthimos during the duo’s Bugonia press tour and got his buy-in, “the approach felt inevitable.” 

Come Near, the nonprofit behind the “He Gets Us” campaign that promotes Jesus Christ, also used film for its 30-second Super Bowl spot, a choice that was a matter of conveying the “earthiness and warmth” that’s present in director Salomon Ligthelm’s work, Simon Armour, chief creative officer of Come Near, told Marketing Brew.

“We really wanted to bring that through,” Armour said. “And it’s really hard to get that just in a digital format.”

“In camera”

Using film rather than digital naturally changes how productions are set up, a factor that marketers have to account for during shoots. Since the Super Bowl is arguably the biggest advertising stage of the year, the additional complexities made it easier to justify.

For the Squarespace spot, which was shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio on Arri 235 and Arri LT cameras and paired with Panavision Primo lenses, “a key goal of the production was to capture as much as possible in camera,” Zarbatany said. To do so, the team built out a set over 12 days to function properly—the fireplace featured in the ad actually worked, for example—which “added an incredible sense of realism to the production,” he said. The work at the outset meant the brand was able to keep postproduction “minimal,” he noted, “letting the natural texture and imperfections of the film define the final spot.”

Squarespace isn’t the only brand changing up its aspect ratio for the Big Game, adding to the vintage looks. Instacart’s 30-second spot, which was directed by acclaimed filmmaker Spike Jonze, will also air in 4:3 on Sunday night, Laura Jones, Instacart CMO, told Marketing Brew. While the grocery-delivery app’s 30-second Super Bowl ad was shot digitally, Oscar-nominated cinematographer Autumn Arkapow used vintage tube cameras to give the ad a distinct, retro look.

“We had this idea of wanting it to feel almost from another universe,” Jones said.

“Anti-slop” realism

Imperfections that are inherent in film and tube cameras can be a way for brands to “distinguish between what was really made and captured in real life” to consumers, Galen Graham, group creative director, Mother LA, told Marketing Brew. While it wasn’t shot on film, filmmaking imperfections to communicate realism were something that Mother LA, which is behind Meta and Oakley’s Super Bowl spot, thought about during production, he noted.

The interest in shooting on film—or, at least, having a distinctly film look—is something freelance creative director Aisha Hakim said she’s noticed an uptick in ever since Isle of Any’s shot-on-film campaign for ChatGPT, which aimed to humanize the tech through everyday use cases, dropped last fall.

“I’ve been on so many briefs in the last few months where it’s just like, ‘You know that ChatGPT work? What’s our version of that?’” she said.

Douglas Brundage, founder of brand studio Kingsland, said he sees the creative shift as “an anti-slop statement,” adding that Instacart’s work with Jonze and its vintage tube cameras represents the “antithesis of slop” to him.

Hakim noted that opting for a vintage look can be a cheat code for brands looking to communicate that the work was made by humans.

“All of that is a subtext for anti-AI-based creative,” she said.