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Transcript

Super Bowl Ads, Retail Momentum & Brand Storytelling | Five Things Friday (US Edition) · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello, it's Friday. Welcome back to FIVE THINKS
• 0:02
  Friday, US edition. Still, you're alive.
• 0:18
  We made it through Big Show. Oh.
• 0:21
  My God, the biggest of biggest shows.
• 0:23
  I mean, all the feedback I've had even today I was on a call
• 0:26
  has been really and these, this, these were exhibitors super
• 0:29
  positive. Wonderful.
• 0:31
  Yeah, I think it was a really, the energy was high, the weather
• 0:36
  was great, You know, a lot of things that we're not totally in
• 0:39
  control of all worked out. But the content was really the
• 0:42
  team did a phenomenal job really mixing up having some kind of
• 0:46
  new brands, you know, some real stalwarts on stage, you know,
• 0:50
  announcements were made. But I think, you know, the real
• 0:53
  positive sentiment was holiday was good for retail.
• 0:56
  People were rightfully nervous and a little hesitant.
• 0:59
  But the holidays, you know, most people did well and from a
• 1:02
  business perspective, So bringing that positive momentum
• 1:06
  into CES had a really positive show right into big show.
• 1:09
  I think there was that. There was also the fact that
• 1:13
  really at the end of the day, we've, we've been hearing about
• 1:16
  AI for a long, feels like a long time, but there was actual
• 1:19
  examples, right? And people were saying this is
• 1:21
  how we're using it and this is what we're doing.
• 1:23
  So I think people felt like it was really substantive and the
• 1:27
  end of the day, I mean, that's that's success for my team here.
• 1:30
  Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I, I did a, a short
• 1:32
  segment where I would say, what's the one thing that you
• 1:35
  would take away from the show and the now the amount of people
• 1:39
  that said AI moving from, you know, theory into practise was,
• 1:44
  was, was phenomenal to see. OK, let's crack on.
• 1:47
  So we're gonna start with. A An American tradition.
• 1:52
  Yeah, of tradition, right? And I think you said you're also
• 1:56
  rooting for the Seattle Seahawks.
• 1:58
  I think I will. I mean, you know, my true teams
• 2:01
  are, you know, I'm, I'm most part of my life.
• 2:04
  I've lived in Baltimore. So the Ravens husbands from
• 2:07
  Chicago, but I grew up in Portland, OR, and Seattle was
• 2:10
  the closest team we had. And, you know, I just I love, we
• 2:14
  have so many great members from Seattle.
• 2:15
  So I'm going to play. I'm going to I'm going to, you
• 2:18
  know, hope that the Seahawks win.
• 2:19
  No, no shade to Boston, but they've won quite a few times.
• 2:23
  So I always like to root for the underdog.
• 2:25
  Yeah, the underdog. Well, I, I'm working at
• 2:27
  Microsoft. We weren't allowed to support
• 2:29
  anyone else. We have to buy their merch.
• 2:32
  So my kids have all got Seahawks.
• 2:35
  I'm going to say it's your, it's your opportunity.
• 2:37
  You need to wear that jumper that you said, Daddy, Why have
• 2:39
  you bought me that random jumper one?
• 2:41
  Thing is, you can wear it and be appropriate.
• 2:44
  It's funny, I mean this the Super Bowl here is obviously
• 2:47
  it's like almost a national holiday.
• 2:49
  And in fact there is a movement of I don't know if it could ever
• 2:53
  actually happen, but there is a movement to have the Monday
• 2:56
  following the Super Bowl. It's always a Sunday evening and
• 2:58
  it's late. Having the Monday be a national
• 3:01
  holiday where no one goes to work because prior or hungover,
• 3:06
  however, you know, you sell, celebrate.
• 3:08
  But anyway, I mean, it's it's a bonanza.
• 3:10
  It's pretty much the number one television kind of sporting
• 3:14
  event of the year in the US, even beating the Olympics.
• 3:17
  So like, for example, last year Super Bowl in 2025, there were
• 3:21
  just shy of 130 million viewers and that's TV and streaming
• 3:27
  platforms. So 130 and at one time that's
• 3:30
  average. At one time there were 138
• 3:33
  million. So 138 million eyeballs are
• 3:37
  watching these ads, which is why we've selected some of the ones
• 3:41
  we did. Have got some corkers.
• 3:43
  I I mean like let's let's get straight into this one.
• 3:46
  This is we're going to show you a little snippet of it, Ben
• 3:50
  Stiller, Benson Boone on Instacart who are returning
• 3:54
  back, I mean. Look at this.
• 3:59
  Oh my God. I.
• 4:03
  Mean anyone does physical comedy at his age the way he does.
• 4:06
  I mean, it's pretty good, yeah. I mean, but that's Benson
• 4:10
  Boone's sort of, you know, killer move when he does that
• 4:14
  somersault off the thing. That's Benson.
• 4:17
  Boone is probably 30 years younger than men still are.
• 4:20
  Yeah. So anyway, you can watch, it's a
• 4:22
  3 1/2 minute video, so I don't know what snippets they're going
• 4:26
  to use for the Super Bowl, but you'll get, I think this is a
• 4:29
  Corker. The other one that you you
• 4:31
  introduced to this one is you want to talk us through this?
• 4:34
  Yeah, this is this is a family favourite movie which if you
• 4:38
  have young kids watch with, you know, definite philtres on
• 4:42
  Jurassic Park. It has all the initials, you
• 4:45
  know, cast here obviously that something went wrong in the
• 4:48
  original Jurassic Park. Spoiler alert, the power goes
• 4:51
  down and all of the electric can fail.
• 4:55
  Well, but if they had Xfinity, these gates wouldn't have
• 4:58
  failed. Dinosaurs would not have gotten
• 4:59
  out, people would not have been eaten.
• 5:01
  The world would have been saved. They should work for Xfinity.
• 5:05
  Right. So I mean, it's just, it's so
• 5:07
  good. It's such a natural.
• 5:09
  Like it makes so much sense. You know?
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  Lauren Dern, you know, you have all of them.
• 5:13
  Jeff Goldblum. Sam O'Neill.
• 5:15
  Yeah, I mean, we, we sorry, we should have done a spoiler
• 5:19
  because now if you're going to watch this, you're going to know
• 5:20
  what happens. Xfinity saves the day.
• 5:24
  You know, and it's interesting because a lot of these spots
• 5:26
  that we pulled up, they are obviously pre roll.
• 5:29
  I mean, the Super Bowl is this Sunday in a few days.
• 5:31
  So these have all been up and live as teasers.
• 5:35
  So obviously people are filming way more than 30 seconds that
• 5:38
  they're showing, you know, during the Super Bowl.
• 5:40
  But when a 32nd spot goes for about $10 million, you know, you
• 5:44
  don't have a lot more time. But what's interesting is they
• 5:46
  have this whole campaign life now and they have for the past
• 5:49
  few years, of course, but they have teasers, you know, they're
• 5:51
  all over social, they're all over all the platforms, the TV,
• 5:55
  you know, highlight on Sunday night.
• 5:56
  And then they a lot of them still have legs after like the
• 5:59
  Duncan dunking's last year with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon that had
• 6:04
  legs afterwards. They kept doing dances.
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  They went on talk shows the next day dressed in character.
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  So it's really fun to see how these brands kind of extend the
• 6:11
  moment and get so much more out of the 32nd $10 million and they
• 6:16
  really broaden it to have, you know, multi week appeal.
• 6:19
  Yeah, I'm just saying, yeah, who?
• 6:21
  Who? I don't know if this has been
• 6:22
  linked or not. I thought this was the Xfinity's
• 6:24
  page, but it's not anyway. Staying, Yeah.
• 6:27
  Yeah, I feel like. Oh, anyway, moving on.
• 6:32
  Broke it here first. Yeah, yeah.
• 6:34
  You heard it here, folks. Yeah, Moving on, Ring.
• 6:37
  Oh, I love this. So you know, Ring is owned by
• 6:40
  Amazon. This is actually Amazon's site.
• 6:43
  So we know we're we're we're safe here.
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  So there's an ad that's going to promote its AI rings AI powered
• 6:51
  kind of search party feature. So it's to find lost dogs and
• 6:56
  Ring is going to donate $1,000,000 to help animal
• 6:58
  shelters get cameras as well. So it's Amazon.
• 7:02
  But what's interesting is it's they're leaning into the purpose
• 7:04
  driven marketing at real scale, right?
• 7:07
  I mean, it's a lot of money they're spending, plus they're
• 7:09
  donating $1,000,000 to the shelters.
• 7:11
  So I think it's, it's tying it to social impact a little bit.
• 7:14
  I think it'll help maybe people have a little bit more emotional
• 7:17
  engagement. They're going to think of Ring
• 7:19
  cameras potentially in new ways than they've felt them before.
• 7:22
  So I thought this was a unique, you know, it's not just the
• 7:25
  package delivery or someone on your porch like there's other
• 7:29
  uses. So I thought it was interesting.
• 7:30
  I think it's, I think it's a stroke of genius in terms of
• 7:33
  turning technology into an emotion, into a feeling.
• 7:36
  And who doesn't love their dogs? And who's never had that moment
• 7:39
  where you think you've lost your dog and you're like, Oh my.
• 7:43
  God in an island? School your.
• 7:45
  Mind all of the. I know.
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  And so I think it's a, it's a, it's a cracking idea.
• 7:49
  Well done to them and it's a good, a good cause, a good thing
• 7:51
  to do. Moving on another one.
• 7:55
  This is a fun one. So Expedia and I think they've
• 7:58
  done a really, really good job here of showing their brand in
• 8:02
  the spot, right? A lot of times you see these
• 8:04
  clever commercials and you're like, oh, who was that for?
• 8:07
  I saw Ken. I saw, you know, that it was
• 8:09
  kind of claymation animation, but I don't remember who it was
• 8:12
  for. So I thought that way.
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  Expedia tied their own brand in the colour branding.
• 8:17
  So Ken is here, he's going places, and Ken wants to take
• 8:21
  you on a journey, right? And this was such a behemoth of
• 8:24
  a movie last summer. Oh my gosh, maybe 2 summers ago,
• 8:27
  actually, Yeah. And, you know, going places with
• 8:29
  Ken, it's a year long partnership with Expedia.
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  And they're using him as a brand ambassador to kind of, you know,
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  send him to these far-flung, beautiful places while also
• 8:39
  branding that they can help you. It's simple.
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  Even a a dumb Ken can do it, you know?
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  Yeah, if Ken can do it, anyone can do.
• 8:46
  It that's exactly. Exactly.
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  I love that. I mean, Expedia in terms of
• 8:51
  staying relevant, I think it's, it's, well, it's the power of
• 8:54
  Mattel #1, right? In terms of the the genius of
• 8:57
  creating the movie, because I remember listening to those
• 9:00
  folks talking on stage and it's just another sort of when you
• 9:05
  think it can't go anywhere else. Here you are.
• 9:07
  Here's another version of something that you didn't even
• 9:10
  think about going on travel, going on a holiday in Ken.
• 9:13
  Exactly. I love I loved it.
• 9:15
  I thought it was nice. And you know, if you're familiar
• 9:17
  with the brand and you're familiar with you know, Ken, you
• 9:20
  know, he wasn't the brightest vault.
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  So to take a technology app, to take travel, to take all of
• 9:25
  these things that you know can be intimidating and to say, you
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  know, even Ken can do it, though they don't explicitly say that
• 9:31
  that maybe I. Just that's our assumption
• 9:34
  maybe. That's their next tagline.
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  There we go. We helped them.
• 9:36
  I just, I thought it was a cute ad.
• 9:38
  It's fun, it's colourful. It's it's different, it's
• 9:41
  cartoony. It's not, you know, the same as
• 9:44
  everything else. So.
• 9:44
  So this one, you know, as, as we call it, football, not soccer.
• 9:49
  Wagger, you're technically correct Me.
• 9:52
  Just the Super Bowl here. Oblong ball that you play with
• 9:56
  God you know, who knows what's happening there?
• 9:58
  You know, the the US is going to be the home of football this
• 10:01
  year. And I think this is a fantastic
• 10:03
  in New Jersey American dream. Adidas's Football Focus store
• 10:08
  has opened up in preparation. But if I was a ring tailor, I'd
• 10:12
  be asking my merchandising team, hey, guys or girls, how football
• 10:16
  ready are we this year? Yeah.
• 10:17
  What? Are you doing?
• 10:19
  World Cup, Yeah, the store is beautiful and it is.
• 10:23
  It's like hits every element. It's all the different teams
• 10:25
  jeans, it's all the colours. It's modern, but it's also
• 10:29
  nostalgic. Like I really, I think it looks
• 10:32
  so. And do you see, you know,
• 10:33
  there's Astroturf on part of the store so you can kick a ball
• 10:36
  around. Like I really, I think they've
• 10:38
  done an amazing job here. And your point is, is really
• 10:42
  valid. Like what are people doing if
• 10:43
  they don't sell jerseys and they don't sell balls?
• 10:45
  What are you doing to get ready for the World Cup?
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  How are you going to capitalise on it?
• 10:49
  You know what we should, we should pull some estimates for
• 10:51
  what the spend will be in the US.
• 10:53
  It's going to be unlike any event, probably similar to like
• 10:56
  a Taylor Swift tour, you know, in terms of the spend in each
• 11:00
  city, hotels, merch, well. I mean, just the ticket prices
• 11:04
  for the stadium, I was trying to get some some tickets and they
• 11:08
  were like $1000 because the the stadium had sold out and these
• 11:12
  were resale. So they were, it's like, I was
• 11:14
  like thinking it's already, it was like $300 and now it's gone
• 11:17
  to $1000. Insane.
• 11:19
  And you know, our soccer stadiums here are not that big,
• 11:22
  but I think they're playing in those of the football stadiums
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  and those are our biggest ones ones, but they're not even as
• 11:27
  big as they are in Europe, so. Football's coming home football
• 11:31
  in a football stadium. It's Snackley see look at that
• 11:34
  from from the Super Bowl to the World Cup, other football like
• 11:39
  beautiful arc today for our five things Friday.
• 11:41
  Right. But it's it's fantastic deal
• 11:43
  with that. Thank you so much.
• 11:45
  And I look forward to, I think we'll do one more show before we
• 11:48
  see each other in Germany. I can't wait.
• 11:50
  It's going to be. Great, have a lovely week.
• 11:52
  Thank you so much. Bye everyone.