Discover Hits Its Goals With Gretzky Spot

Discover

Hat Trick

3.2

Discover has been the NHL’s official credit card partner since 2008, a relationship that’s brought the brand a decade-plus of valuable exposure among sports fans. It’s also given them plenty of raw material for their ads, with access to some of hockey’s all-time biggest names meaning their commercials boast serious star power.

Their latest, aired during the NHL’s Winter season and made with Discover agency of record Chiat Day, stars perhaps the biggest hockey legend of all, Wayne Gretzky. But even this most famous player isn’t recognized by everyone – comedian Jennifer Coolidge (a recent award-winner for The White Lotus) co-stars in the ad as a loudmouth spectator who decides to fansplain the concept of a hat-trick to the person next to her. Who is, of course, Gretzky. Not that she recognizes him, and gets his name wrong even when her friend explains.

Gretzky isn’t called on to do much more than sit and look a bit embarrassed, but the contrast between his humble response and Coolidge’s over-the-top performance is what gives “Hat Trick” its comic potential, and the awkward situation is milked for audience laughs by the brand, whose branding is all over the commercial. Coolidge also gets to describe the benefit the ad is reminding customers of – the fact Discover is accepted almost everywhere. It’s not the most natural insertion of a sales point you’ll ever see, but bookending it with jokes helps the message get across.

Gretzky’s appearance is a fine example of a brand using a celebrity well. Celebrities are always a big part of sports-themed ads, and particularly at the Super Bowl, but they’re never an automatic ticket to ad success. In fact, on average we’ve found that celebrity and non-celebrity ads score exactly the same. But lots of ads beat that average, and guest stars work most effectively when the ad plays on some element of their public persona. With Gretzky that’s his legendary status. It’s inconceivable that anyone at a hockey game wouldn’t know who he is, so it’s funny when someone doesn’t.

The ad scores a good 3.2-Star Rating on System 1’s Test Your Ad platform. That score looks more impressive when you check the average for the Credit Card category as a whole – a poor 1.9-Star. It’s rare for any credit card ad to entertain its viewers, so kudos to Discovery for succeeding. And the ad excels even further when we look at short-term Spike Rating and Brand Fluency (how quickly people recognize the brand). Here’s where the strong branding and clear message pay off – both those measures score an Exceptional rating, far above the credit card average.

Discover and Chiat Day have made an ad which is very effective in the short-term, but which makes sure not to sacrifice entertainment and emotional response on the way. It uses its long relationship with the NHL well and makes great use of both a guest superstar and its regular brand spokesman. For a category that tends to bore audiences, its Test Your Ad scores are an effectiveness hat-trick in themselves.

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