Broken Marketing by Anvara - Week 1

Welcome to Broken Marketing

Welcome to the first weekly edition of Broken Marketing by Anvara, where we discuss marketing that breaks. Every Wednesday we’ll talk about the most innovative marketing and advertising news of the week, and what marketers on the leading edge are doing to get their edge. 

We’re Nick and Andrei, the co-founders of Anvara. We’ve included you here because one way or another we’re connected. We’re happy to have you a part of the Anvara family. 

Marketing has reached an inflection point. The competition is fierce, with the best brands and agencies all utilizing the same best-in-class tools and methods to reach consumers. But best-in-class tools and methods aren't enough anymore - that’s where the bar is set. To stand out, marketers need compelling creative complemented by the most bold and unconventional media. The best in the business have found ways to reach consumers in unique ways - through unconventional channels - and their results speak for themselves. 

Dumping money in digital ads isn’t working anymore. It’s too saturated and too competitive— any brand can do it. Digital works, but it doesn’t win a consumer’s trust. The real world is back and better than ever.

We believe that you can’t do ordinary things and expect extraordinary results. We’re coming together every Wednesday to raise a glass to the marketers who do things differently, paving the way towards the future of brand impact. 

Since it’s our first week together, we’ll go into some of our favorite disruptive campaigns and media of the last few years. Then we’ll go into this week’s news.

Marketing that breaks

Coinbase advertises on a national run of Liquid Death water cases

Liquid Death has always been an inventive advertiser, led by Chief Creative Officer Andy Pearson. Back in Super Bowl season, 2024, when StateFarm, UberEats and friends were paying $7 million for 30 seconds of the world’s most prized ad slots, Liquid Death came up with a more innovative approach.

Before I go into the details, how many Super Bowl ads do you think the average consumer would remember from this year? One? Two? Probably zero. And these ads costed $7 million for 30 seconds. Seven million dollars. 

So, Liquid Death auctioned off ad space on the cases of their waters, to be distributed to thousands of stores across the country. The ads would make impressions on shelves, in homes, and beyond - millions of impressions.

They listed the ad space on eBay, because, well, there was no better way to sell it at the time (now Anvara exists). 200 of the world’s best brands bidded on the auction, and Coinbase ultimately won the deal paying around $500k for 500k units of prime ad space.

Before the ads have even hit the shelves, they made millions of impressions on social media as the concept is so novel and exciting to consumers. I imagine consumers would remember the ad they saw on their water more than any Super Bowl ad out there.

This is what we love and what we believe in. While all the other brands are fighting for the same attention, Liquid Death created a way to reach consumers where nobody else is. Not to mention, the ads last longer than any other channel. You buy the water to drink it— it’s not an online ad that you can skip, block, or mute. 

Creativity in unconventional mediums is where the market is moving, and the first to the party will win.

Apple CES 2019

If it wasn’t put out before most of you were conceived, I would be discussing Apple’s 1997 Think Different campaign. But Apple hasn’t lost their marketing bravado. The creatives at MAL and media buyers at OMD made a splash at CES Vegas 2019. This is a case study showing how creativity and medium can intersect to create an ah-hah moment and an emotional impact.

CES is the world’s foremost tech event, where Amazon, Google, Meta and all the other tech giants of the world flock to show off their new tech. Apple usually doesn’t have a presence at CES. In 2019, they didn’t pay for a dollar of sponsorship space. What they did do, though, is execute one of the most compelling out-of-home campaigns of the last decade.

Apple put up a huge billboard outside the conference that said, “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone.” It was the perfect mix of creative and media. They made a play on the classic Vegas slogan and counter-positioned themselves to other tech rivals as the privacy-conscious one of the pack. The main lesson is that effective ads use the medium to their advantage, and cleverly play with creative to deliver the moment of satisfaction when the consumer just gets it.

This week’s news

Each week, we’ll give an update on marketing news and tell you what campaigns are working best. For some brief news:

• Amazon was the largest advertiser of 2024 with $20.3 Billion in spend. Amazon Ads Principal Product Manager Ashima Singhal said, “Artificial intelligence is the bedrock of advertising” in a recent interview with AdAge. AI is increasingly being used to increase ad personalization. AI is core to Anvara’s strategy. We use AI to match real world media with campaign goals.

• Nike renewed its contract as the exclusive provider of uniforms for the NFL. They’ve been the sole provider for 12 years, and they are going for round two. The contract includes supplying jerseys, practice and sideline apparel to all 32 teams in the league, through 2038.

• Disney is opening up its live sports inventory to real-time programmatic buying with Google, Yahoo, & The Trade Desk. Buyers can now use the programmatic exchanges to buy placements on Disney Sports Streaming content in real time. This means that if a game goes into overtime, brands can shop that inventory live.

• The race to buy Super Bowl commercials is in full swing. Confirmed buyers so far include: Bosch, Doritos, TurboTax, NFL, Stella Artois, Mountain Dew, NerdWallet, Pringles, Totino’s Pizza Rolls, Reese’s, Ritz, Taco Bell, Jeep, Instacart, Hellmann’s, GoDaddy, Nerds, Coors Light, Coffee mate, Rocket Cos., Dove, Häagen-Dazs, & Skechers. AI will be a huge theme this year, for companies that are even tangentially related to AI.

That’s all for this week. Happy New Year and remember, fortune favors the brave.