{"id":830557,"date":"2025-02-28T13:12:13","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T19:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/28\/inside-the-debut-super-bowl-strategies-of-haagen-dazs-duracell-and-msc-cruises\/"},"modified":"2025-02-28T13:12:13","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T19:12:13","slug":"inside-the-debut-super-bowl-strategies-of-haagen-dazs-duracell-and-msc-cruises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/28\/inside-the-debut-super-bowl-strategies-of-haagen-dazs-duracell-and-msc-cruises\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the debut Super Bowl strategies of H\u00e4agen-Dazs, Duracell and MSC Cruises"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of Digiday\u2019s annual coverage of the Super Bowl. More from the series \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n

The Super Bowl represents a high-stakes maneuver for top marketers. Mess up, and you\u2019ve tipped as much as $8 million down the drain<\/a>. Stick the landing, and you\u2019ll have reached a third of Americans in 30 seconds.<\/p>\n

For the most part, the Super Bowl is reserved for brands that have already come to terms with the risks, like Budweiser, which has run big game spots for over 40 years with only a single year skipped, or 11-time returnee Squarespace.<\/p>\n

\n

Occasionally, however, we find a contender willing to take a fresh risk. This year, there\u2019s at least three.<\/p>\n

H\u00e4agen-Dazs, Duracell and MSC Cruises will each run their first Super Bowl spots this weekend. Although they\u2019re each playing within the same 30- or 60-second framework, their business goals, and creative approaches, differ.<\/p>\n

And although most viewers will be glued to the small screen during the game, it\u2019s not the only channel of importance. For example, when Squarespace ran its first Super Bowl ad in 2014, its media investment started and ended with a single TV spot. Those days are long gone. \u201cOur approach to paid media and the channels we leverage has changed drastically,\u201d Pamela Piccola-Fales, vp of media and acquisition at Squarespace, said in an email. \u201cNow, we have so many more levers at our disposal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brands today commonly look to amplify the impact of their Super Bowl TV activity with a battery of digital ad investments, particularly in paid social and CTV. In addition to the $7 million to $8 million required to run a 30-second ad during the big game, advertisers might devote up to 25% of their overall Super Bowl budget to such channels, estimated Kevin Goodwin, vp of digital marketing at New Engen.<\/p>\n

Digiday spoke with top marketers from Super Bowl newcomers H\u00e4agen-Dazs, Duracell and MSC Cruises to explore why they\u2019ve decided to spend on the Super Bowl now, where else they\u2019re spending and what return on their investment they\u2019re hoping for.<\/p>\n

H\u00e4agen-Dazs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Ice cream companies traditionally don\u2019t move much product in February. H\u00e4agen-Dazs hopes a Super Bowl spot can help it change that habit.<\/p>\n

The General Mills subsidiary is the best-selling ice cream brand in the U.S., but it wants to generate more interest in its \u201cice cream snack\u201d products (the kind that come on a wooden stick, rather than a in pint) via a single spot featuring \u201cFast & Furious\u201d stars Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Super Bowl is obviously a huge stage, and it\u2019s also a very big snacking occasion,\u201d noted H\u00e4agen-Dazs\u2019s head of marketing Rachel Jaiven, who added that the brand aimed to entice millennial consumers to buy a broader range of ice cream products throughout the calendar year.<\/p>\n

In the past, Jaiven said H\u00e4agen-Dazs would have concentrated its ad budget (which totaled $41.5 million in 2024, per Kantar figures) between April and September. Following a 2021 brand reset, she said, \u201cover the last couple of years, we have been investing more broadly across the year.\u201d Without providing specific financials, she said late March and early April as well as Q4 represent new periods of focus. This year\u2019s star-studded Super Bowl ad represents a shift in gear of that strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very big increase in our spend versus Q1 of prior years because of the Super Bowl \u2026 it helps us stand out,\u201d said Jaiven.<\/p>\n

Anticipating rising interest in halftime show performer Kendrick Lamar, H\u00e4agen-Dazs has booked ads against his videoback catalog on Vevo, and sponsored Super Bowl halftime show-themed playlists on Spotify.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also have some pre-roll and high-impact placements around the \u2018Fast and Furious\u2019 franchise and action category films,\u201d she added. In a follow-up email, a spokesperson for H\u00e4agen-Dazs said those placements were booked on NBCU streaming platform\u00a0Peacock.<\/p>\n

Alongside the TV spend, the brand is increasing the \u201cintensity\u201d of paid spend across Meta, YouTube Shorts, TikTok and out-of-home through to the end of March.<\/p>\n

Duracell<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Duracell\u2019s Super Bowl wish is to extend its grip on the household battery market in the U.S.<\/p>\n

To do that, it created a new mascot character and spun up a campaign, launched back in October, that focuses on the proprietary \u201cPower Boost\u201d technology in its products. Its single Super Bowl spot will \u201canchor\u201d that activity, Ramon Velutini, president of North America and Latin America at Duracell, told Digiday.<\/p>\n

Via agencies Vaynermedia and EssenceMediacom, the brand is surrounding that TV activity with digital video spend and paid social including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no better stage to introduce a character and communicate your brand message than the Super Bowl,\u201d Velutini said. He argued that, at $7 million per 30 seconds, the Super Bowl is a relative bargain. \u201cMy point of view is that it\u2019s not only fairly priced, but it has the potential to be undervalued,\u201d he said, \u201cwhen you think about the amount of people that are watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

MSC Cruises<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For its first Super Bowl campaign, MSC Cruises has a straightforward ambition. \u201cOur goal is to get people on our ship,\u201d said Allison Smith, the cruise line\u2019s svp of marketing.<\/p>\n

The company is a leading cruise operator in Europe, but a \u201cchallenger brand\u201d in the context of the U.S., she added. Accordingly, it wants to break into the American market and make itself \u201ca household name,\u201d said Smith. \u201cWhat better way to do that than the Super Bowl?\u201d<\/p>\n

The scale of the big game, when set against declining TV viewership away from the floodlit world of live sports, underpins that case. \u201cThe monoculture is largely dead. Attention is highly fragmented and scattered,\u201d said Goodwin. The Super Bowl, by contrast, is a \u201cvery rare, unique moment where attention is hyper-concentrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

MSC\u2019s single 60-second spot stars Drew Barrymore and Orlando Bloom as they extol the virtues of European-style sailing on the company\u2019s new vessel, MSC World America. The brand\u2019s media agency of record is OMD, while it\u2019s working with Kantar to track the impact of the campaign.<\/p>\n

Though Smith declined to provide a breakdown of MSC\u2019s overall campaign budget, she said it\u2019s following Sunday\u2019s spot with a two-week \u201cblitz\u201d combining digital spend and cable TV, including \u201clocal heavy ups\u201d in regions key for success in the market (particularly Florida and New York).<\/p>\n

The brand\u2019s digital media mix will prioritize TikTok, Meta platforms Instagram and Facebook, and CTV channels including YouTube \u201cfor incremental reach,\u201d Smith added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story is part of Digiday\u2019s annual coverage of the Super Bowl. More from the series \u2192 The Super Bowl represents a high-stakes maneuver for top marketers. Mess up, and you\u2019ve tipped as much as $8 million down the drain. Stick the landing, and you\u2019ll have reached a third of Americans in 30 seconds. For<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":830558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22094,118],"tags":[6613,5968],"class_list":{"0":"post-830557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-debut","8":"category-inside","9":"tag-debut","10":"tag-inside"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}