DARA TRESEDER: There are three things that make a great Super Bowl ad. It’s got to be ownable. People need to know that it is your brand because you are spending the money after all. It’s got to be memorable. If people can’t remember that it happened, you’re missing out on the ability to actually drive those business results.

And it’s got to be relevant because the relevance is what allows you to have the multiplier effect, to go from being just a 30-second spot or just a 60-second spot, to being something that lasts longer and ultimately drives the business impact that is needed. And I think that this year, brands played it safe.

There was a real lean into nostalgia and into what I would call Americana, and some did it right, and some didn’t do it well.

BOB SAFIAN: That’s Dara Treseder, chief marketing officer of Autodesk, formerly at Peloton, Apple, GE, and more. The morning after the Super Bowl, Dara joined me for a fun chat about the best and worst of this year’s Super Bowl ads — from the omnipresence of Matthew McConaughey to the creepy Tubi spot that made everyone get up and leave the room. Along the way, she shares key marketing lessons about celebrity endorsements, the ROI on making a political statement, and more. So let’s get to it. I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

[AD BREAK]

SAFIAN: I’m Bob Safian, and I’m here with Dara Treseder, the CMO of Autodesk. Dara, welcome back to Rapid Response.

TRESEDER: Thank you so much for having me. I am so thrilled. I have been looking forward to this conversation.

SAFIAN: Yeah, we’re here to talk Super Bowl ads like we did last year at this time. First of all, we should say congratulations to Eagles fans, condolences to Chiefs fans. I guess the same to Kendrick Lamar and Drake fans, right? In some ways, the most memorable part of the evening for me was the Serena Williams cameo in the halftime show.

TRESEDER: Oh yeah.

SAFIAN: You were telling me you have a Super Bowl party now?

TRESEDER: Absolutely, we had a Super Bowl party at my house. It was wonderful. It was a multi-generational party. So it was really great to see not only my own marketing take, but actually see how the audience and different demographics were responding to the ads. So it was a lot of fun.

That was a low focus group.

Are Super Bowl ads worth it?

SAFIAN: Last year, we talked about whether you would buy a 30-second spot for Autodesk. When you’re watching this year, like when you look at it, did you say, “Oh, maybe I should have, that would have been a good way to spend 8 million” or leave the…

TRESEDER: No, when I was watching the game, I was like, I am very glad with our strategy of not buying an ad in the Super Bowl. Look, I think sometimes it makes sense for your business. And I think you really have to understand: What are we trying to accomplish? What are the objectives? And will this help us make that happen?

I think that not enough brands who showed up this year did that calculation, I have to say. So, I think we did the right math by deciding to let our customers take center stage.

How the game’s competition impacts the ads

SAFIAN: When a game is not close, like this game was, from a marketer’s point of view…

TRESEDER: Close — not even a little.

SAFIAN: But from a marketer’s point of view, is that good — like people are going to spend more time paying attention to the ad? Or is that bad because people aren’t as intensely focused on the screen?

TRESEDER: It’s not good. It’s not good because people are getting up and people are leaving.

Consumers start to get distracted and go back to their lives when it’s not as competitive until the very end.

SAFIAN: You’re making a bet when you decide where you’re going to buy your ad, where in the show, right? Like in some ways it’s better to be at the end because people will remember you more, but only if the game is close.

TRESEDER: Only if the game is close. So that’s, again, you got to think about what is the calculus for what you’re trying to do, right? I always think that going early and in the middle is safe. Again, it comes down to calculated risk, a clear-eyed risk. What is a clear-eyed risk?

You gather as much data as you can, you strip away uncertainty, and then you make a decision with conviction. Going late is a risk that you should only take if you are sure that even if consumers get up and walk away, that placement still makes sense for your brand. But if you’re not sure about that, going early or going in the middle is probably a good way to make sure that you gather as many eyeballs as needed.

SAFIAN: If you’re a brand like Autodesk and you haven’t bought a Super Bowl spot, how do you participate in the moment in the attention that’s going on around the Super Bowl?

TRESEDER: If you have an authentic reason to participate in the conversation, hey, it’s as good a time as any to do that. So for us at Autodesk, our software is used to design and make anything, whether it is literally the Caesar Superdome stadium in NOLA that housed it all, or stages like Kendrick’s, or ads like the Michelob Ultra ad. Our software is used to design and make anything. So for us, being a part of the conversation makes sense in terms of celebrating our customers who are playing a role in the game.

Overarching themes of the Super Bowl ads

SAFIAN: Before we get into the specifics, do you have any big picture assessments from what you saw about the tone, the mood, the creativity?

TRESEDER: I’d say that brands played it safe this year. I think the biggest statement of the night was the halftime show, right? The Kendrick Lamar halftime show with Serena making a cameo in there. I think that was actually the biggest statement. Brands definitely played it safe, leaning more into ownability. There are three things that make a great Super Bowl ad. It’s got to be ownable. People need to know that it is your brand because you are spending the money after all. It’s got to be memorable. If people can’t remember that it happened, you’re missing out on the ability to actually drive those business results.

And it’s got to be relevant. Because the relevance is what allows you to have the multiplier effect, to go from being just a 30-second spot or just a 60-second spot, to being something that lasts longer and ultimately drives the business impact that is needed. And I think that this year, brands played it safe.

They over-indexed on ownability and some tried to dab into memorability in some scary ways. I don’t think I needed to see Seal as a seal, for example.

SAFIAN: Yeah.

TRESEDER: It didn’t quite work for me.

SAFIAN: The dancing tongue from Coffee Mate? No.

TRESEDER: There were some odd choices, pushing creative in a way that maybe creative does not need to be pushed.

And then I think from a relevance standpoint, not enough brands thought about: how do I really make this relevant? Relevance continues to be an important factor. So I would say overall, brands played it safe. Overall, there was a real lean into nostalgia and into what I would call Americana, and some did it right.

And some didn’t do it well. And then the last theme was brands thinking about celebrity. I thought not every use of celebrity made sense.

In some cases, there was an overuse of celebrity or it was an abuse of celebrity, and it just didn’t make sense. I’m thinking, how are you going to get the ROI on that cameo? Was that really worth it? Was that the best way to spend your marketing dollars?

In some cases, the answer to that was no.

SAFIAN: Are there ones that come to mind that you felt like overpacked the celebrity quotient?

TRESEDER: I think any time where I’m like, why is this celebrity here? If your customers and your prospects are confused, that’s already a no. I can tell you who got it right. Hellmann’s did a really great job recreating that iconic scene from When Harry Met Sally. That was clutch.

This iconic scene, it’s one that we all love and remember. And mayo, mayonnaise, showing up in this scene made complete sense. So talk about, that was, I think, a really good use of celebrity and the Sydney Sweeney cameo.

It was like that mic drop moment, “I’ll have what she’s having.” She’s America’s sweetheart of this modern day. And so to bring her in with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal was very well done.

SAFIAN: Helps make it relevant.

TRESEDER: And helps make it relevant so you could understand why Sydney’s presence was added to that conversation.

Why Budweiser ads worked

SAFIAN: For me, the Budweiser and Bud Light ads sort of perfectly reflected the moment. Bud Light had sort of a red-blooded American vibe of suburbia over the grill, and then like a Hallmark Channel emotion for Budweiser with the baby Clydesdale.

TRESEDER: I think Bud Light did a good job. They understand who their target audience is, and they spoke to their target audience in a way that deeply resonated. I also think there’s something powerful about what Budweiser was trying to do. It sort of felt like that uplifting community gathering vibe that we all needed. That inspiring story of a Clydesdale foal on a journey to deliver a Budweiser keg. I thought that was classic. It was amusing. They understood their demographic.

They had a clear message they were trying to deliver. And I think they delivered that well.

The ads that had “never been done before”

SAFIAN: Now you’ve used this expression, NBDB — never been done before. There wasn’t a whole lot of that, except for things that made you go a little bit.

TRESEDER: Let us talk about NBDB. And for those of you that are just tuning in, this is never been done before, right? We like a good NBDB. And I thought a brand that actually did that was Rocket. So Rocket had that wonderful ad that really talked about owning the dream, owning the American dream, and owning the home.

They took the time to tell the story in a way that was so powerful. I was watching it live, and everybody from my father-in-law to my daughter was like, “Oh, we like this one.” And every American can remember that song. I mean, Bob, I’m sure in a bar somewhere at 1 a.m. at some point or the other, you were singing about Country Roads taking you home.

SAFIAN: There’s no video of that.

TRESEDER: You’re neither going to confirm nor deny, but I thought that ad was great. But what was especially awesome was to see that connected with the live experience of Country Roads playing in the stands, right? And having the fans in the stadium. That was marketing magic, right?

Because the ad, the extension was so real, so powerful, so wonderful. So that was an NBDB. I don’t think I’ve seen any ads do that before where they connect what is happening on the screen to what is happening physically in the stadium in such a powerful integrated way. So I thought Rocket did that.

They certainly owned that NBDB category with that first-of-its-kind integration.

SAFIAN: So not the skin cowboy hat from Tubi. I didn’t get on with that.

TRESEDER: I mean, that was when everyone was like, “I’m going to go get some chips.”

SAFIAN: Nobody wants to watch that, right?

TRESEDER: I thought that ad was pushing creative direction. That’s what I meant. Because people were staying away from relevance, sometimes they turned up the dial on ownability or memorability in a way that didn’t always work.

And I think for that Tubi ad, they turned up the memorability dial a little too much, and it didn’t quite work.

The winner of the night

SAFIAN: I want to ask you about the Nike ad, the Nike “So Win” ad with top female athletes like Caitlyn Clark and Jordan Chiles and others. In some ways, it was like a throwback Nike ad to some of the things we’d seen from them before. So it wasn’t really never been done before, but at the same time, I thought it was pretty darn effective.

TRESEDER: I think Nike was the winner of the night, and I’ll tell you why. They did an amazing job of being ownable. It was like you said. It was an ownable Nike spot. You saw that spot, and you immediately knew it was Nike because of the athlete presence, the visual aesthetic, the black-and-white aesthetic, and the message. It showed the power of purpose and performance, and I have to give Nike a lot of credit for this spot because in a year where a lot of brands were staying away from saying anything, Nike said something.

They said something important. They said something that matters. And they said something that needed to be said, right? And that was the power of women in sports. And the importance of gender equity in sports. And I thought they said it really well. It wasn’t preachy. It was powerful. And, so talk about being memorable and being relevant.

And many of us can remember what was happening in the Olympics when Sha’Carri was running, she was ahead, and she looked to her left, and she looked to her right. And that moment was a part of the narrative, right? Many of us remember the journeys that these women athletes have had. And to see them standing on business, standing on power, standing on strength, it was saying, “Look, come what may, women’s sports is here to stay,” and I love that. And just watching my daughter watch that spot and her face light up, it was a powerful moment. So I think Nike did that, and they were really the only brand that made a statement, right?

A lot of brands talked about unity and nostalgia, which I thought was a little bit overdone, to be honest, and not actually reflective of the state of the country, so it felt a little forced, but I thought Nike did a really good job of saying, “Hey, we’re standing on business. We’re standing on purpose.”

We’re not cause-led, so we’re not jumping into a political conversation. But we’re standing on what makes sense for our business. Our values remain unchanged.

SAFIAN: I love how Dara gets right to the heart of the business and creative decisions that distinguish brands — whether that’s Nike or Budweiser or Tubi. After the break, we dig into what choosing a particular celebrity says — or doesn’t say — about your brand, plus the impressions left by OpenAI, Michelob Ultra, Dunkin’, Jeep, and more. Stay with us.

[AD BREAK]

Before the break, Autodesk chief marketing officer Dara Treseder talked about what makes a successful Super Bowl ad, and why she thinks Nike won the night. Now, Dara talks about the good and bad of celebrity endorsements, what Willem Dafoe has over David Beckham, and what successfully distinguished ChatGPT’s ad from the pack. Let’s jump back in.

The brands that got celebrity right

SAFIAN: I want to ask you a little bit more about celebrities. In a moment like this, are there kinds of celebrities that are more effective in this environment, or is it more just about the relationship of that celebrity to the brand? The person I think about with this is Matthew McConaughey, who seems like he’s sort of everywhere as a pitch man, but like, why?

TRESEDER: I think Matthew McConaughey, look, this is probably, I have no evidence that this happened, but I’m imagining Matthew McConaughey had a call with Snoop Dogg and was like, “Bro, you are everywhere. How do I get to be everywhere too?” And he collected the baton and kept running. So if there was a celebrity winner of the Super Bowl, it would be Matthew McConaughey.

I think online everyone has been talking about the renaissance of Matthew McConaughey. I like to call it the “McCon-aissance,” if you will. So I think there was a McCon-aissance happening. And look, I think because again, brands were playing it safe. Matthew McConaughey is one of those people that appeals to a wide audience.

So for the brands that were playing it safe, sort of sticking to a Matthew McConaughey felt like, okay, he’s relevant and interesting enough, but broad enough that he appeals to a wide array of folks.

Now, is that effective? That’s the question, right? I know we saw him in a Salesforce ad. We saw him in Uber Eats. Did it deliver on the message? Was it as memorable? I will say what I remembered more was that Matthew McConaughey was in the spots and that he was everywhere. So I think you have to think about the brands that got celebrity right were where there was a deep connection to the brand.

Like Ben Affleck continuing to talk about Dunkin’ Donuts makes sense.

Reflecting on the Stella Artois & Michelob Ultra ads

SAFIAN: I was scanning through some of the best and worst quick lists that are already up online — USA Today, New York Times, Fast Company — and one of the ads that was showing up on all of them, which a little bit surprised me, was the Stella Artois ad with David Beckham and Matt Damon.

TRESEDER: I thought that spot was good and speaking to a specific demographic. So I think brands decided, am I going to talk to everybody or am I going to talk to my people? And I thought that was one of the spots that was good. Would I say it was great?

I don’t think it was really memorable. I don’t think it was really as relevant. So it will be interesting to see. I don’t know that you’re going to get, for example, that celebrity usage versus some of the other ones we’ve talked about.

I don’t know if you get that same ROI, right? That same multiplier effect. That same continued conversation for a significant period of time after the day after the Super Bowl, right? Okay. Everyone’s writing about it today. It’s Monday. But is anyone going to be talking about it on Friday? I don’t think so.

I will tell you another use of celebrity that I really liked was the pickleball ad. I thought that was really smart with Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara. Pickleball is having a moment in American culture. So I actually liked that spot a lot because I thought this is a spot that is connecting what is happening in culture in a different way.

And it was also nice to see Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara kind of at the top of their game. And the spot itself — one of our Autodesk customers played a role in this, The Mill.

So Willem Dafoe, Catherine O’Hara, the athletes — they were all in different places, and Autodesk visual effects software like Autodesk Maya and Autodesk Arnold were used to help with telling that story. So I thought it was a nice way of also showing how technology and the magic behind the magic, which often doesn’t get talked about in the ads, is still playing a role.

Technology is having a moment right now, right? I mean, literally, physically making people, connecting people together digitally, and seeing that come to life in an ad was quite powerful.

Did OpenAI’s ad work?

SAFIAN: I’m curious if you had any reactions to the OpenAI ad. We haven’t had an AI…

TRESEDER: So, OpenAI entered the chat at just the right time. Let’s put it that way. I think the simplicity and the anonymity of their ad really reflected how dominant they are today.

I thought there was something cool about the pointillism and essentially how they intentionally enlisted human animators to design the art that kept us guessing whose ad it was, right?

That ad itself, I thought, perfectly embodied its message that AI amplifies human creativity and human ingenuity. There was no other ad like it. So in terms of memorability and being relevant to that intersection between humans and technology.

And the moment that ChatGPT appeared on the screen, it felt like a perfect mic drop.

Diversity within the half time show vs the ads

SAFIAN: You alluded to this a little earlier, but I wanted to ask you about it. It’s February, Black History Month. And I kept reflecting on how white the ads were, like the celebrities and the feel, whereas the halftime show, which you referred to earlier, was like a celebration of being Black. And it’s almost like they were for two different audiences?

TRESEDER: Isn’t that interesting? It is Black History Month. Happy Black History Month. I think that Kendrick Lamar did a wonderful job reflecting on our history, helping us remember where we’re coming from, but also reminding us of where we’re going.

His music is like poetry. The words are powerful. Some of it is, of course, tongue-in-cheek fun between him and Drake, but some of it really speaks to the Black American experience. We’ve had a challenging past, and even now, our struggles are not over.

We are still very much in the middle of that struggle. And I thought the halftime show really spoke to that. And I think that a lot of brands were afraid to do anything that could be seen as making a political statement. And I think that is sad because Black Americans are part of America.

Our Black history is part of American history. And I don’t think brands should be afraid to put Black people in their spot. They’re not afraid to take Black people’s money, right? In fact, they want us to purchase their products. I don’t think that brands should be afraid of showcasing their diverse customer base in a spot.

Now, I do think brands should be thoughtful about what statement, if any, they want to make, and we don’t want to be cause-led. I’ve been saying this for a long time. We want to be purpose-led, right? Because when you’re cause-led, you just, you don’t know what is important to you. And so you are just over here and over there, and you’re commenting on things that you have no business commenting on. I always say, if we’re not doing something about it, if it’s not core and fundamental to our business, we are not talking about this as a brand. Because it makes no sense for us to talk about it.

But I do hope that CMOs out there aren’t afraid to have anybody that is representative of their customer base in their spots, right?

It is okay to have your spots reflect your customer base. In fact, it is advisable to have your spots reflect your customer base. Of course, you do need to pay attention and make sure that the message is going to resonate with the audience.

How Jeep did “unity well”

SAFIAN: The ad that I felt deftly navigated a line between each side of our political divide surprised me a little. It was Jeep. It’s like you see the car, you see the waving flags and soldiers with families, which makes sense for Jeep. But then you also have Harrison Ford doing this voiceover about our differences can be our strength, and then they add a sort of funny reference to his name at the end, but it was trying to appeal to wherever you were, you might feel like that ad was for you.

TRESEDER: That was the only commercial that my husband commented on. And he’s a Marine, so I’m always interested to hear his perspective.

It was one of the few spots that did unity well because it didn’t fake it.

Nobody likes inauthentic unity, right? Because inauthentic unity actually highlights our division. Let’s be real. But I thought that spot did unity well because it really spoke to where we are. It allowed you to see yourself in the spot, and it also made us just reflect and think, okay, there is so much more that unites us than divides us.

That’s just a fact, right? Our human experience, there’s so much more we have in common, so much more we can lean into. And I think that spot gave us permission to do just that.

The 3 questions that lead to a winning ad

And I think at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, what do I want to say? Who do I want to say it to? And how long do I want to have them think on it? And I think the brands that answered those three questions well got it right. And the ones that didn’t, had a miss. Because this year, I think a lot of brands spent a lot of money and they’re not necessarily going to get the ROI because when you play it safe and you blend in, like my creative agency, Giants, always says, “Boring is bad for business,” and it is true.

No one remembers who you are. No one remembers what you did. No one remembers what you said. And so you have just spent millions, in some cases tens of millions, and you don’t have anything to show for it. So I do think that the brands that asked the right questions, that answered them the right way, did a good job.

I also want to give a shout out to the brands who maybe said, you know what, maybe this isn’t the Super Bowl that I’m going to put my spot in. Because when I ask myself those three questions, the answer is not a Super Bowl spot. That’s okay too. But, you know, the Super Bowl is the big leagues, right?

And so I also want to give credit to everybody who came because at the end of the day, you were in the arena and whether or not you won, whether or not you lost, you were in the arena and so hats off to you.

SAFIAN: Well, this has been great. Always great talking to you. Thanks so much for doing it.

TRESEDER: Thank you so much. We are going to do this again. I love this. This is so fun. You have Hot Takes with Bob and Dara about what happened at the Super Bowl. You could tune in again.

SAFIAN: The Super Bowl is such a high-wire act for brands — the risks and ROI calculations of spending millions on a brief stretch of airtime.

As Dara explains, some brands played it safe in terms of subject matter, but many overcompensated in creative ways, an unsuccessful way to distract from a lack of message. Her distinction between being purpose-led versus cause-led really resonated with me. Brands shouldn’t necessarily speak out on everything, but at the same time, a brand isn’t effective if it doesn’t stand for anything. That holds true not just at the Super Bowl but all year long. To the Eagles, Jeep, Nike, and all the brands that managed to thread the needle at this year’s Big Game, congratulations. To the Chiefs, and all the brands that didn’t quite hit the mark — or didn’t even try, better luck next year. I’m Bob Safian, thanks for listening.