After sharing the slate of Thursday night NFL games with the nascent NFL Network for the last two seasons, CBS is now forced to share the lucrative franchise with one of its broadcast rivals: NBC.

As the NFL takes over the Bay Area this week for Super Bowl 50, the league has reached a new two-year deal for its Thursday Night Football package, adding NBC to the mix.

Under the new deal, CBS gets five early season Thursday night games, with NBC getting five late-season games and the remainder going on NFL Network. The league is also looking to cut an additional streaming package with Yahoo, Google or Apple that would put even more money in its coffers. An announcement on that is expected in the near future.

"We are continuing to make Thursday Night Football bigger and better," said Commissioner Roger Goodell. "CBS has played an integral role over the last two seasons in helping build Thursdays as a night for NFL football, and we're excited to have them on board again." 

Goodell said he's "thrilled to add NBC to the Thursday Night Football mix," calling the network "a trusted partner with a proven track record of success broadcasting NFL football in primetime." NBC will continue with its Sunday Night Football package. With 22 million viewers, it's the most popular show on broadcast TV. Thursday Night Football was the 4th-most watched this season averaging 17.7 million for CBS.

CBS and NBC will pay the league between $450-$500 million, according to multiple reports. CBS paid an estimated $300 million for its eight-game slate this past season.

The deal puts 10 games on broadcast TV, up from eight the past two seasons. But the league needs to maintain a certain amount of games exclusive to NFL Network due to its carriage deals with satellite and cable operators; the NFL Network will maintain exclusivity on eight games next season, and will get production assistance from both CBS and NBC.

The deal is a major win for NBC. Once must-see TV, NBC's Thursday nights have suffered for the past decade. With the NFL, the Comcast network will also have a powerful new Thursday night platform to showcase its new mid-season shows.

Taco Bell has created plenty of pregame buzz around its Super Bowl spot without revealing very much at all. The Yum! Brands fast-food chain teased its first appearance since 2013 with a cheeky Jan. 7 press release. While much of the text was comically redacted, we do know that a 30-second spot from Deutsch L.A. will air during the first quarter, touting one of Taco Bell's "biggest product launches to date." And, well, that's about all the chain's said so far. Conjecture has run rampant. Will the big reveal be the Quesalupa—like a chalupa, but much, much cheesier? Taco Bell has been testing that item in some markets. Still, the company insists that it won't say which "food innovation" will bow in the Super Bowl until game day.

We asked Taco Bell's Marisa Thalberg, promoted to chief marketing officer a month ago—after spending her first eight months at the company as head of brand engagement—to dish about what viewers can expect.

Adweek: The redacted press release was a masterstroke—it's generated plenty of hype beyond a single half-minute spot.
Marisa Thalberg: I think it's important to note that we didn't start with the goal of "Let's be a Super Bowl advertiser." For us, this is about having the right big news launching at the right time. We thought we could have a lot of fun introducing it in the biggest game, and biggest media event, of the year. Here's the one clue I'll give you about the campaign: Our partners at Deutsch came up with a great insight a while back, that Taco Bell has at times legitimately ascended to the very top of the pop-culture pyramid—a pipe dream for most brands. So we felt that gave us a right to play there, genuinely and a little whimsically. If you think about that insight, you know how we connect with our fans has to go beyond one TV commercial.

Marisa Thalberg 

Any worry that, with so much pre-game hype, the commercial, or the food item, will be anti-climactic?
I think my best answer here is, nope!

How does Taco Bell keep the good vibes and buzz going after the game?
If you look at the arc of buzz around many Super Bowl advertisers, it has a sharp decline within a few days following the game. However, the Super Bowl is simply our launching pad for our big new food innovation—that shall not yet be named. We are all focused on having this just be the start of the excitement. Keep an eye out for us a week later on the Grammys, for instance.

So, the Super Bowl ad will be—what? Funny? Absurdly funny? Face-meltingly funny? With celebs? Animation? F/X?
I'd rather under-promise and overdeliver—but think fun, and very clever. That's all I'm giving.

Does having a Super Bowl ad air a few weeks after becoming CMO put added pressure on you?
Being in the Super Bowl is a dream for a CMO.

        

Taco Bell announced its Super Bowl return with this comical press release.Courtesy of Taco Bell

Generally speaking, what makes a great Super Bowl commercial?
The Super Bowl represents a rare magic moment for marketers where people are actually leaning forward and ready to embrace advertising as opposed to rejecting it. This is actually an excellent reminder that even in our highly fragmented media world, great storytelling remains the best way to break through. As such, I think advertising that rewards consumers for being smart, with an idea that isn't gratuitous but makes you legitimately smile, feel something and/or surprises you in a good way—that wins. Also, the idea needs to feel right coming from the brand that does it. On a business level, it's a poor—not to mention extremely expensive—investment if your commercial doesn't leverage this massive audience to incite action.

Do you have any favorite Super Bowl ads?
I will risk lapsing into cliché here, but I'm going to answer this with the spots that remain memorable to me without even having to think hard about it—and that's significant in and of itself. I loved the nuanced emotion of the classic Coca-Cola "Mean Joe Greene" spot, and, more recently, Volkswagen's "Darth Vader kid" spot. I also absolutely loved that when Google made its first foray into TV a few years ago, it was so simple and artful with their "Parisian Love" story. Perfection. For just being epic, who can forget Apple's iconic "1984" spot? On a more humorous side, I thought the way Snickers used Betty White was fabulous. Interestingly, all of these show at least an implicit understanding of the cultural zeitgeist.

Can you think of any you especially dislike?
Let's just say I have a real disdain for lowest common-denominator jokes. Fans of the game and fans of advertising deserve better.

This story first appeared in the Feb. 1 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.

With the large, and usually record-setting, audience that tunes into the Super Bowl, the network fortunate enough to air it has a prime opportunity to showcase one of its top shows in the lead-out slot. However, despite the larger-than-usual audiences that tune in right after the game, few actually stick around in the subsequent weeks. In fact, the last three shows to get that plum spot saw slight audience decline from their pre-Super Bowl episode.

Infographic: Carlos Monteiro

This story first appeared in the Feb. 1 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Like other advertisers, Volvo last year said no thanks to plunking down more than $4 million for a 30-second Super Bowl spot. But it didn't sit on the sidelines. Rather, the automaker crashed the game via Twitter, unleashing "The Greatest Interception Ever," a campaign that encouraged fans to tweet the hashtag #VolvoContest and enter a friend to win a Volvo XC60 during the airing of rival automakers' spots. Created by Grey New York, the effort went viral, generating 55,000 tweets using the hashtag and scoring 114,000 mentions.

Over the course of the game, Volvo trended globally on social media, while the promotion yielded a 70.7 percent year-over-year increase in XC60 sales in February 2015, Volvo said. The cost for all that? Not one media dollar, according to Grey.

As the price of a Super Bowl spot soars—this year hitting $5 million for 30 seconds—brands including Volvo, Esurance, Newcastle Brown Ale and Adobe are finding some creative and economical ways to get in on the action—whether via social media, a regional ad buy, or a pre- or post-game ad. Not only are they cheaper, but they also can be every bit as clever as a big-budget effort and generate even more buzz.

"For a lot of brands, it's cost prohibitive to have a major role in the Super Bowl," said Brian Shembeda, evp and creative director at Leo Burnett, which created Esurance's 2014 gambit. "It just doesn't make sense to spend that money. For some brands, that's their entire marketing budget for the next three to six months. Figuring out a smarter way to get your message across means you're going to have a lot more breakthrough."

In 2014, Esurance sought to "build brand recognition and trust" by way of a multipronged effort that included the first spot to air after the Super Bowl, pointed out Nancy Abraham, vp of integrated marketing communications for the company. The strategy saved the brand 30 percent, or $1.5 million—a fact that Esurance cheekily touted, passing those savings onto one lucky viewer via a sweepstakes on Twitter. The hashtag #EsuranceSave30 trended within an hour of the ad and got 5.3 million mentions and 2.6 billion social impressions globally.

Such campaigns are certainly helped by evolving strategies around Super Bowl advertising. Instead of being "about the night of or the couple of days around the Super Bowl, [the work is] now something that lives online," said Andreas Dahlqvist, chief creative officer of Grey New York. "There's more anticipation about advertising, well beyond the time frame of the commercial breaks. The whole notion of changing the way people watch ads around the Super Bowl has helped these kind of initiatives actually have a chance."

Another master of the ambush ad is Newcastle, which scored viral hits in both 2014 and 2015. The first effort, "If We Made It," featured actress Anna Kendrick in a hilarious, profanity-laden rant lambasting the brewer for backing out of the Super Bowl. It nabbed 10 million views and lifted brand awareness 416 percent, according to agency Droga5.

As a follow-up, Newcastle bought a regional spot in Northern California. "Band of Brands" featured yet another acerbic actress, Aubrey Plaza, in a crowdfunded campaign that was supported by 37 brands—among them, Jockey, Lee Jeans and Brawny.

"We thought it'd be fun to insert ourselves in the hype just like everyone else but just not pay $3.5 million or however many million for a spot," said Ted Royer, chief creative officer at Droga5. "We knew that not having the ad [in the game] would be a big PR hook. It was all about using all the avenues, all the lanes that had been created by every other brand to brag, using those as a fun way to subvert the whole thing."

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners' ambush spot for Adobe, to be released today, is just the latest example of that brand finding a way in. In 2013, its "Animals" spot aired after the Super Bowl, featuring a monkey asking: "Can you believe they spend millions of dollars on these things. For what? Thirty seconds?"

As attractive as reaching a Super Bowl-sized audience without the investment may sound, analysts caution that some of the more famous efforts may have been a matter of pure luck.

"Ambushes done right can deliver instant fame and talk value, but the unpredictability of catching lightning in a bottle is not suited for everyone or every brand," said Eric Springer, chief creative officer at Innocean. "This doesn't mean you have to play it safe, but guaranteeing an official spot, with viewership over 115 million eyeballs, can do amazing things for any brand."

This story first appeared in the Feb. 1 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Amazon, Apartments.com and online lender SoFi all announced their first Super Bowl ad buys last week, joining returning advertisers Esurance and website makers Wix and Squarespace. The moves shed light on an old industry debate: Is it smart to burn $5 million on a single TV spot instead of aggressively targeting Google and Bing users based on what they're searching for at that moment?

The question is "completely valid," acknowledged Chris Paul, Squarespace vp of media and acquisitions, before pointing to the ever-increasing use of tablets and smartphones during TV viewing. "We've turned a digitally native analytics team toward our TV efforts and found that the second-screen approach can be real and valuable," he said. A million viewers visited Squarespace's microsite while its ad aired during last year's game.

Wix's Super Bowl spot helped lift first-quarter revenue by 54 percent to $44.5 million, and its registered users jumped 35 percent over the prior first quarter.

Apartments.com CMO Becky Carr has high hopes for her Super Bowl spot, noting that recent TV efforts helped double revenue and triple site visitors.

Meanwhile, Duluth Trading Company, TireRack.com, FarmersOnly.com, Fathead.com and other e-commerce brands have become regular cable advertisers. Some marketers, however, remain steadfast in their belief that television just isn't worth the expense. Mattress seller Bedgear has stuck with digital ads—even as competitor Casper has gone big with TV spots. 

"E-commerce brands can be far more effective from an ROI perspective with [one-to-one] advertising online," contended digital marketing consultant Sundeep Kapur.

But Carr said naysayers are missing a larger point—digital and mass media are becoming one and the same with consumers and should work in concert. "We want to build a brand and build brand trust," she explained. "And you don't get that just through search-engine marketing."

This story first appeared in the Feb. 1 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.

During the first Super Bowl a half-century ago, Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi threw a fit when the second-half kickoff had to be done over. The reason? NBC held off returning to the game until after it aired a commercial for Winston cigarettes. It was an embarrassing moment but also a harbinger of things to come, as the game would become the single most important event in advertising.

Today, marketers are writing checks north of $5 million for 30 seconds of airtime. The game continues to command ever loftier rates because no other event brings so many Americans together. (NBC's airing of last year's matchup drew an average audience of 114.4 million viewers, making it the most watched telecast in U.S. history.)

As the Super Bowl is a window on American culture, commercials in the game are an historical record of what we think is funny, important and ultimately worth buying. Here, highlights from 50 years of championship plays—the marketing kind.

This story first appeared in the Feb. 1 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.

 

Specs
Current gig CEO of TBWA\Chiat\Day New York
Previous gig Global creative president, TBWA Worldwide
Twitter@Schwartzie14
Age 50

Adweek: Will the Super Bowl always be advertising's crown jewel?
Rob Schwartz: This is the last stand of nonfragmented media moments when we have the world watching. Awards shows are done. Between the Oscars and Grammys, there's a little bit [of influence], but the Super Bowl remains the biggest in terms of scale. Yet, of the 50-some spots that will run during the Super Bowl, we will only end up talking about three to five of them.

How far ahead of time does your team begin working on Super Bowl campaigns?
If the game is January 28th, then the planning [for next year's campaign] starts on the 29th. The first step is postmortem, and then you start dreaming for the brand. Another thing that's happening is that we're starting to concept the ads in March and begin producing them by the summer. If you're AB InBev, you may produce 10 spots before the Super Bowl just to see what catches fire before you run three.

You've worked on a few Super Bowl spots. How have the criteria for a successful Super Bowl campaign changed in recent years?
The measurements of success have changed in terms of proliferation. First and foremost is the USA Today Ad Meter, then YouTube's AdBlitz, then maybe the Radian6 social media test. Then you have the guys who come in and do business analytics, the Millward Brown tests, earned media, general number of shares, likes and tweets, et cetera. When you're on the morning shows the following day, you can also count some of those eyeballs.

Generally speaking, how has TBWA's New York office succeeded where other agencies' expansion efforts have not?
I'm a New Yorker; I grew up on the East Side. When I hear, "We have a satellite office in New York," that doesn't work. These agencies aren't treating New York like a universe unto itself. I left here pre-9/11, and I came back [from Los Angeles] to a bigger, better, more amazing city than I could ever imagine. The kids here are so ambitious that they have energized me.

Will the New York office play a more prominent role in the network moving forward?
I was charged by global CEO Troy Ruhanen with making New York a center of strategic and creative excellence. Our positioning is: "New York hustle, global muscle." We're an iconic agency with the reach, power and resources of a global network, and we work with global clients. The way we operate is via a simple model I call BAYsics: brand first, agency second and your individual agenda last. People say, "What's in it for me?" but we try to create a culture where people say, "What's in it for the clients?"

What does TBWA\Chiat\Day New York have planned for the coming year?
Starting last year, we tried to go back to the soul of this company: an ambitious network that wants to create work that makes a dent in the universe on behalf of the brands we serve. That was Jay Chiat's vision. He also wanted to have an amazing New York office, and everyone here wants to honor that. 2015 was about getting our house in order and drafting the right players [like new global creative president Chris Garbutt]. We did the groundwork and won eight new clients, so now we have the opportunities. 2016 will be the year of the creative product.

How has running TBWA's New York operations for a year differed from your last position?
I've been working in the TBWA network for more than 17 years now, and I'm trying to remind people that they're part of a special organization with a great legacy. We just want to deliver what we promise—an amazing creative product.

This story first appeared in the Feb. 1 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Twitter is asking its biggest advertisers to speak emoji—for $1 million.

Since October, Twitter has designed 17 custom emojis—three of which launch this week for Super Bowl campaigns with Pepsi and Anheuser-Busch. Multiple sources confirmed to Adweek a "seven-figure" price for the branded icons, saying that the custom emojis are reserved for Twitter's biggest advertisers, including Coke, Starbucks, Spotify and Dove. Such brands' million-dollar deals entail packages, per sources, that involve the custom emoji with different combinations of the following: Promoted Trends (which normally cost $200,000), Promoted Moments and Promoted Tweets. 

Instead of running a $5 million Super Bowl TV ad, "some of our clients have been talking about custom emojis on Twitter—this kind of investment could yield five custom, completely bespoke emojis on the Twitter platform," said Jesse Cahill, head of planning for North America at Essence.

"Whether it's a branded keyboard or the [Twitter] emoji, we look at those things," he continued. "But for the most part, we think about building brands and what is the most effective and efficient thing. When you think about Super Bowl advertising, it tends to be around brand awareness and perception."

Super Bowl advertiser Anheuser-Busch has created two separate Twitter emojis—one for Bud Light and the other for Budweiser—that launch today. Bud Light's Twitter blitz supports "The Bud Light Party" campaign with Amy Schumer and Seth Rogen.

"We will be the only alcohol, wine or spirit brand to have custom emojis that will launch [for] Super Bowl when our spots release," said Azania Andrews, senior director of digital connections at Anheuser-Busch InBev. "We know that custom emojis are a relatively new addition to Twitter, and we're really excited to bring that to consumers and help us spread the word."

On Sunday, Pepsi will run a Promoted Moment during the Super Bowl in conjunction with a custom emoji of music notes floating out of a can of soda that automatically pop up whenever someone tweets #PepsiHalftime. The effort is part of PepsiCo's strategy to put 40 percent of its Super Bowl campaign toward digital.

Verizon is also tying together Twitter ads and emojis. On Sunday, the mobile carrier bought the site's Promoted Trend with the hashtag #Minute50 that included a custom emoji for a promotion that doled out prizes like Super Bowl tickets and 55-inch TVs. (Click the tweet below to see the emoji.)

One tiny text wins you a 55-inch TV. Text Minute50 to 502016 to enter. #Minute50https://t.co/1UYBwGRR1d

— Verizon (@verizon) February 1, 2016

And when Starbucks aimed to spread holiday cheer with its annual Red Cup campaign, the coffee chain launched a custom emoji and bought a Promoted Moment that pulled coffee-related content together.

Combining branded emojis with big ad buys could be one way for Twitter to show brands the power of the platform in terms of visuals and real-time conversations.

In addition to the sponsored emojis, Twitter has also designed icons for big cultural events like the 2016 Election, the Chinese New Year and Star Wars that are sure to be buzzy conversations on social media.

Still, it's not clear whether or not the expensive emojis can turn around Twitter's ongoing woes. Last week, the social net lost a few top executives, and its stock price recently took a massive fall.

For the first time in over a decade, Budweiser will tackle drunken driving during the Super Bowl. The Anheuser-Busch brand, which has two spots in the Big Game, will use its 60-second slot to talk about the problem and is tapping actress Helen Mirren to do it. 

The ad, "Simply Put," from Anomaly in New York, eschews the typical PSA format, instead using Mirren's humor and charm to goad people into paying attention to the message.

"We want this spot to really cut through and create conversation about drunken driving," said Brian Perkins, vp of marketing, Budweiser North America. "To do that, our hypothesis was that we had to break some rules and conventions for how this is normally addressed. So there's no roads, no vehicles, no smashed-to-pieces glass on the ground. ... The selection of Helen Mirren fits that strategy." 

See the full spot here: 

Budweiser has also partnered with Twitter to create a branded emoji, #GiveADamn, and will donate $1 dollar to safe ride programs (up to $1 million) in 2016 every time the hashtag is used as part of its anti-drunken driving efforts.

It's not the first time Budweiser has addressed the issue during a Super Bowl—the last time was in 2005—but it has never done so as directly as it's doing with this effort, according to Perkins.

"To me, whether or not we have in the past, it feels disruptive and new to use a stage as big as the Super Bowl and a media unit as expensive as the Super Bowl to actually not really talk about us but instead to talk about this social problem," said Perkins. "It's a bold move." 

As part of the initiative, Budweiser created a mobile site, StandWithBud.com, which works as a resource to show consumers all the ways they can get home safely. Budweiser also partnered with Uber and Lyft, offering discount codes for rides home after the Big Game. The site encourages consumers to sign a pledge, too, saying they won't drink and drive. 

The brand has another spot, the 30-second "Not Backing Down," in which its famed Clydesdales will return. The ad builds on the messaging from last year's "Brewed the Hard Way" spot showing how much work goes into Bud's brewing process. Budweiser, which recently revamped its packaging, won't be releasing "Not Backing Down" before it airs during the game on Sunday. 

"The overall message and the overall strategy [with Bud's two Super Bowl spots] is that we wanted to convey care," said Perkins. "Number one, show care in how we brew the beer—which is much more the track of the spot 'Not Backing Down.' The next piece was to convey how much we care about the person who drinks our beer—which is 'Simply Put.' ... We're a brand that cares enough to make a cultural leadership statement on the Super Bowl." 

• For more Super Bowl 50 news, check out Adweek's Super Bowl Ad Tracker, an up-to-date list of the brands running Super Bowl spots and the agencies involved in creating them.

It was a plum role he might have eventually discussed at length with his fellow thespians on Inside the Actors Studio. But alas, James Lipton's chances at the biggest commercial stage have been unceremoniously dashed—according to this amusing TurboTax Super Bowl teaser from Wieden + Kennedy. 

W+K's meta Super Bowl campaign for TurboTax pokes fun at celebrity endorsements, teasers and teasers for teasers, beginning with "Someone Else," a 60-second spot that rolled out Tuesday (directed by Knucklehead's Ben Gregor)—showing the 89-year-old Bravo personality arriving for a meeting about a commercial for which, he believes, he has secured the leading role.



Alas, his dreams are destined to melt away, like the ice-cream cake he so thoughtfully brought with him. Just who the "Someone Else" is who will actually star in TurboTax's commercial on Sunday remains a secret. But expect more shenanigans along the way.

TurboTax will run a 30-second spot on Sunday in its third straight Super Bowl appearance. 

Lipton has done ads before, notably in a 2009 PSA campaign from LG and Young & Rubicam encouraging safe texting among young people; and a 2011 effort for Toyota in which he pondered what the plural of "Prius" might be. 

Like a big star who undergoes a few nips and tucks before a big moment in front of millions, CBS is freshening up the CBS Sports logo before its Super Bowl 50 close-up on Sunday. The logo, which debuted in 1981, has been updated for the first time in 35 years.

CBS Sports' new logo, which the network rolled out this week in the lead-up to Sunday's Super Bowl 50, is part of a new on-air graphics look for CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network. "There's no higher-profile vehicle to launch something like that, so that's why we chose Super Bowl week," said Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports and executive producer of CBS's Super Bowl 50 coverage. "The graphics redesign was something we talked about for two or three years. It had been almost 10 years since we did a graphics redesign, and so all the insert graphics, the animations, the full-page graphics will all be brand-new," 

As for the updated logo, McManus said, "We decided that we should make our logo a bit more contemporary and a bit more conducive to fitting in with the new graphics factors. So we looked at 125 different logos and settled on about a dozen that we liked. In the end, it really was unanimous—this was the best one. It was sleek. It was modern, but it also felt traditional in some ways. It was simple and, for us, it just said CBS Sports."

McManus told Adweek in our Super Bowl issue that he doesn't feel pressure to top NBC's record ratings for last year's Super Bowl telecast (114.4 million total viewers, a 49.7 rating in adults 18-49). "That's more of an industry thing than anything else," he said. "Basically, it's bragging rights, and if you don't get it, it's still going to be the most-watched telecast of the year."

As McManus plans CBS's seven hours of Super Bowl pregame coverage, the game itself and the postgame show, he's also planning for contingencies like the blackout that hit New Orleans' Superdome in 2013 when CBS last aired the game.

"We have three different sources of power this year, which we haven't had before," he said. "We've got UPS, an uninterrupted power source, which is basically a great big, huge battery. We've got diesel-powered generators, and we've got land or shore power coming from the stadium. So we are covered at CBS. ... We'll be better prepared this time around than we were last time."

Skittles on Tuesday joined the parade of brands releasing their full Super Bowl ads early, unveiling its 30-second spot starring Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler.

The spot, which will air during the second quarter, was inspired by the apparent trend of Skittles fans making things (pictures, recipes, stop-motion films, etc.) out of the rainbow-colored candies. (Yes, it's a thing.) The ad shows Tyler checking out a portrait of himself made of Skittles—and he's not too thrilled.



It remains to be seen whether Super Bowl viewers will be thrilled by the spot, from DDB Chicago. (This is the brand's first "Taste the Rainbow" spot featuring a celebrity.) 

But the campaign does give fans a shot at a more tactile offering: If a rainbow appears over San Francisco on Sunday, the brand will give away 100,000 free packs of Skittles to fans who use the hashtags #SkittlesRainbow and #Contest prior to kickoff.

To promote this weather-related promotion, the brand had Carolina Panthers star Luke Kuechly and Denver Broncos star DeMarcus Ware do weather forecasts on real local newscasts this week. 

This year we can all count ourselves #blessed because rapper Drake is starring in a Super Bowl commercial for T-Mobile.

In the 30-second ad titled "Restricted Bling," Drake is filming his "Hotline Bling" music video while wearing everyone's favorite chunky grey turtleneck sweater and showing off his meme-worthy dance moves.

The spot, created by Publicis Seattle, opens on Drake dancing inside a colorful cube. As he sings, "You used to call me on my cell phone," a few executives from unnamed wireless carriers abruptly stop him to suggest a few revisions to the song.

The carriers ask him to work in the fact that streaming music will rack up tons of data—illustrating how other phone companies restrict wireless plans.

Drake is a trooper, though, and delightfully mocks the requested changes, saying the changes "don't ruin the song at all." 

This isn't the first time T-Mobile has tapped a big celebrity to star in its game-day ad. Last year the brand tapped Kim Kardashian to humorously mock herself and address the important issue of saving your data. Publicis Seattle worked on the Kardashian spot as well. The brand has also featured names like Tim Tebow, Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman in its commercials.

• For more Super Bowl 50 news, check out Adweek's Super Bowl Ad Tracker, an up-to-date list of the brands running Super Bowl spots and the agencies involved in creating them.

The long-term effect of airing a "special episode" of an established show in the plum Super Bowl lead-out position has waned in recent years. So this year, CBS shook things up by handing that prime spot to Stephen Colbert and his 5-month-old Late Show.

That's a far cry from the early days of the Super Bowl, when CBS put Lassie behind the first three Big Games it carried. The '70s  were populated with golf tournaments and news programs. But as Super Bowl TV audiences started to boom in the '80s and '90s, networks started using the post-game slot to debut new shows. The results have been mixed:

Brothers and Sisters (1979, NBC)

NBC was the first network to try to tap into the massive audience to boost a new series. Unfortunately, Brothers and Sisters—one of three "frat house" comedies hoping to capitalize on the success of Animal House—only lasted 12 episodes.

Airwolf (1984, CBS)

Riding high on the success of Magnum P.I., CBS picked up Donald P. Bellisario's Airwolf, and debuted it after Super Bowl XVIII. The series lasted three seasons, and Bellisario would go on to have hits with Quantum Leap, JAG and NCIS.

MacGruder and Loud (1985, ABC)

Police procedurals were all the rage in the '80s, so ABC tried to make a go of MacGruder and Loud. John Getz and Kathryn Harrold played married police officers who tried to keep that a secret from their boss, played by Lee de Broux. The series, which lasted only 14 episodes, was one of Aaron Spelling's few failures.

The Wonder Years (1988, ABC)

This Emmy-winning series is among the most successful to launch out of the Super Bowl. The first episode introduced Fred Savage's Kevin Arnold, along with Paul Pfeiffer (Josh Saviano) and Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar), as they began Junior High in the late 1960s. The episode featured a very dark cliffhanger, and viewers had to wait two months to see the resolution.

Davis Rules (1991, ABC)

In another Super Bowl bust, Randy Quaid starred as Dwight Davis, a widowed elementary school principal who raising three sons with the help of his wacky father, Gunny Davis (played by Jonathan Winters, who won an Emmy for the role). After ABC canceled the show, CBS picked it up for an additional season.

Homicide: Life on the Street (1993, NBC)

This crime drama, which launched the career of Andre Braugher and ran for seven seasons and a movie on NBC, is arguably the most critically acclaimed drama to get the post-Super Bowl push. Homicide marked the beginning of Richard Belzer's John Munch, who would go on to appear in 10 different shows on five different networks.

Extreme (1995, ABC)

EXTREME - ABC-Television, action-adventure series from Michael Keusch on Vimeo.

Extreme, which starred James Brolin as the leader of a search-and-rescue team, lasted just seven episodes before it got the hook by ABC. But since it gave the series the coveted post-Super Bowl time slot, ABC had ordered 13 episodes. Extreme's failure would lead networks to largely move away from their strategy of airing new shows following the Big Game.

Family Guy (1999, Fox)

If not for DVD sales and reruns on Adult Swim, this long-running series would have been another Super Bowl premiere failure. The boundary-pushing comedy from Seth MacFarlane was originally canceled after three seasons but is currently in the middle of its 14th, with no end in sight.

Jimmy Kimmel Live (2003, ABC)

OK, we're cheating a little bit with this one, since it didn't air immediately following the Super Bowl, but it's the only late-night talk show to debut on Super Bowl Sunday. (Alias got the plum spot that year.) When Kimmel launched, it was notable for breaking the mold of traditional talk shows, even adding a fully stocked bar. But after an audience member vomited on her chair, the bar was quickly shut down after the first broadcast.

Undercover Boss (2010, CBS)

This reality series, the most recent to have its debut out of the Super Bowl, featured Larry O'Donnell, president and CEO of Waste Management, Inc., going undercover and doing things like cleaning Porta Potties with his workforce. Currently in its seventh season, the show was the top new show of 2009-2010.

Chairs are like Facebook. And colorful socks are like Kia.

In one of the more amusing advertising metaphors we've seen in a while, Kia likens its midsize Optima sedan to very colorful socks—in its Super Bowl commercial, starring Christopher Walken, which rolled out online Tuesday in a slightly extended version.

Where the famous Facebook metaphor was overblown and arrogant, Kia's is delightfully self-deprecating. And Walken's comically intense performance, with shades of Captain Koons, will surely be among the most well-liked of any celebrity on Sunday's game.



The spot, created by David&Goliath, starts off with an amusingly dumb pun. A husband enters his "Walken Closet," where we first see an endless wardrobe of beige. Then, out of nowhere, the actor accosts our hero and delivers a speech about people who blend in, and people who stand out.

Eventually, Walken shows the guy the Optima, and delivers the most comically underwhelming line you're likely to see on behalf of any product on Sunday: "It's like the world's most exciting pair of socks. But it's a midsize sedan."

The ad will air in the third quarter in a 60-second version—15 seconds shorter than this one.

"There are a few special moments in one's career. Those times when you find yourself in an interesting place, making something you never thought possible, with someone you never thought you'd meet," David&Goliath chief creative officer Colin Jeffery said in a statement. "Being in a closet with Christopher Walken and 600 pairs of beige slacks was definitely one of those moments."

The spot is Kia's second straight celebrity Super Bowl success, following 2015's Sorento spot with Pierce Brosnan, which Adweek deemed one of the top five ads of the game.

Walken, 72, has done plenty of ads before, including this 2013 series of award-winning spots for Danish clothing brand Jack & Jones, in which he played the world's weirdest tailor. 

• For more Super Bowl 50 news, check out Adweek's Super Bowl Ad Tracker, an up-to-date list of the brands running Super Bowl spots and the agencies involved in creating them.

CREDITS
Client: Kia Motors America

Agency: David&Goliath
Founder & Chairman: David Angelo
Chief Creative Officer: Colin Jeffery
Chief Digital Officer: Mike Geiger
President: Brian Dunbar
Chief Strategy Officer: Seema Miller

Creative Director: John O'Hea
Creative Director: Brandon Davis
Art Directors: Shaun Wright, Mike Cornell
Copywriters: Joe Shaner, Andy Sciamanna
Senior Digital Art Director: Bernice Chao
Senior Digital Art Director: Matt Koulermos
Senior Designer: Katherine Ahn
Director of Creative Services: Frannie Rhodes
Senior Project Manager: Kemit Ray

Director of Broadcast Production: Paul Albanese
Executive Broadcast Producer: Christopher Coleman
Director of Art Production: Andrea Mariash
Senior Print Production Manager: Elisa Atwood
Digital Producer: Justine Kleeman

Managing Director: Jeff Moohr
Account Director: Gordon Gray
Account Executive: Annelise Lorenzo
Digital Account Director: Jeanann Grubbs
Digital Account Supervisor: Sarah Kirsch

Planning Director: Andrew Lynch
Senior Planner: Ed Gibson
Senior Digital Strategist: Rachel Fletcher

Director, Business Affairs: Rodney Pizarro
Business Affairs Manager: Camara Price

Product Information Manager: Russ Wortman
Product Information Manager: Mark McNaul

Production Company: MJZ
Director: Matthijs Van Heijningen
Director of Photography: Joost van Gelder
President: David Zander
Senior Executive Producer: Eriks Krumins
Producer: Donald Taylor

Editorial Company: Cut+Run
Editor: Steve Gandolfi
Assistant Editor: Sean Fazende
Managing Director: Michelle Eskin
Executive Producer: Carr Schilling
Head of Production: Amburr Farls

VFX: MPC
VFX Creative Director: Paul O'Shea
VFX Senior Producer: Karen Anderson
VFX Producer: Abisayo Adejare
VFX Senior Compositor: Mark Holden
Grade: MPC LA
Color Executive Producer: Meghan Lang
Color Associate Producer: Rebecca Boorsma
Colorist: Ricky Gausis

Music & Sound Design: Stimmüng
Composer: Cyrus Melchor
Sound Designer: Gus Koven
Creative Director: Rory Doggett
Executive Producer: Ceinwyn Clark

Mix: Margarita Mix
Sound Engineer: Nathan Dubin

On the Sunday night of the AFC and NFC championships, hours after the Broncos beat the Patriots and the Cardinals shut down the Packers, the lights were burning at 217 Liberty Street in Ada, Ohio. Located at that address is the factory where Wilson Sporting Goods makes regulation NFL footballs—4,000 a day, 700,000 a year. But on that Sunday night, a core group of Wilson's craftspeople were working on the year's most important batch: the 200 balls (100 per squad) that would be sent to the teams bound for the Super Bowl.

Photo: Nick Ferrari

"We have part of the construction done the night before," said Kevin Murphy, Wilson's general manager of football. "But once the championship games are over, we take our best people, and they spend 18 hours finishing them up and getting them ready."

That all-night shift is as sacred to Wilson as the football is to the 49 percent of Americans who are fans of the sport. And in this case, one could not exist without the other. Wilson has been the NFL's official ball for 75 years, and it's made every football used in every Super Bowl.

"This is an American football in an American sport, and a handcrafted product built by craft labor," Murphy continued. "The uniqueness of the product and it being made in the U.S.A. is a powerful marketing statement."

No kidding. Most brands would kill to have that kind of relationship with an organization valued at $45 billion in 2014. But unlike other brands that shell out fortunes just to say they make the NFL's official yogurt or motor oil, Wilson isn't just physically integral to the game, but it also enjoys the advantage of having joined the club in the old days.

In 1920, the owners of America's nascent professional football teams gathered in a Hupmobile car showroom in Canton, Ohio, and formed the NFL. One of those men was Chicago Bears founder George Halas. Halas' players were already using Wilson footballs, and it was Halas who rose at an NFL meeting in 1940 and proposed that the league adopt Wilson as the official ball. It did.

The ripple effects of that decision are felt nearly everywhere. Thanks to the NFL affiliation, countless high school, college, and Pop Warner leagues use Wilson balls, too. "For us, the NFL relationship is critical," said global marketing director Amanda Lamb, "because it gives kids the confidence that their Wilson footballs have the same level of craftsmanship."

Speaking of which, the Broncos and the Panthers are in the process of breaking in the 100 footballs they both received from Wilson last week. Of these, each team chooses 50 that'll be used in the Super Bowl—a decision that in an instant creates the most valuable batch of footballs on the planet. "Those balls are submitted and locked into bags," Murphy said, "and held securely until game time."

Photos: Getty Images

This story first appeared in the Feb. 1 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Specs
Who (L. to r.) Partner and co-creative director Joe Hemp; CEO and CCO Rob Siltanen; and partner and president Tim Murphy
What Full-service ad agency
Where El Segundo, Calif.

Two years after helping launch Apple's 1997 "Here's to the Crazy Ones" manifesto at TBWAChiatDay, Rob Siltanen founded Siltanen & Partners under the belief that his agency could do advertising better than anyone else. That motto has propelled the 50-person shop to create unforgettable work—including "Go Run Mr. Quiggly," the most memorable Super Bowl spot from 2012, per Nielsen, for client Skechers. Over time, the spot featuring a French bulldog in running shoes helped increase Skechers' stock price fivefold. "I've always been about putting the brands first and figuring out how to make them healthy, successful and distinctive in the market," Siltanen, CEO and CCO, said. In four years of working with Coldwell Banker, the agency has created work that Ace Metrix ranked as the most effective ads in the real estate category. Its most recent dog-themed campaign for the brand scored 2.5 million views last winter in just one week and helped 20,000 dogs in shelters find homes.

This story first appeared in the Feb. 1 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Specs
Age 40
Claim to fame Lead reporter for the NFL on CBS and NCAA basketball, as well as Super Bowl 50 sideline reporter
Base New York
Twitter@tracywolfson

Adweek: What's the first information you consume in the morning?
Tracy Wolfson: I wait until I get my three boys off to school before I consume any information. But the first thing I consume is definitely the sports pages. Then I look on Twitter, see what's trending, and depending on the game I'm focusing on that week, I start searching for those teams and save those articles for further reading.

How does social media play into your sideline reporting?
It's extremely, extremely useful in what I do. I follow all the beat reporters from every team that I cover, whether they're in the NFL or college basketball or the NBA, and it helps me prepare for the games because these beat reporters are on site 24 hours a day covering that team while I'm going to different teams every week. I tweet as well, but that's more about putting the spotlight on whatever game we're doing and getting people to watch.

Which NFL players do the best job on social media?
I think Tom Brady does a great, great job with his social media. He makes it really fun, and I think he uses it the right way. It's not overload; he picks exactly the right things to share. I also covered college football, and Jim Harbaugh is my No. 1 favorite coach to follow on Twitter. The things that he puts out there, the quotes that he uses—I think he does a great job. [Social media] really helps with the recruiting for these college coaches.

What's your favorite app?
My favorite app is Pocket. If you're reading an article on social media, you save it to the Pocket app, and you can read it anywhere without Wi-Fi. When I get onto an airplane, I just open Pocket, and I have all the articles I want to read for my flight.

What TV shows do you watch?
I'm pretty lame. I don't have much time to watch TV. By the time I get settled down, it's usually 9:30 at night, and I turn on sports. But when I have a chance during the offseason, I'll watch Modern Family.

You're a regular host on CBS Sports' We Need to Talk, which is the first national-broadcast, all-female sports talk show. What has that been like?
It was a very big step for CBS to take, and they've done a really good job of providing the right resources and talent. There's a rotating group of hosts from all different areas of sports, so I can bring the sideline experience, then someone like Amy Trask, the former CEO of the Raiders, brings the business side, then you have Laila Ali, a former boxer, who can speak to her life as an athlete. And we don't talk just about women's sports—we cover the hard-hitting topics of the day, and if it happens to be a female sports story, then of course we embrace it. But we want to be your typical sports show that is atypical because it's run by women.

Since you've been covering sports, have you seen much of an increase in sports content that speaks to women viewers?
I think it's getting there. We have a bunch of radio shows out there with female hosts, and, of course, there are some shows on ESPN with female hosts. I think it does bring that unique perspective. Once we launched our show, it opened the eyes of others to say, "This is a unique idea and one that can definitely work, and let's see if we can try it."

This story first appeared in the Feb. 1 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.

With Super Bowl 50 at Levi's Stadium, the 49ers' brand sponsors can expect big-time exposure. Carlos Monteiro

 When the 68,500 ticket holders for Super Bowl 50 flood into Levi's Stadium on Sunday, they'll be moving about in one of the most thoroughly branded environments in the sporting world.

In addition to the Levi's name on the outside of the structure (a deal worth a cool $220 million), the stadium is stuffed with sponsored amenities—from the Pepsi Fan Deck to the Safeway tailgate area. In all, the San Francisco 49ers inked 16 decade-long deals worth a cumulative half-billion dollars with sponsors "who wanted to establish brand equity inside of our game-day experience," according to the team's chief revenue officer Ethan Casson.

And when that game day happens to be the Super Bowl, all of these brands can expect "a significant uptick in exposure," said 49ers senior manager of corporate communications Roger Hacker.

Still, with so many brand names scattered around, will that exposure translate to new customers for those brands, too? Mario Natarelli, managing partner with brand agency MBLM, isn't sure. "They've taken this asset and sliced it into a million pieces," he said. "If you're going to build strong connections with your customers, is naming part of a parking lot the way to get there? We're skeptical."

This story first appeared in the Feb. 1 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Why don't beans burn on the grill? And why would you be grilling beans in the first place? Such mysteries from The Jeffersons are addressed (if not answered) in Apartments.com's Super Bowl ad.

In the 60-second spot from agency RPA, the site brings back Jeff Goldblum's satirical Silicon Valley guru character, Brad Bellflower, who serenades us with a loungy take on The Jeffersons' iconic theme song, "Movin' On Up."

Since both of the stars from the 1970s-80s sitcom passed away years ago, we're treated instead to a new "George and Weezy," this time in the form of George Washington and rapper Lil Wayne.

The ad is chock–full of details and Easter Eggs that make it worth watching a few times. (For example, in the background of Lil Wayne's party, you see his entourage mingling with Revolutionary War soldiers, while the commercial they're currently in is playing on a TV.)

For more Super Bowl 50 news, check out Adweek's Super Bowl Ad Tracker, an up-to-date list of the brands running Super Bowl spots and the agencies involved in creating them.