Which is more important: a potty break or a commercial break? One Super Bowl advertiser thinks it has the answer.
As one of the nation’s biggest makers of consumer goods like Brawny paper towels and Dixie cups and paper products, Georgia-Pacific has crafted hundreds of commercials over the years that millions of people choose to watch. On Super Bowl Sunday, the company is releasing an ad that is deliberately made to have an opposite effect.
In a 30-second ad that is slated to run just before Fox cuts to the halftime show of Super Bowl LIX on February 9, the animated character Angel, representative of the company’s Angel Soft bathroom tissue, will tell the audience that it’s OK for them to run away for 30 seconds to use the bathroom. There will even be a countdown clock to help viewers time their exit and return.
“What’s really exciting about this spot is that it is actually designed to be missed,” says Rafel Garcia, the vice president and general manager overseeing the company’s Angel Soft bath tissue business, during an interview.
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If Angel Soft executives play their cards right, the idea will ensure viewers quickly understand their marketing message: that Angel Soft helps consumers get to the bathroom without making any tradeoffs in their daily routine. Still, the concept carries with it no small amount of risk. The animated angel will have fleeting seconds to make a connection with viewers if they indeed take the character up on its offer.
Angel Soft’s Garcia and others involved in the commercial are betting that its direct relevance to the moment in which it airs will help boost the message. Angel Soft will be competing to make an impression during the Super Bowl with dozens of advertisers, many of them with several years of Super Bowl appearances in their history. The ad is the first Angel Soft has made for the Big Game, even though the brand has been around since 1987.
Most Super Bowl ads use elements such as humor, heartstrings, celebrities or cute animals to make their point. Only a few try to marry themselves so closely to the media moment in which they appear that viewers can’t help but notice.
Procter & Gamble in 2017 scored with a Super Bowl ad that put a stain on announcer Terry Bradshaw’s shirt during the Fox Sports broadcast, then showed him working frantically to remove it using Tide in an action-packed ad. In 2015, General Motors’ Chevrolet made a stunning appearance just before the kickoff of Super Bowl XLIX that made it look as if NBC’s feed of the game had been disrupted by some sort of glitch. In reality, the commercial just went dark for seven seconds (after an announcer at a football game started talking about “Super Bowl 49”).
Others have employed similar strategies for modern audiences. Procter & Gamble’s Charmin has been a steady user of ads that show up when subscribers to Hulu pause their streaming selection. “Need a break?” asks the still ad on the screen. “Enjoy the go.”
Angel Soft is armed with consumer research the company says shows the Super Bowl commercial will resonate with viewers. Approximately 62% of respondents hold off on going to the bathroom even when they need to, says Garcia, so they won’t miss the action.
The company came up with the idea about nine months ago, Garcia says, and, once executives were sure they wanted to be in the Super Bowl, worked with executives at Fox to secure an ad berth that would help boost the message. “I know that there were a lot of demands” for commercial time, Garcia says. “We worked with them to make sure we found the right spot during the broadcast.”
Angel Soft aims to help consumers digest its idea before trying to make a Super Bowl splash. The company arranged for two Fox Sports personnel, Julian Edelman and Charissa Thompson, to do a tease of sorts just before kickoff of Fox’s Sunday telecast of the NFC Championship. Thompson was shown waiting somewhat impatiently for Edelman to return from a bathroom break, with Angel Soft markings turning up in the background.
More discussion of what Angel Soft calls a “potty-tunity” may be in store. The idea “is not only relevant for the Big Game,” says Garcia. “Things are busy. Things are getting longer.”
One of the most notable movies of the year, “The Brutalist,” has a running time of three and a half hours, for example, and includes a 15-minute intermission. “Every one of us has different situations where we’re like, we don’t want to miss anything, right?” Garcia asks, suggesting sports events, cultural events, movies, concerts, and social gatherings could provide new platforms for the idea. “There are a lot of places where we can take this, and we will be working hard to make sure that we do it the right way.”
For Angel Soft, the Super Bowl seems flush with potential.