A Creative’s First Super Bowl: The Less You Know, the Better?

The Super Bowl. For many creatives, it’s the pinnacle of our advertising careers. The brief we hope to get, and the one we feel so grateful to receive when we finally do. Because the Super Bowl is that one night a year where millions of people crowd around their screens and actually want to enjoy the ads.

A Game of Firsts

When Häagen-Dazs reached out to nice&frank last year with a brief that beheld those three magic worlds, ‘Super Bowl spot’, that pinnacle moment was suddenly in arm’s reach. 

Here’s the thing. While it was the iconic ice cream brand’s first time at the Big Game, it would be mine, too. For a humble nine-person agency at the time, less than two years established, this was also nice&frank’s first opportunity to throw down on a brief this big.

No pressure, right?

Just Have Fun With It

Well, to my surprise, there really wasn’t – thanks to nice&frank’s co-founder and CCO, mentor, friend, and seven-time Super Bowl vet, Laura Petruccelli. From day one, she instilled the freedom to have as much fun on this assignment as humanly possible. Get out of our heads, dream big, surpass limits. “Just have fun, mate,” she would call and say in her Aussie voice. Laura could have stacked a team full of Super Bowl creative aces, but she didn’t. Instead, she trusted in me and my creative director partner, Erica Stevens - two NYC girlies who love craft, fashion and all things niche - to lead us to the end zone.

Now, here’s the other thing about the Super Bowl and my newcomer take. While it is the advertising big leagues, it can often feel ridden with rules, formulas and expected structures; must-haves like celeb cameos, ‘buttons’, and cramming as many jokes as you can fit into 30-60 seconds. As someone who appreciates structure and routine in most aspects of her life, creativity is the one place I enjoy breaking from it. So, you can imagine how this checklist of Super Bowl must-haves could feel stifling at first.

A Slower Take On Super Bowl

Luckily, our beloved brand partners at Häagen-Dazs weren’t about those rules either. Their strategic position of ‘slowing down and savouring life’s moments’ was about as non-Super Bowl speed as it gets. ‘Let’s spark the slow rebellion’ was our unified intention. Together, we knew we wanted to create something that felt different, warm and slower paced amidst all the commercial chaos. That’s just what we did.

What started as a simple yet sharp idea – ‘to go slow, let’s flip something fast’ – turned into ‘Not So Fast, Not So Furious’ and a full 360º campaign with teasers and activations surrounding it. We took the fastest franchise in all film history, ‘Fast & Furious’, and slowed down its fastest icons. In the spot, we see Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez taking a slow, 20-mph cruise along the coast with their Häagen-Dazs ice cream bars, set to the buttery tune of ‘Crusin’’ by Smokey Robinson.

It’s In The Details

Along with some of the creative structures we’ve come to expect, the Super Bowl can often take on a certain visual aesthetic that leaves something to be desired, emphasising slapstick over style. While I love to laugh at a good zinger, I also love detail. It was important to me to uphold a certain level of craft from start to finish, if we truly wanted to stand out on the biggest stage in advertising. Luckily, the team at Häagen-Dazs came with that same appetite for taste.

To help bring that taste to life was the directorial brain behind the spot: the legend, Lance Acord. While it wasn’t his first time filming a primetime game day spot, he helped us protect the visual and narrative craft of the entire story. With Lance and his deep-rooted film background, the goal was to never just ‘make a spot’, but to craft a beautifully cinematic campaign with teasers that felt reminiscent of a film rollout. 

Post-Match Reflections

With one Super Bowl under my belt now, I can confidently say sometimes the less you know, the better. There is literally no better feeling than not knowing. It’s a beautiful thing when you aren’t weighed down by the restraints of what works and what doesn’t. You’re able to follow your creative intuition and lead with feeling.

Like with anything in life, there’s beauty in the unknown. And okay, maybe a Ludacris cameo doesn’t hurt.