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For their third ad of Super Bowl 58, T-Mobile has the the kings of streaming, four Oscar winners (including an EGOT)—and Donald Faison—auditioning for the right to pitch the company’s Magenta Status customer appreciation program.
T-Mobile and their partners at Panay Films—already running a Super Bowl ad with Faison, Zach Braff, Jason Momoa and Jennifer Beals during the Super Bowl’s CBS broadcast and a Metro by T-Mobile spot with Luis Guzman during TelevisaUnivison’s presentation—sought strength in numbers by bringing in as many big names as their ad could hold.
The 60-second ad slated for the game’s second quarter features Academy Award winners Braff, Laura Dern, Common and Jennifer Hudson (who also has a Grammy, Emmy and Tony on her shelf) joining last year’s T-Mobile incumbents—Oscar-nominated actor and director Bradley Cooper and his mother, Gloria Campano—as well as Faison and Suits stars Gabriel Macht and Patrick J. Adams as a steady stream of auditioning VIPs pitching T-Mobile’s everyday VIP service.
“When you’re part of the magenta family, we want to ensure you feel like the VIP you are,” said Mike Katz, President of Marketing, Strategy and Products at T-Mobile. “With Magenta Status, we’re going beyond all the things our customers already enjoy — unbeatable travel benefits, weekly T-Mobile Tuesdays thankings, the best streaming services for free and more — and cranking up our appreciation even further to give our customers the VIP vibes they deserve from day one.”
This spot follows up last year’s T-Mobile ad featuring Cooper and Campano’s unsuccessful attempt at filming a Super Bowl ad as scripted. The banter between the Maestro actor/director and his mom placed the ad No. 26 out of 51 spots on last year’s USA TODAY Ad Meter and inspired Panay Film’s Brian Klugman to go out on the road and conduct individual shoots with subjects that captured Dern crying on cue, Hudson’s attempts at whistling and both Macht and Adams riffing just after their five-years dead show conquered Netflix and they’d charmed the Golden Globes.
Supporting cast
Peter DeLuca, T-Mobile’s chief creative officer, noted that bringing back favorites like Cooper and Braff didn’t just add to the spot’s familiar faces or strengthen T-Mobile’s Super Bowl brand. Cooper and Braff’s skills as actors, directors and writers allow them to pitch in on the editing process and make them more deeply involved in the final product.