Autodesk’s CMO says Nike was the big brand winner on Super Bowl Sunday

Super Bowl LIX had a clear winner on the field, but victory for brands was more hard-won. Many aimed for impact, but did they deliver? Autodesk CMO Dara Treseder offers hot takes on this year’s hits and misses from the big game’s ads. She joins host Bob Safian to break down what makes an NBDB (“never been done before”) moment, why so many brands adopted a “safe” approach, and what trends business leaders should note going forward.

This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.

Last year, we talked about whether you would buy a 30-second spot for Autodesk. When you were watching this year, did you think, Oh, maybe I should have; that would have been a good way to spend $8 million?

No, when I was watching the game, I was like, I am very glad with our strategy of not buying an ad in the Super Bowl. Look, I think sometimes it makes sense for your business. And I think you really have to understand: What are we trying to accomplish? What are the objectives? And will this help us make that happen?

I think that not enough brands who showed up this year did that calculation, I have to say. So, I think we did the right math by deciding to let our customers take center stage.

When a game is not close, is that good from a marketer’s point of view—like people are going to spend more time paying attention to the ad? Or is it bad because people aren’t as intensely focused on the screen?

It’s not good. It’s not good because people are getting up and people are leaving. Consumers start to get distracted and go back to their lives when it’s not as competitive until the very end.

You’re making a bet when you decide where you’re going to buy your ad, where in the show, right? Like in some ways it’s better to be at the end because people will remember you more, but only if the game is close.

Only if the game is close. So, you’ve got to think about the calculus for what you’re trying to do. I always think that going early and in the middle is safe. Again, it comes down to calculated risk, a clear-eyed risk. You gather as much data as you can, you strip away uncertainty, and then you make a decision with conviction. Going late is a risk that you should only take if you are sure that even if consumers get up and walk away, that placement still makes sense for your brand. But if you’re not sure about that, going early or going in the middle is probably a good way to make sure that you gather as many eyeballs as needed.

If you’re a brand like Autodesk and you haven’t bought a Super Bowl spot, how do you participate in the moment around the Super Bowl?

If you have an authentic reason to participate in the conversation, hey, it’s as good a time as any to do that. So for us at Autodesk, our software is used to design and make anything, whether it is literally the Caesar Superdome stadium in NOLA that housed it all, or stages like Kendrick’s, or ads like the Michelob Ultra ad. Our software is used to design and make anything. So for us, being a part of the conversation makes sense in terms of celebrating our customers who are playing a role in the game.

Now you’ve used this expression, NBDB (“never been done before”). There wasn’t a whole lot of that this year.

We like a good NBDB. And I thought a brand that actually did that was Rocket. So Rocket had that wonderful ad that really talked about owning the dream, owning the American dream, and owning the home.

They took the time to tell the story in a way that was so powerful. I was watching it live, and everybody from my father-in-law to my daughter was like, “Oh, we like this one.” And every American can remember that song. I mean, Bob, I’m sure in a bar somewhere at 1 a.m. at some point or the other, you were singing about country roads taking you home.

There’s no video of that.

You’re neither going to confirm nor deny, but I thought that ad was great. But what was especially awesome was to see that connected with the live experience of “Country Roads” playing in the stands and having the fans in the stadium. That was marketing magic, right?

Because the ad, the extension was so real, so powerful, so wonderful. So that was an NBDB. I don’t think I’ve seen any ads do that before where they connect what is happening on the screen to what is happening physically in the stadium in such a powerful integrated way. I thought Rocket did that.

They certainly owned that NBDB category with that first-of-its-kind integration.

So not the skin cowboy hat from Tubi. I didn’t get on with that.

I mean, that was when everyone was like, “I’m going to go get some chips.”

Nobody wants to watch that, right?

I thought that ad was pushing creative direction. That’s what I meant. Because people were staying away from relevance, sometimes they turned up the dial on ownability or memorability in a way that didn’t always work.

And I think for that Tubi ad, they turned up the memorability dial a little too much, and it didn’t quite work.

I want to ask you about the Nike “So Win” ad with top female athletes like Caitlin Clark and Jordan Chiles. In some ways, it was like a throwback to some of the ads we’d seen from Nike before. So it wasn’t really “never been done before,” but at the same time, I thought it was pretty darn effective.

I think Nike was the winner of the night, and I’ll tell you why. They did an amazing job of being ownable. It was like you said: It was an ownable Nike spot. You saw that spot, and you immediately knew it was Nike because of the athletes’ presence, the visual aesthetic, the black-and-white aesthetic, and the message. It showed the power of purpose and performance, and I have to give Nike a lot of credit for this spot because in a year where a lot of brands were staying away from saying anything, Nike said something.

They said something important. They said something that matters. And they said something that needed to be said, right? And that was the power of women in sports. And the importance of gender equity in sports. And I thought they said it really well. It wasn’t preachy. It was powerful. And, so talk about being memorable and being relevant.

And many of us can remember what was happening in the Olympics when Sha’Carri [Richardson] was running: She was ahead, and she looked to her left, and she looked to her right. And that moment was a part of the narrative, right? Many of us remember the journeys that these women athletes have had. And to see them standing on business, standing on power, standing on strength, it was saying, “Look, come what may, women’s sports is here to stay,” and I love that. Just watching my daughter watch that spot and her face light up, it was a powerful moment. So I think Nike did that, and they were really the only brand that made a statement, right?

A lot of brands talked about unity and nostalgia, which I thought was a little bit overdone, to be honest, and not actually reflective of the state of the country, so it felt a little forced. But I thought Nike did a really good job of saying, “Hey, we’re standing on business. We’re standing on purpose.” We’re not cause-led, so we’re not jumping into a political conversation. But we’re standing on what makes sense for our business. Our values remain unchanged.

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