Bravo to BBDO and Pepsi for a clever, memorable spot that I thought stole the show at the Super Bowl.

It is a slippery slope when a brand tries to borrow another brands icon the way Pepsi did but BBDO did it flawlessly. Inc. Magazine ran an article stating that Pepsi learned the hard way that borrowing a icon simply reinforces the brand and the consumer’s emotional attachment to the brand.

I understand the Inc.’s point but on the other hand, they likely had the most memorable spot from the game and while it used the polar bear, nobody was confusing this for a Coke spot.

The amount of storytelling that they managed to convey in 45 seconds was fantastic. BBDO proved that great storytelling does not require a 60 or a 90. I don’t know the math, but saving 15 or 45 seconds must be millions of dollars saved or put toward more media buys (or better rates for the agency:-). For a number of years, I have watch far longer ads running on the Super Bowl with not nearly as much of a story.

The kiss cam at the end was a perfect, short wrap up to a flawless spot.

Great job BBDO and great job Pepsi for trusting your agency! Love it!!

Thank you to all of our wonderful clients. We celebrate another year with all of you!

Andrew Butler, a new webinar leader at Filament, conducted his first webinar for us entitled Making your Strategy Department a Profit Center. We met Andrew years ago when he was at the Martin Agency and were excited to have him join our list of webinar leaders.

Andrew did a great job giving practical advise on how to look beyond the strategy department as simply an agency function. The content clearly resonated with our audience as it was one of the biggest sellers of the year.

The feedback from the webinar was fantastic. Great job Andrew!

Another semester of webinars comes to a close. Co-founder Pam Bloore took over the webinars in 2025 and new webinar leaders to add to Filament’s stable of webinar leaders.

In addition to webinars on pitching and winning new business, presenting creative work, presenting under pressure and presentation nerves, Pam added webinars on strategy, agency growth, negating negativity in the workplace and navigating the agency awards process.

It was great to see new faces on zoom and new attendees in the audience!

We are happy to bring back Katherine Wintsch from The Mom Complex. We met Katherine years ago from her time at The Martin Agency. Katherine’s webinar on surviving in the ad industry, juggling your role as ad professional and mom is both profound and moving. Check it out.

https://filamentinc.com/blog/webclinic/how-to-survive-and-thrive-as-a-woman-in-advertising-with-katherine-wintsch/

While we don’t talk to each of our clients as regularly was we would like, we would like to thank everyone for making this another great year!

Wishing you all a great holiday season!

It is hard to believe it has been 26 years since we started Filament. Over the years, we have grown from a few small clients to clients all over the world. We could not have imagined what an exciting and fulfilling journey it would be.

Thank you all for joining us on what to date has been a great trip. We look forward to more great times in the industry.

Great game! Congrats to the Chiefs and my friends in KC. The spots had some great highlights for me and a few head scratchers as well.

The Martin Agency’s Oreo “let me twist on it” campaign is brilliant. A never ending supply comes out of one perfect idea that no other cookie/snack company can own. The definition of great work!

Ogilvy’s Dove spot was wonderful. Great message and clearly ownable by Dove. It was great to see the next iteration of the campaign. Congrats!

DunKings – I laughed out loud:-)

Kawasaki’s business in the front, party in the back ad from Goodby was 80’s inspired genius. It seemed like there was a lot of 80’s influence in the commercials this year and GS&P nailed it. Putting on mullet on an eagle was impressive!

Arnold as the State Farm rep is perfect. Perfectly branded to State Farm. Plenty of territory for campaignability. Loved it.

Head scratcher #1 – It seems like a miss to me that Jeff Goldblum was in two different Super Bowl spots. Is he that critical a casting choice that you think “I just can’t do this without Jeff.”

Head scratcher #2 – I realize that there is no way to find out if Flashdance is being used by another agency but that was weird. I thought both commercials were great but they were so similar. The next time an agency thinks that a client stole their idea from a pitch and gave it to another agency… maybe two agencies came up with the same idea. Crazy stuff!

Head scratcher #3 – Taking politics out of the equation, I did not get the Kennedy ad at all. After a little research, I see that it is a recreation of JFK’s 1960 presidential campaign ad. So the idea was to run an spot that was a recreation of a 63 year old campaign… that only people well into their 70s would remember (or people that are bigger history nerds than me, which is a relative high bar). If my definition of great work is the Oreo “let me twist on it” campaign, the Kennedy spot is the definition of a headscratcher.

Congratulations everyone! Get some well deserved rest.

As is nearly everyone in the industry, we are excited to see what new spots are coming for the upcoming Superbowl. A few that are most interesting to me:

• E*TRADE – Love the way that they bring fresh, iconic, memorable work to the game. I am interested to see what they do this year.
• Budweiser – How can they breath new life into the clydesdales. While it is iconic, the ads can all start to look alike. Big ask of the agency.
• State Farm – Love their work.
• Reese’s – Is the marriage between peanut butter and jelly on the rocks?! I hear jelly is getting pretty upset about all the time peanut butter is spending with chocolate:-)
• Doritos – always exciting
• Oreo – TMA will certainly bring their A game!
• ??? – someone always surprises me.

Good luck to all our clients. Enjoy the game!

Filament normally work closely with ad agencies, PR/PA and research firms but rarely on the client side. Filament just signed a six-month contract to work with a large pharmaceutical company to help them change the way that they market products and engage with their agencies worldwide.

It will be a great opportunity to gain insight into the client side of the business as well as how the agency/client relationship works from the client’s perspective.

We are coming in at the beginning of team building process as the company assembles a team pharma marketing specialists to drive change throughout the organization. It will be an exciting journey that we are looking forward to taking!