Super Bowl LVIII was the most-watched telecast in U.S. history, delivering a nail-biting contest, a taut halftime show, a pop star romance and another year of celebrity-fueled, play-it-safe ads to more than 123 million viewers.

On the advertising front, the months-long marathon leading up to the big game is an opportunity for brands to preview their campaigns to build buzz and get every possible cent of value out of their $7 million-for-30 seconds price tag. And while the crush of tweets and teasers is often tedious (a fact parodied by BMW… in a teaser for its ad featuring Christopher Walken), one brand made the most of the opportunity on the way to airing one of the night’s standout moments.

In the weeks leading up to the NFL championship, CeraVe teased its first Super Bowl ad with an immersive campaign across social and earned media. Instead of hiding the surprise for the big game, the L’Oréal skincare brand leaned into weirdness across Instagram videos, paparazzi photos, influencer unboxings and podcast appearances that asked the question: What does Michael Cera have to do with CeraVe?

The effort climaxed just days before the game with the launch of iamcerave.com and a minute-plus-long video that presented Cera as the mastermind behind the similarly named brand. Shot in the style of dreamy perfume ads from the ‘90s and soundtracked by twinkling New Age music, the creative features the actor in a variety of scenarios — speaking with a narwhal, hanging with male models, climbing a mountain and serving as his own masseuse — as he asks consumers to “let my cream hydrate you.”

The brand then pushed back on Cera’s claim that he “is CeraVe” by assuring consumers that it “is and always has been developed with dermatologists.” On game day, a shorter version of Cera’s video was revealed to be the actor’s pitch to an unamused CeraVe board. The spot was one of the night’s most memorable and ranked as the most effective Super Bowl campaign on TikTok by ad research company DAIVID.

CeraVe developed and executed the campaign with the aid of WPP, led by Ogilvy PR North America. The effort represented an application of a shared view between brand and agency that great earned media amplifies paid media exponentially, according to Adam Kornblum, senior vice president and global head of digital marketing at CeraVe.

“We both pushed each other to rewrite this grammar for the Super Bowl marketing,” Kornblum said. “It wasn’t really about an ad, it was about building a world, earned first, so when the ad hits, the story is out there.”

Campaign development

The Cera-CeraVe connection began with social listening as Ogilvy sought out intelligence, insights and inspiration. A handful of Reddit posts over the years drew out the possible relationship between the actor and brand: not enough to represent a groundswell, but enough to show potential. 

Beyond the similar names, the idea of having Cera take credit for CeraVe tied into a larger branding need. For years, CeraVe has leaned into its dermatology bona fides and the ingredient — ceramides — from which it takes its name. Recently, it has seen competitors leverage similar verbiage and lingo in their marketing. In the campaign, Cera serves as a stand-in for copycats.

“There’s so many layers of strategy and messaging that are really aligned perfectly to the brand and what we need to say on a deeper level,” Kornblum said. “The name is a very simple connection, but on a deeper-rooted level, there was a lot of storytelling to be said in all different ways to different audiences, especially people who are in skincare.” 

But no matter how strong the idea, the campaign hinged on both CeraVe taking a big creative swing and Cera agreeing to participate. After CeraVe was on board, Ogilvy pitched the idea to Cera, who loved it and even had preferred directors. His list included eventual helmers Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of production company Prettybird (and comedy duo Tim & Eric), who were perfect for the “fever dream concept” the agency hoped to film, said Charlotte Tansill, president of Ogilvy North America’s PR, social and influence practice.

“We took them through the script, told them about the social, we said this is really a campaign that’s far bigger than the spot — it’s as much about the surround sound as it is about the conclusion of the story,” Tansill said. “They were jazzed and understood immediately.”

Cutting through the clutter

Once the team for the final product was locked, Ogilvy set into motion a plan that followed CeraVe’s approach to building cultural relevance by being a social- and influencer-first brand, a strategy that has made it Gen Z’s top skincare brand by a wide margin, according to Piper Sandler’s latest “Taking Stock With Teens” report. The collaborative effort required not just one idea but myriad ideas across client and agency teams and social, influencer and PR experts to be generated and executed for different audiences and channels.

“Every touchpoint was just as important as the ad itself, and I think that’s really a critical thing,” Kornblum said. “The ask wasn’t just ‘make a Super Bowl ad and let’s build some buzz around it,’ it was ‘let’s create a world.’”

In the end, what separated CeraVe’s campaign from the slog of teasers and trailers was a commitment to letting earned media lead the effort.

“Earned-first creativity is scary, because you give up a sense of control. If you create an asset and then you put it in paid media, you’re speaking at people, but in this case, we wanted to create an experience that was participatory, that that was built to be shared, co-owned and co-created,” Tansill explained. “It’s a huge testament to L’Oréal and CeraVe for taking this sort of risk because that’s often what stands in the way of quality work.”