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The Super Bowl offers you something utterly unique as a brand – an audience of 100 million people, in a relaxed mood and primed to watch, not skip, the ads. Many brands take this opportunity to go all in on emotion and brand-building, and that works very well. But if you’re a brand who does have a specific deal, product feature or message you need to put across, you’ll never get a better opportunity. If, that is, you make it entertaining too.
Grubhub’s debut Super Bowl ad is a case in point. In this year’s “The Fees-t”, the food delivery brand has one very specific bit of information they need to get across. Grubhub has scrapped delivery and service fees on restaurant orders over $50. That’s big news, a category innovation, and a major point of difference with the competition – so it’s no surprise they’ve made it the sole focus of their Super Bowl ad.
But on the busiest night in advertising, information on its own won’t cut through. Grubhub and agency Anomaly have found a way to present that all-important message in a distinctive, memorable and entertaining way, by turning it into a visual metaphor.
We’re shown a grand dinner hall at which an eclectic group of dinner guests are enjoying a feast. The final course is announced and it’s most unappetizing – the fees. Who will eat the fees, the dinner host demands. Cut to George Clooney, appearing in his first ever Super Bowl commercial, who lays out the point of the ad – Grubhub will eat the fees.
Cult director Yorgos Lanthimos directed the ad to create maximum contrast between the noise and chaos caused by the unappetizing fees and Clooney’s straightforward resolution of the problem. No diner likes fees – they leave a bad taste when you order take-out. Grubhub hears you and is dealing with the issue. It means that viewers will leave the ad more likely to remember the message. When we asked the Test Your Ad sample for their main associations with the ad, “No Fees” came out on top with a strongly positive response.
For our Test Your Ad Pro report we ran the ad with a general sample and a Custom Sample of people who don’t reject the idea of ordering delivery. With ads like this, which are focused on a specific message rather than a broader emotional impact, it makes sense to look at a Custom Sample for whom that message is actually relevant. Within that sample of delivery ‘non-rejectors’, Grubhub scored a very good 3.8-Stars, with people positively surprised by the information and happy with George Clooney as the person delivering it.
A mass Super Bowl audience is a great opportunity to create broad reach, brand-building ads. But this ad announcing a new consumer benefit can also work if you have the right message at the right time, delivered in the right way – and you remember to make it dramatic, memorable and entertaining. Grubhub ticks all those boxes for an ad that delivers.
"This is a defining moment for Grubhub. A business shift this fundamental demanded a creative vision to match. By pairing Yorgos’ avant-garde lens with George’s effortless gravitas, the new value proposition becomes a cultural moment—one that doesn’t just eat the fees, but makes it impossible to look at delivery the same way again."
Marnie Kain
VP & Head of Brand at Grubhub
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