We with our creative model over the last three years have proven actually good ideas can come from anywhere, including someone who's worked here for seven days. I Hate the human behavior that makes someone feel inferior in all shapes in life and we definitely need to get that out of every creative meeting we're in. Nothing kills creativity more than a bad creatively or a bad client that makes everyone feel like because they put out their subjective thing and then somebody in there thinks that their subjective thing is more better because of some a war. It's all not real and please don't use not real to not be nice.

Welcome everybody to the Super Bowl after party hey Jim hi Andrea So good to be here. That's a great reel. Thanks for putting that together! Incredible! I Know it's it's uh, it's it's a fun. it's a it's a great little snippet of we're gonna be having conversations with Seven CMOS uh that had ads in the in the Super Bowl We're really excited to have some rapid fire discussions with them and we've got oh Gary's in the house Hi everybody great to see you Jim Great to be here Buddy hi everybody thank you for jumping in I Know everyone's busy given the incredible crew we have here, so thank you for allocating your time and attention to this combo.

Gary This is the fourth year in a row we've done this together. It's such a pleasure to do this with you I Love it I Look forward to it. We have to do it in person one of these years. We really do we.

Well, I think we started. we did the first one person but uh, there was a global pandemic I don't know. yeah, um that kind of threw us off. but to your point I think we're kind of back.

so I think we should make a commitment right here. Right off the bat that this will be in person. Uh, and so that means everyone on this call. please make sure you're uh in New York the the first week after the Super Bowl I mean you've got a year to plan.

You know that's the tough part right? Like there are real wins and losses like there's so many great things that came out of Covid. So many of our friends on here right now are just if we make this Tuesday February 16th next year in New York are just not going to be part of this discussion and we'll be there. and so I think we've got to find our balance. But nonetheless, it's great to be here.

I'm excited to talk about it. So Gary I Got up early on Super Bowl Sunday and I turned on my TV and I saw you being interviewed in Glendale early in the morning with a with a nice turtleneck on talking about your talking about your parents which was beautiful but I want you to tell us about the weekend a bit, What what inspired you? What did you do who? What was really remarkable for you I Can definitely tell you that um, one of the worst strategic decisions of my career was to wake up at 4am and Arizona to do that spot. Um, knowing that TB consumption on cable is so low right now that I probably have less people watching that than are listening to this interview right now. Um I don't know if you know this.

the desert Arizona is very cold at 5 a.m Yeah yeah, really cold and I only had a T-shirt and then I put the turtleneck. thank God at the last second. but um what you know? look I had the fortune to I see Ian's in here. Are there some others you know for me? Super Bowl can Why? I'm going to Utah tomorrow for All-Star a A in Orlando All of it, especially in post covid, is to get quality time with quality people I think when I look at the faces here.

a lot of people I know a lot of people I know super well a lot of people I don't know that great or I used to know really well and not as much these days. Anytime you can get 15, 20, 30 minutes of a real conversation where you can not only talk about the things off the field, family, real life, you have that. Bond But even if you can get 10 15 minutes of real talk right business challenges like this is a fun combo. We get to talk about creativity um, you know, messaging, branding and then there's just the realities of actual business that everybody here thinks about which is like the P L and you know what is the economy structure and so just what I would say is quality of conversation and being able to actually just spend some time and have Serendipity You know one thing Zoom doesn't do is allow for Serendipity Yeah, so you know the Commissioners uh, the owner's brunch I You know I was fortunate enough to be in there and just the incredible level of conversations I was able to have with Fortune 500 companies and platforms and other individuals felt like 17 flights worth of business being done.

I find these things to be more efficient than actually doing the trips one by one and so I really look forward to it on a human level. Yeah! Hey Listen I I Listened to our conversation last year at this time and I think the work this year generally was better. I'm not sure where you are on that, but in the in last year's podcast or recording you were very vocal that we overuse celebrities last year and you felt it was lazy on the part of marketers. I Kind of felt celebrities were used a bit differently this year, so I'd like you to Are you still feeling that way after looking at this body of work? Well this time one thing I've been thinking a lot about is hypocrisy.

C is at scale in society and so as the gentleman who had incredible passion that celebrities are used too much that had his Agency use Ben Stiller and Steve Martin and then have a roast of Mr Peanut we're going to talk about that. Yeah, um look you know my father has a great saying in Russian that translates to whoever signs the check gets to pick the music right and so you know. Um, look I continue to believe there's opportunity you think you think about. You know Nicole's a former Vayner Alum to to see what to be did I you know I think back to the year before the QR code I continue to believe interrupting attention, breaking patterns, trying different things is the kissing cousin to using celebrities that make you feel something or think something.

the clueless recall then still I thought was and Steve Martin like you know I you know and then you so like I think there's a lot of ways to slice it? um I think a lot about I Continue to be overly passionate that everybody on this call needs to stand up their own mascot I Think we need to bring it back to the 60s and 70s I Really believe that? So much more ownable? Um, you know. So yeah. I Continue to think that there's better arms than the celebrity fee. Notwithstanding the fact that those celebrities bring enormous amount of tension and feelings, there are many people when I think for example, let's talk about Pepsi and I know Todd's here.

There's such warm feelings towards those two individuals. they lack controversy. They have an overall halo effect of like trust and Goodwill the subconscious of those two did this. I may try this when I see it at Fountain today or when I'm at 7-Eleven that's just real psychology that's real life and that gets into the logic of why and then you have you know to be interrupting or like the clueless plague does that like Nostalgia I think is very underpriced.

so I like when we use celebrities in a recall like that and so I know there's a lot of ways to hack human emotion to create consideration. and I think we get to see all those displayed during Super Bowl which is why I think we enjoy it, especially for the people here who really think that branding and marketing is The Ultimate Sales engine and I would argue almost all of us on this call believe that to be true. but I think we all can also agree that when branding and marketing is done poorly, it can be one of the great wastes of money. uh, in a business.

and so I think that keeps us all up at night and sharp at night and and I like that and I like being a part of this community. and I just want to say hi to everyone Gary you're a high touch leader. You know the book that you published yesterday was all about that. Your Team Vaynermedia did three ads for the Super Bowl this year, two on Pepsi one on planners you know and people are nervous when they do this work because the Showcase you know the stage is is really big.

What did you say to your team about the work before it went live? you know I don't know if Robin I know Nick is here I saw him in the chat now I see him on my screen is Rob here um I don't know if Rob's here, but I'll tell you what my team will tell you is I'm I'm a funny character. There's like three to seven things I'm passionate about and I'll really put a lot of energy on that. um, emotional happiness and all. That is why I think Vader's doing what it's doing.

um and uh. But when it comes to the work which is so powerful, for example, let's just use Rob in this example. to this, you you know Todd to give him some roses while he's on here Todd is an unusual client that I would argue is similar to Nick and I where he's an operator who probably just has naturally better Talent creatively subjectively than your average like person. It just is what it is and he has passion for it in a way that Nick who does client for us who's on this call and I who am an operator and a CEO he has passion for it and he's good at it and so that's a different kind of clients.

So for this year for example, what was most exciting to me is I always have my special relationship with Todd Nick because he's an account person that blends into Creative in in a weird way similar to Todd I actually see them I haven't said this to them but I'll just do it right here. They have so many similarities, they operate, but they have creative skills. What was fun about this year was this was a year that I felt that Rob our chief creative officer is now in really in year three of his journey with us and brings all the years of what makes Madison Avenue great. but I think now has a sensibility that makes what's been going on with Vayner happen and I think this was a year that Rob and and and Todd really molded together and built their creative Bond So for me I didn't say anything.

My team knows that I continue to give them Pure Freedom but would prefer for them to create very direct business results Direct calls to action and stand-up mascots. We did not do that and that's okay. Um, because again, back to whoever pays for the music, gets to pick the song. Um so I try to influence strategy but I don't micromanage it.

Especially because I'm empathetic that these are big ass bets and and Rafiq and Todd And you know Nicole like they need to make their their just. And we didn't do the Creative for two people, we're a partner in a different way. But um, we've got to leave them freedom in this bag. I'm still trying to win the day-to-day commercials battle.

Super Bowl takes everyone's intensity to another place altogether. So I try to tread lightly while inspiring like don't compromise and completely make it vanilla because I think we can all agree and this is scary. We can all agree that there are some Super Bowl commercials that ran four days ago that we are not going to be able to recall here. Sure, your Professionals in it.

Yep, we're professionals in this. We're having a Thursday meeting about it, right? We're hanging. Yeah, and and there's absolutely some commercials that so were vanilla that we're going to struggle here and that's how you fall into. Don't forget, it's seven million just to get the awareness.

there's production. There's the agency fee. There's that pocket like you're talking about a 12, 13, 14. You know, 10 if you got lucky million dollar Miss And no business wants that, let alone in this environment.

Gary You're a big Jets fan, so I'm going to give you the privilege of welcoming into our conversation. the Kansas City Chiefs CMO Lara Krug World Champion Kansas City Chiefs Come on in! Lara welcome I mean did you know that Elton John's favorite rapper is Tech Nine I Did not like that. See of course thank you for having me I Really appreciate it but I do know that I'm extremely jealous of you since I've never been the Jets have never been to a Super Bowl in my lifetime and and so you were going to be part of this because you're in our incred. This is Everyone here is part of this incredible family of like like-minded individuals.

But the fact that you're incredible football team who's been in wildly consistent at the top tier over the last five years has now found themselves a second title. Must feel just outrageous, huh? Honestly, outrageous. It's a bit surreal. Um I think what's the most surreal? I've been here for about Tuesday This is my second season now, obviously having spent some time in Anheuser-Busch before.

Um, to see the city I mean literally, grocery stores were shutting down before the game was played right like the the that doesn't happen in most places. having grown up in a couple different places, right? So to see the city to see? um I think just the global fandom that is that has happened over the last few years. Um, certainly being on the business side of it, you know there's only so much you can control, right? Um, and so it's It's pure, um, joy and happiness. and I think everyone's just a little bit on I don't even know Cloud9 Cloud 10 Cloud 11 at this point? Um so we're We're super proud and you know I think in many ways it is just the beginning for the dynasty hopefully.

But also I think for for fans around the world who you know may not be like you Gary and a huge Jets fan. Like a lot of people don't have the Loyalty yet to a team. so I feel like we're on our way to becoming one. this is to your point, but this might be very fascinating for a lot of people.

This is the globalization of American Football is clearly on right. The Germany execution was great. Um London's been going on for a while obviously I'm trying to strategize my way to Jets ownership. so I have a lot of relationships and maybe we on this call can help you Gary maybe we can do that okay, directly or indirectly.

Jim Um and I think you know I think what? to your point Lauren I think you know you're you're hot as an organization because you know most of my shop. you know I've been watching football for 40 years. most of my you know entire life. The Chiefs barely even made the playoffs and when they did they would have Heartbreakers like they did in 93 and things of that nature.

So you're getting hot at the same exact time that American footballs decided it needs to be Global because you know proper football is. the MBA is further along. Now you're doing this to your point: I would argue the Chiefs especially how young Patrick is has disproportionate potential to become the biggest Global team in the world. If this is a five-year window over the next five years that adopts a lot of people in Asia latim and Europe I'm sure you're thinking about that quite a bit.

100 I mean um, I'll say I Think that was pretty much one of the main reasons I was brought in. Um, people are always shocked to hear the Chiefs didn't actually have a formal marketing team before I joined. They've never had a CMO um and and it's not because they weren't doing an amazing job. they were clearly doing an amazing job.

But the change has started to happen. Where the fandom is not only in Kansas City right now it it. It's actually fascinating. We're one of the most displaced teams in the NFL 32 and yet we have the highest avidity of fandom.

And so to your point, Gary I Mean with us playing in Germany next year, it's definitely our Focus trying to find the right way to connect the game. The Players Um, our heritage obviously with the Hunt family. How do you do that in a world where not everyone can come to the stadium right? Even if we built 12 stadiums on top of each other, it's not going to be hundreds of millions of people that obviously many of the partners on here right are advertising on. So it's a huge focus of ours and and we're just trying to capitalize on it right now because it is the window.

If we don't do it now, it will be passed right now. That's right, that's right. Laura From Sunday morning until today, what's been the most memorable part of this experience? Oh, that's a hard one. Um, uh, you know I actually will say I think um I think post game I mean po I mean the win was obviously my post.

the win though. and having our organization come together, having the players and and ownership and the business staff and everyone that works really, really hard, that doesn't necessarily get all the credit right. Getting us all together to celebrate it is a pretty extraordinary thing. Um, and then yesterday, you know, riding on buses and watching an entire city literally shut down to celebrate a sport, right? It's remarkable.

So I don't know if I could pick one, but I would say those two. That's good. Well listen. uh I want you to.

We're going to bring Deb wall from GM into the conversation and they just did an amazing amount of creative work in this game. and Laura I'd like you to welcome Deb in and maybe have the first question for her. Oh welcome Dad Very nice to meet you. um thank you uh Gary and Jim for having us all together.

Um so I guess one question I have for you is so I remember um being on the other side um and the ad meter comes out and it's everyone's kind of focus and favorite point of attention for you. What was the thing on Monday morning or at least on late on Sunday night that you felt like this was going to be successful or not or and how did you judge that internally? Thank you Laura and hi everyone! it's great to hear your point of view on everything because I think it's really interesting as we all think what platforms like Super Bowl mean for the future? um since they're one, there aren't that many anymore that draw 113 million people. Um so my most uh important thing was actually Motley Fool which came out and said that you know we had done our earnings announcement on the 31st. we started showing our first spot on the February 2nd and we had a great um year thanks to all the work of all the team members at GM So our stock price went up which was great and then when we launched the Netflix partnership um, investors acknowledge that this is a different way to start thinking about doing marketing Investments and brand Partnerships overall.

so our stock went up again and they gave us credit for another six percent which was great and then of course the Jim Stengel which I call the true ad meter because as we, as we all know, admeter is quite something. anyways. I won't say anything more about that, but I mean how many people actually rate 51 some spots and do it? So what kind of fidelity do you have on that? Deb We have some things in common, you know. I Once did an ad with Will Ferrell we did it with Old Spice and Semi-Pro tie up and we shot about 35 ads with him and we never gave him a script.

So I'd like you to talk a little bit about Will Ferrell and your team. Was he scripted or was that him being will you know Will always gets some ideas but it's Will being Will he's he's amazing and he is amazing. I Think one of the best talents I've ever worked with. Um and he always comes through something more but most genuinely if you remember like we we used Will two years ago when we issued the first challenge um, versus Norway Yeah and that was something he was completely honestly and authentically engaged with.

So when we had this opportunity to come back and and take it to the next level about all right, how do you normalize the idea of EVS for America and especially worldwide, definitely. but especially in the U.S He was amazing on that part and I like that. I Think continuity and consistency. Um, with when you use celebrities really important and I have just so much respect for him.

He also was amazing. He came internally, he became a contract employee and you know went and participated in our Yammer discussions and Yammer pages. He shot the most hilarious video showing his Hummer EV and um, you know said thank you to all of our employees in the plant to actually build the cars and you know it just kind of brings the whole importance of something like a platform like Super Bowl how important it is on so many levels. I Love what you do about making a statement about your strategy and your culture.

on the Super Bowl and I think that's such a smart strategy internally and externally. could you talk a bit more about that? Deb Um yeah. I Think it's right now when there's so much transformation going on, that's what makes a difference and again for us, this was really interesting. We didn't just do a one product shot, we were trying to Showcase a different relationship with Netflix which is the largest content producer and by the way they were awesome to work with.

I Really appreciate their team. A lot of creativity, a lot of real. Focus They are the largest streamer. They truly impact culture.

um and I think as we all look in the future, you know we all know ads are how effective are ads. It's how do we use all these other channels and and ways of getting our messages across. So that's why I was especially interested. Now the other thing I would share with everyone.

It's a lot of work to do like a big partnership. like that. It took us a lot. This was not something we cooked up in the last you know, six months.

It takes a lot of extra work to do something that appears like that. So um I think that's important for everyone to know and then we see it as a platform that can continue on and on. Because we have GM energy. We have sustainability in common.

We have all these things that apart from any AD relationships that we do with Netflix which this does allow us to also be a first mover in that partnership is really important and I think that's the ways we think about Marketing in the future. I Really wanted to do this and the team did because I think that signifies where we should go as an industry and how we should start thinking about things differently and even you know again, you know we debate every year. should we really invest all this money in Super Bowl and I'm really worried because there aren't that many platforms that gather a lot of people anymore collectively and that's important for humans. You know we we want that common experience, but how are we going to achieve that in a couple more years? Um, so I think that's why we should.

It's important to experiment and really look at different ways of doing that Gary anything for Deb before we let her go the the last couple things, she just really got me going. one to her point and I think you know, social digital guy but I've been beating the drum of Super Bowl's underpriced for a decade and like and agree with dab like um I you know just very honestly I would continue to spend as much as I could if I had one of these roles on Super Bowl because I think actualized consumption actualized consumed reach versus potential reach are two very different things. So I think her point is absolutely right there and then just because how my brain works. When she talked about the importance of us having these Collective moments, it makes a lot of sense given the last decade of what we've dealt with.

but recency bias is something I'm thinking a lot about. and where my brain went was before television and radio we didn't have that and what did that actually mean and so I got a little bit weird about like thinking about the 1800s for a second. so before that took me personally, but you know I'm not sure if that's relevant for this. so I think we should move on.

but Deb congrats on everything you know I know we get to jam a little bit here on our LinkedIn chats and things of that nature, but I continue to really root for you and I really do appreciate some of the different things that you spear ahead. and I think it's important for the industry. Thanks you guys! It's great to see everybody! Deb we're going to bring in another CMO Who knows a little bit about entertainment we have Todd Kaplan CMO Pepsi who's going to join the conversation and Deb I'm going to let you ask the first question to Todd GM to Pepsi Here we go. Yeah well, I was watching with interest as you changed your attack from you know, sponsoring the halftime show to really in a really great presence with storytelling that was continuous.

So how do you feel about that and what's your thought about? Super Bowls in the future? Yeah. I I Feel great about it at the end of the day? Um, I Think to your point, there's no other platform like it where you get over 100 million people all together talking about the same thing going on, the ups and downs and all of that. and I think the the whole idea of Super Bowl is kind of what you do with those moments and how you capitalize on that is more than just eyeballs, right? And that's where all the storytelling of the before and all the Pr, all the after, all the during and the social commentary and all that. and I think we made a strategic shift to move away from the halftime show.

um and again. it was 10 years for us and I think it was time for us to kind of Turn the Page and move on to what's next and we're feeling great about that. And this year you know we had a really uh, it was a different brief because it was very, um, product focused. Really? We had reformulated our Pepsi Zero sugar formula and um, we really had a goal of trial.

and uh, it's an interesting brief for something like Super Bowl trying to get someone to try your product and especially when as we were just talking about early on, there's this healthy uh, there's a really sharp inside of that is there's a healthy distrust that consumers have of advertising in general of why the hell should I believe this person I paid them money. They're only saying that because I paid them to say that and um, that that offense is done the worst on Super Bowl Sunday So we said what if we lean into that tension and bring you know two beloved actors Steve Martin Ben Stiller together to kind of play this little is it real or is it acting game with everybody and have them? The big punch line is they try the product like wow that's really good or is it I don't know you try it yourself, you know. Um and uh, we put our money where our mouth is and we also gave out online over 10 million sample up to 10 million samples of the product to make sure people actually couldn't try it and we were really happy with the results. Obviously it was a big shift for us coming from you know the halftime show and the amount of discussion that that drives.

but even with that you know we still drove a ton of share and voice. um you know Kim from my team is on here and a number of other folks from the Vayner crew uh had a war room over at Twitter where we continued to drive. a lot of social conversation and dialogue and uh really showed that you know with some spots in the game some Billboards some clever online stuff you could still drive. You know a lot of share of voices.

one of the most talked about. uh Brands As well as you know, we still got almost up to 30 billion uh earned media Impressions out of it from the Pr pre-enduring and it's also going to be launching a new campaign we'll be talking about in Uh in another week or so with some more beats that'll come also so we're feeling great about it. So Todd if you look out three months from now, what will you say? if will this be effective if what happens? What higher trial? Yeah. I Think for us the the proof is in the pudding with uh, this is a critical product and category for us to grow and um, literally just getting it in people's mouths.

Uh, the reformulation we have. It's um, it's an advantage product. We know it's better than our competitors and we just need to get in people's hands. So uh, that's going to be a big push and just continuing to kind of drive that, uh, awareness of that.

We have a zero sugar product as well I Want to talk to Todd for a moment about creativity? Gary uh I've I've tweeted that PepsiCo may be the best company to consistently produce Super Bowl Level quality work and the work on PopCorners and Doritos this year was just terrific. So Todd if you could put your big corporate hat on what is it about this culture that just consistently delivers this kind of creativity, it's um, it's something where you know and and listen, there's a the benefit of we have these big brands in this household penetration in these products, right? So the game we're playing on some is a little bit different. so look at pop corners versus Pepsi Even back years ago when I launched Bubbly and it was about driving awareness. what is this new product? So the brief's going to change every year if you're trying to drive awareness.

Affinity Equity all the you know trial, whatever it ends up being. but I think um, you know knowing kind of the scale and the power of um, you know how to tap into consumers and knowing that we don't sell direct to Consumer we need to really maintain more than just top of Mind awareness. We need to really get that emotional connection and get people talking about our Brands and more. um Into The Ether and I think um, a lot of the models that we've kind of built to PepsiCo have few old, some really kind of creative and out of the box thinking you know it's kind of funny I Was doing some talking to someone the other day and as we were talking about the ad meter and we were debating how horrible the metrics are with that and all that stuff.

but we were looking up some of the past that um, you know Pepsi has four of the top five rated ad meter spots of all time and actually there was a survey that shows were the most associated brand of all brands with the Super. Bowl When you think of 40 years back of advertising the halftime show, all of that and so there's a big also internal I think pride and kind of legacy of wanting to. You know we have a little bit of a competitive fire between us and Frito on the beverage and snack side and and wanted to continue to push forward and the Doritos and PopCorners folks did a great job this year as well. But um I think it's just um, you know, continuing to push forward and and think of these: Brands and how you can tap into the fact that there's all these cultural truths and how you can kind of turn them and play with them in your creative process is really, um, you know how we get it done Gary your team works with Pepsi Do you want to comment on that? Add to that about the what's special about this culture? Yeah I think I put in the chat I'm also noticing a lot of people are not part of the chat.

All the good stuff is going on in the chat along with me and Jim trying to as always please get in there because I think you know this is going to end in 30 minutes I think for a lot of people, if you're just consuming it and not participating I think that renders The Experience not as strong uh I said in the chat I Think pop culture actually matters to PepsiCo but look, they have Youth products. There's some reasons why that makes sense, but I think it does. and I do think that brands that may skew a little older also can win on pop culture that is relevant to the audience they're trying to reach. and so I I believe it's in the DNA in the Halls you see it consistently and I think that it the ideation starts.

so I under the hood I'm very aware of the other ideas that were being debated and I can tell you all of them were grounded in all sorts of layers of popular culture. And I think you know Vayner has been thinking a lot lately about why we're over indexing with our social work and our above the line work to the business result. and a lot of it sits in what Peter Chun Who's here does on platform and a lot sits on Wanda and Rob And strategy and and creative it's We're obsessed with this concept of Pack. We call it platform and culture and so I think Pepsi is dominating on culture time and time again.

and I think platform is. Do you on understand the distribution? Do you understand like what the did you understand the uh, the assignment Super Bowl's got 30 second video or so, obviously sometimes 45, sometimes 60. and then obviously that plays out dramatically in other platforms. Rafik did you know Mr Peanut did the assignment there but then also extended the assignment to 2B and executed very different creative there that looks like actual production of a thing, not a commercial.

and so I think everyone in this room because I'm always obsessed with why did people allocate time here? So if you leave with anything this acronym of like Pack, the platform and the current state of the culture of your consumer if you can synthesize that to being contextually relevant to your distribution in an emerging streaming World which is going to eat up most of television as we know it and in Social which has all the rest of the attention but it also plays out to activations it to Billboards to raise video to Spotify So I think on the culture side which we think is the one of the two pillars that dominates success. I think it's just in their DNA I think just just to add one last thing before you move on to I Would also say is the Um aside from the cultural truths, it's the commitment to the craft. I would say of how we partner with our our agencies and people who get us there. whether it's our in-house people who do stuff out of Dallas and Plano where as you were talking about how we worked with Robin team um you know we get under the hood into the creative craft of it all versus you know, sit at our seat and just buy ideas from people and so I think that's a uh the executions you know, uh the difference that sometimes makes a difference in some of this work that somebody have a great idea that isn't executed the right way and all that kind of stuff and so we we really blur those lines.

Mr Peanut Come into this conversation with Mr Pepsi Rafiq Lewandi had a marketing for Planters Join our conversation I I hope you guys are friends I mean peanuts and Pepsi I mean it's perfect. That's it. We need to work on that. Yes, I mean I gotta Todd I share a lot of what you said that we obviously spent 10 years of my career at PepsiCo and I I would say it's the pride in our in the brands and Pepsicle.

Brands And it's the care that you know starts from leadership at the very top to the bottom, like it's just depreciation for creative and appreciation for kind of just being part of culture which a lot of times you take for granted but they're actually not present across. you know all companies so fully agree with you there, right? Rafiq You have had a long-term commitment to the Super Bowl and you know I and I think it was an unexpected brand to come to the Super Bowl a few years ago. So would you speak to why this has worked for you so well and is it a tough sell internally to be involved year in and year out? We haven't asked that question once so far, so that's how successful it has been. I Fully agree with Gary.

At this point in time, this is the biggest moment for storytelling. This is the biggest moment for engagement and inviting consumers to also participate in telling your story. And so that's what we've been doing consistently and kind of, particularly since the moment we kind of killed Mr Peanut and locked all that love And kind of. moment for him and culture.

We've been on a roll and frankly, what I also love about Super Bowl is like every year you kind of have to see where the culture is going and where your brand you know needs to achieve and then find that you know crazy connection between them. So you know one year we didn't even part be part of Super Bowl officially, but we actually were because we donated our money to you know, little acts of extraordinary substance on you know, during covert time. last year we played the whole game around. you know one another, you know, for all months at a time and you know, into mixed nuts.

And it was the first time we actually moved away from Mr Peanut and really focused on snacking. And then this year we got him back again and because it is time for peanuts, it is a recessionary. Time Peanuts are an amazing snack that are very much underrated. and so honestly, Super Bowl has worked so well for us.

Um, you know, year on year obviously in partnership with the Vayner has been incredible as well. And every year I think we are just continuing to raise the bar. How do you judge success? Rafiq Is it volume share, conversations, discussion? What is it? Definitely. Uh, our presence in store and share and that has been improving I would say year one when we kind of killed Mr Peanut we were almost did not even plan for anything in store.

this year we kind of have you know, way more planned ahead. We have Walmart for the first time supporting us and giving us a lot of space and store. so we actually are, you know, increasingly doing better in execution in store which is driving our success and then obviously you know Impressions and engagement from consumers and uh, that's you know so far again, we're doing really well there. I Loved your concept this year! By the way, for the Vayner team and you're made to be roasted I mean it's so perfect it's so obvious it's so creative and the way you executed it just was so much fun.

So could you talk a little bit about the origin of the concept we're always looking to get. You know, original Concepts and marketing concepts that will break through. We do concept testing all the time. Talk about that concept that I remember the brief.

The brief in the Tweet was like enjoy the peanuts. Um and and if you think about that's as simple as that and I think coming out of and and and everyone wonders why agencies are all driving themselves crazy. Talk about having a lot of room in that brief right? Yeah, yeah you know I I started to jump in repeat but just a point that I've been meaning a lot about the brief is really fun because that's a dream because Rob prefers that Rob's team prefers that. That means they can do whatever the hell they want.

I On the other hand, like from a day-to-day standpoint, take Super Bowl out. Think that a lot of the brands here again trying to bring value to this call in a different way. Getting briefs that have a ton of teeth in them from a day-to-day marketing standpoint is something that we need to add to our infrastructure, especially with social as every brand here goes to a model of doing social marketing on a daily basis because how much brand is being built there more and more briefs with like very narrow like consumer segmentations or like very sharp tight very narrow briefs will really help because I think it helps on relevance. but for Super Bowl that wide of a brief is like a creative's dream but sometimes puts you into a swirl.

I Want to bring it? Dana Marino sorry let's bring in Dana Marino of Rakitan into the conversation and Rafiq I'll let you welcome her and maybe have a question for Dana Who has been in the Super Bowl now two years in a row? Correct? So we'll talk about that in a moment. But Refuge back to you to bring Dane in with a question. Yeah, no. So then we've been obviously parking on the creative side as well.

Um, so excited to to see you again this year, So tell us what what was your most exciting moment for for this week as you prepped for Super Bowl Oh my gosh, nice to see you overfeak and of course both of you! My most exciting moment was coming into this office on Monday and just the Elation of everyone in the company from the people who actually worked on the Super Bowl ad and The Campaign which I think you guys know we have an in-house brand and creative team. we don't have an agency to the engineers to member supports to everyone in the company, just that pride and the Press coverage that um was just truly stunning for the last couple weeks on the rackete and Clovis campaign people. just you can feel in their bones, the excitement and the pride for the company. That was definitely my best moment.

Dana you had you had Hannah last year Hannah Waddingham of Tidala So and you felt really good about the ROI last year you thought it was really productive. This year you had Alicia Silverstone of Clueless brilliant tie-in by the way, how do you feel I Know it's early, but how do you feel about the impact this year? the ROI this year of your effort? Yeah! I Love all the questions about. is the Super Bowl worth it because I do feel passionately about that and you know we do watch of course what happens that day and I will say to your question yes, app downloads are up Shopping is up, Sign ups. You know signups are up.

Search volume is up. all those indicators that we feel great about that one day. but truly that's not why we do the Super Bowl To your point about Hannah What we look at is the year-long results of what happens over the year and things like our brand awareness number went up four points and every one of you on this call knows how hard it is to move even half a point, right? Bracketon is not a household name in the U.S Quite yet it is of course an Asian so we're really working on that. Brandon Winner! So Four Points Year on year, that's a big deal and we had you know I Talked to Jim last week about this.

We had 10 percent lift in our buyers over the year and so many metrics like that that tell us yes, the Super Bowl is worth it. Yes, that day we look at those numbers but it's really the year long effort that we prove we belong here. I Know you feel one benefit of the Super Bowl is the impact in your culture inside the pride. The buzz you just talked about that when you came in on Monday morning.

So could you say a bit more about why that is so important for you and how you leverage that? Yeah, well. I mean part of the pride is the in-house Team part part of that is being able to do something like the Super Bowl all on the inside of our own house. There is an incredible feeling that comes with. but you know I Think all of us can relate to how hard it's been to get employees back to the office and there you know that has been a true struggle of ours.

You know across the board, leaders everywhere of all kinds thinking about that and I will say the more we're together, the more prideful we feel. the more we think about it. And when we do big milestone moments like the Super Bowl and other big campaigns like this, it helps people want to be part of the culture and want to be with their teammates and want to be in the office. And so that's part of you know we with an in-house team you know trying to keep these creatives as you guys all know, motivated and inspired and working on cool stuff and the Super Bowl of course is one of those things.

and just getting people together to celebrate like this has been really impactful on our culture. Barry Over to you anything for Dana You know what? What is the biggest fear when you go into this kind of bet? From your standpoint I see some questions about measurability? There's a lot of people here you. Tinder I think Melissa jumped on it as well. Like you know again.

I I come from a lens of I'm a businessman who happens to be infatuated and enjoys marketing and branding because I think it's the best way to build an actual business. What about? What about the flip side of all this? Nirvana And us all hanging out and enjoying this combo Like in an organization that's you know, a real company. Uh, there there's going to be CFOs There's going to be CEOs There's going to be board members. There's gonna be people that are saying prove it like cool you measured it throughout the year.

But what about the end caps at this? Or what about that business But like, where does it? Where does the rubber hit the road for you and anybody else in the chat? Because I know that seems to be the tone and tenor of some of the combo in a different Lane I mean I It's a great question and this sort of age-old debate about the Super Bowl and is it worth it. and I think it depends on the company. It depends on where your company is in it. it's life stage.

I Think it depends on what you need to do within the region. like in this U.S region. We need to build awareness and understanding of Racketon Right That we have a lot of people who have heard our name because they see us on the Golden State Warriors jersey. Or they know us.

You know from the Barcelona jersey in Europe or Japan You know whatever it is. but they don't know what racketon is right? So I think it depends I mean Pepsi has a totally different um strategy than we do right as relates to culture and the Super Bowl We need people to become aware and understand how meaningful rakitin can be and so you're right. we do look at those metrics, you know, the week before the day of the week, after over the year the next quarter I mean we look at the science I assure you it's just we have multiple layers by which we measure success, some of which of course is what happens that day on our site and in our app and what happens over the year as we're trying to build the engagement and build the awareness. So Dana stay with us for a minute.

We're going to bring in Nicole Carla piano from Tubi hey Nicole Welcome to the conversation: A couple days after your Super Bowl spot aired, there was in the news that Fox got an offer of over two billion dollars for Toby so you obviously had a very high Roi if that's if there's any correlation in that. but I thought it came out before I think at the end I did it really in anticipation of the Super Bowl I Think we'd be at like four or five now for an offer after Super Bowl but we'll have to ask Lachlan but that was before. Yeah well. I thought your efforts this year were so amazing.

So Dana what did you think about 2B this year I I asked you Nicole because we had a long debate when we were looking at Concepts about stunt type object please I'm dying to know sort of how hard was that to get approved. you know through you, through your team members through your Executives because that is a very specific strategy and of course you had another spot of course. but the stunt type object is a bold move so tell us I would love to hear about that. I can tell you the back story which is very interesting but um Mischief came up with this idea of hacking the interface and we thought about hacking a generic car ad because people watch the ads so intensely and I just didn't you know I'm new to this organization I started in August I didn't know the kind of room I'm walking into what the Creative Energy was going to be so we presented rabbit holes, we talked about it and um it was actually with Lachlan and he was like I feel like nobody knows the product and people need to see the product and I was like well we actually we have this kind of edgy thing that I just kind of soft pitched it and um Fox Sports was in the meeting and they're like hack the game like you can hack the broadcast and that's amazing I can what? and so it's different because you know Fox is you know hosting the Super Bowl We can make things like that as an organization happen and so it was really just luck and evolution and actually having a construct of an idea.

not even imagining that they would even let me do that and then it just kind of free-flowing in the conversation and a big partnership with the you know CMO Fox Sports Robert Gottlieb because he was like we have to make this authentic, how would we do it like how would it look real and so um they really leaned in and helped execute that. You have all this momentum. Now all this Buzz all this attention. What? Where do you go from here? How do you build on this most amazing momentum? So many people have challenges like that, right? Yeah.

and I Just um I think everyone else in the room had done this before. This is my first time and I think I haven't even had a chance to enjoy it because I'm just like how do I follow on this like what's next? How do we keep that momentum? Um, not that I'm not proud and there's a moment to be proud and my team got me a Super Bowl dupe ring. but um I just think how do you the bar is set and how do you keep doing it year after year I think it was my first year we had very you know specific constraints on budget on timelines. we don't pay for commercial time.

you don't know when your spots are going to air. it's kind of like the wild West at Fox three days before so you have to create a lot of things and things are going to change last minute and you have to be flexible. The spots moved the amount of time we got moved. So um so I think that I just wonder uh like how do you continue and what it feels like your second time because your first time I think that the expectation is like oh we're gonna do this thing and we hope it's good but it's not like always comparing to yourself right? your own benchmarks which I think is is a challenge going forward right? I Did so much interruptive work a few years ago when they took over the Super Bowl this kind of reminded me of that.

that kind of the impact that you had just everyone was talking about it. and when you did the Takeover of the screen our house went nuts. It was all this screaming all over the house because we had a couple TVs on. We had a lot of young kids over all this screaming and that was it was so good.

So congrats Well done I'm lucky in the sense that the game was the Kansas City Chiefs and the Eagles it was so close I mean that spot moved a million times when they moved me to Q4 I was like no, this is going to be terrible and it was like it actually built to it. Yeah, quarter four is scary. like you know everyone's too young for this. um but boy oh boy.

the 80s the mid 80s to mid 90s was a disaster. Every game was a blowout and Quarter three and four was just like death. And you know, luckily the parody of the NFL now I think really helps us as marketers where most games are still going to be fairly close in third and fourth, but fourth quarter. still.

you know that I remember was it the Michael B Jordan Amazon ad with the Chiefs you know Tampa game which got a little bit out of hand towards the end I remember thinking that was a really strong potential ad that like really never caught it though if it was in the first quarter I felt would have had a lot more juice and so that talk about like timing and I think you know the tide hack Jim and I know Nick worked on that when he was at another agency like there were some really good stuff going on with that but that's commercial within commercial. Yeah, back to what Nicole's saying which is like the the Serendipity of just speaking out loud. this is a that's a big learning for what I just took away from Nicole is too many people here. sit even at this level, sit on ideas and just let them pass which is like one of like the amount of really not great thought starters that come out of my mouth in meetings is like a lot but it's because I lack God shaking his head yes there Yeah it's because I lack the fear I lack the fear that it's you know that's fine even sometimes by the time it's out of my mouth I'm like I didn't even like that my darn self but that might make Sam M who's on here say but yes but like we do not have an and and lack of fear, culture and marketing that we have in other parts of the business universe that I play in and I think again trying to think of themes for everyone to walk away from.

If anything, if Nicole and I know her very well because we spent a lot of time together, if she wasn't who she was and didn't have the ability to do that, then what happened happened Sunday doesn't happen I think a lot of people here even at the level they are today. sometimes in the midst of a the thing that I've always struggled with with creative agencies is they use subconscious or conscious behaviors towards their clients to impose their creative subjectivity as if there's so much more creative. you know. Back to the top thing I mentioned and I think everyone here, even if you were, you know some of the CMOS here came up the analytics track and have just decided that they're not as creative as like the fancy characters on the other side of their table.

and I think that's completely wrong. I think that we with our creative model over the last three years to Rob back to his journey, have proven actually good ideas can come from anywhere, including someone who's worked here for seven days versus a creative director at four fancy shops. That's a big transformation. And I think if anybody, if you want to leave with something out of this, we need to talk more in these meetings because our talking may not be the good thing.

it just might be the seed of a great thing that somebody else picks up on And back to everyone being leaders here, we must eliminate fear eye rolling like this. I Hate the human behavior that makes someone feel inferior in all shapes in life. and we definitely need to get that out of every creative meeting we're in because it nothing kills creativity more than a douchebag creative lead or a douchebag client that makes everyone feel like because they put out their subjective thing and then somebody in there thinks that their subjective thing is more better because of some award ad meter ad week. Uh, can Lion.

It's all not real. And please don't use not real to not be nice. Mm-hmm Andrea Sullivan the CMO Vaynermedia and one of my favorite people. Would you join us now and I think you're going to close us out with some hot takes Nicole Congrats What an amazing, amazing effort! but Andrea back to you to sort of close us out with a few hot takes.

We got some great folks in the audience that I we thought we might we might bring up and ask them what their hot takes were from the game. So can we bring up Ian Trombetta from the NFL Yeah great work, well done Ian Wow. Busy couple weeks. It's great to be here! Ian We'd love to hear from you a little bit about everybody's talking about the halftime show.

Yeah it was. uh it was great. um Rihanna was fantastic. Obviously new partner with Apple Music so there was quite a bit to get on board with them.

I Thought they did a really nice job. a lot to live up to with Pepsi in the last several years. So they did a great job. and the obviously Rihanna being pregnant uh which we learned at least I learned very late in the week during rehearsals.

that was such a a huge moment. Um, you know for for us as well as for for her and the audience at home. Um, a couple things that I just like to touch on if you don't mind just listening to the conversation. Um, you know the Super Bowl.

It's actually bigger than I Think many people actually know Uh, it's actually bigger than the 113 million people that Nielsen rates. What happens is they're measuring that off of an average household. Uh, that's that's watching TV on a normal basis. But if you take the Super Bowl which we've actually worked on some custom analysis with them, it's well over 200 million that are actually watching the Super Bowl live.

And such a powerful moment on social as well. It's the most powerful moment on social of the Year hands down. So whichever way you're looking at it through linear or through social and obviously, you should all be thinking about it just in terms of the surround sound on the day of, but also the week leading into it. There are so many great moments and hype building up into the Super Bowl starting with opening night and I think you know Laura who was on earlier Jen at the Eagles.

They both did a terrific job of Leaning into that moment when the teams arrived. So really, when that happens, the hype machine is starting and and nothing really else is is really invading the culture other than the Super Bowl conversation and that build up to the actual game itself. So lots of I think great momentum heading into next year in Las Vegas and you know Gary you you'd mentioned the international growth and that's something I'd love to talk about maybe maybe that at another time, but that is a major Focus for us as well. So super exciting and obviously great results for for hopefully everyone here.

Thank you Ian Congrats! We want to bring up Andrea Zaretsky next from E-Trade Hi How are you fantastic? Andrew You've been E-trade's been on the Super Bowl off and on for 15 years so I Love it! Want to hear this hot take for sure? Yeah, sure. Um, so you know this. First of all, it's great to be here. and I loved the work this year I thought it was incredible I think in addition to all the levity I think emotion was on the field this year.

the two dog commercials I think really captured everyone's Hearts You know sometimes we hope it's babies, but uh, dogs I think did a really good job Faith was on the field I thought that was a new one with the two commercials that got a lot of talk but I agree with you I think everyone's being a lot more holistic and thinking through their whole strategy to make the most of pregame day of and after the game. I'm seeing that from all the brands and I think that really helps with the investment in all the conversations you were having about. Roi How do you continue the momentum I Think that's the name of the game? Jump in here I Also Just want to say it. I Agree! E-Trade baby I do think is truly top 10 all time? um I Think we can all agree with that? agree but I just want to thank everybody I really hence why I'm jumping off I Have to go to a five o'clock That's a little bit of a important fire.

but just knowing how busy everybody is that all of you continue to show up to these and I'll leave you with the thing that matters to me the most. You need to hire people for your teams. I Think we've groomed some of the most contemporary, best talent in the world that played out today with Nicole on here. Um, if there's anything I can help you with, you need me to take a selfie with your nephew? Whatever you need, just reach out and uh I'll let you all continue here and I'll see you all soon! See you Gary Thank you Gary Foreign.

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