Pokémon
- Pokémon is a legendary franchise possessing a mass, devout global following – it is one of the most popular entertainment franchises in the world.
- Debuting in 1996, the franchise sought to create a tent pole, unprecedented activation for the brand to attract as much attention as possible during its 20th anniversary.
- TriplePoint and The Pokémon Company International (TPCI) came to the decision to use Super Bowl 50 as the launch pad – leveraging a Super Bowl commercial and superstar NFL athlete Richard Sherman to amplify the 20th anniversary given the telecast’s expected reach of more than 100 million viewers.
The Challenge
- To capture the ROI needed to validate the steep investment for a Super Bowl commercial, Pokémon needed to breakthrough an insanely crowded brand marketing environment.
- In addition to getting mass press coverage and online YouTube views Pokémon needed to authentically illustrate to consumers why it made sense for the brand to be alongside Super Bowl mainstays such as Coca-Cola, GM, Anheuser-Busch and Doritos.
- Richard Sherman was not locked into an agreement until only 10 days before Super Bowl 50. Brands with other celebrities were booking media appointments for “Radio Row” roughly two weeks prior, therefore already full media schedules were a concern.
- Sherman is a professed Pokémon fan, but given the tight turn, it was unclear the level of media training able to be performed to ensure optimal message pull through would be achieved.
The Approach
- TriplePoint worked closely with TPCI to develop a strategy to unveil a 60-second version of the ad on January 25, almost two weeks before the Super Bowl to avoid the industry noise and own the conversation first. The 30-second version was held until Super Bowl Sunday, thus creating two news cycles.
- We built targeted messages for press focused on relatable and motivational sports tropes such as hard work, teamwork and perseverance to connect the Pokémon brand to the Super Bowl.
- Due to the tight timeline with Sherman, we leveraged the team’s strong relationships thanks to past Super Bowl, World Cup and Olympics experience to book a full schedule despite being “late.”
- For Sherman’s media tour, we prepped him with easy to digest messages that naturally connected his past personal experiences with the brand. We also captured verbal agreements from all media outlets to grant time for Sherman to plug the brand.
The Results
- The Pokémon Super Bowl ad and Richard Sherman media tour generated a maximum potential of 2 BILLION UMVs and 97% neutral-positive sentiment.
Super Bowl Commercial
- Coverage appeared in more than 280 stories including top outlets: AP, ABC News, Ad Age, Ad Week, Bleacher Report, CBS News, E! Online, EW, Forbes, Huffington Post, Mashable, New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, TIME, USA TODAY, Variety, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and more.
- Due to the early unveil of the ad, Pokémon generated the most YouTube views amongst all Super Bowl commercials with now more than 24.5M views (as of 3/8/16).
Richard Sherman Media tour
- The media tour consisted of briefings with the top 15 sports and entertainment outlets including Colin Cowherd (FOX), Dan Patrick Show (NBC), ESPN, Jamie Foxx’s Sirius / Entertainment Tonight show, Jim Rome Show (CBS), Sports Illustrated “NOW’ and more.
- 93% Pokémon Key Message Pull Through.
“It’s been 20 years for Pokemon, and about 18-19 for me, and that’s how I got involved with it…Pokemon meant a lot to me as a kid…It’s one of those things that transcends race, it transcends gender, and age. Even at Stanford, there were people that played it.”