A number of NFL sponsors are using tonight's Ravens-Broncos regular-season opener on NBC as a springboard to launch new advertising creative. Marriott, the NFL's official hotel sponsor, has produced several ads as it
ramps up this season's NFL-themed promotions. Two TV spots via McGarryBowen feature NFL Network's
Rich Eisen setting the scene for the ad, and at least one of them will air tonight during NBC's pregame coverage. In "Fumble," several employees assist a business traveler who drops a banana by executing a series of dramatic, football-like moves filmed in slow-motion. Eisen introduces the spot by saying, "Our team is constantly helping you to be great in the high-stakes world of business travel." In another spot, "Homefield Advantage," a traveler enters a room that is filled with crowd sounds and loud music, as if the room were an NFL stadium. The guest is taken aback at first, but then begins to celebrate as if he had just made a big play.
Bud Light’s new TV campaign, “Dilemmas,” is an evolution of last year's “Superstitions” effort and will document the origins of some fans' superstitions. The spots explore the tension between fans' beliefs that they affect the game and the practicality of continuing their new-found rituals. “All Time” debuted during the preseason, and four new TV spots are skated to air during the regular season, beginning with “Quinoa” this weekend. The spots, created by Translation, N.Y., will include 30- and 15-second versions, each ending with the tagline, “It’s Only Weird If It Doesn’t Work.”
P&G's Tide brand will break an ad during the game that features a clever tie-in with its Super Bowl spot that featured a stain in the likeness of
Joe Montana. The same husband-wife pair that appeared in the previous ad returns, he a 49ers fan and she a Ravens fan. In order to get revenge for the wife washing the 49ers jersey to get out the stain, the husband reveals that he has acquired dirty jerseys from many of the NFL teams the Ravens will play this year, with plans to clean them all and wear them every week to root against his wife's team. The ad ends with him holding up a newly clean Broncos jersey.
Other brands breaking creative tonight include Pepsi, Bridgestone, Microsoft, Verizon and Old Spice.
