It starts with a Patriot mascot bursting through the locker room door, flipping a GilletteLabs switch that turns everything in the stadium green, cutting to a wide shot of the south end zone area currently under renovation, Isaacson said. While it will still show the stadium under construction, it will also show a preview of a new video board with a lighthouse that shines a light to the middle of the field, causing the Patriots logo to flip and reveal a “strange silver base” upon which pieces will come together to build a GilletteLabs razor with a green exfoliating bar.
“And then, of course, that leads into Joe Buck and Troy Aikman saying, ‘OK, wow, welcome everybody to the new GilletteLabs Stadium here on Monday Night Football.’”
Isaacson said the segment is basically an extension of an existing ad buy to integrate into the live broadcast.
“What we did was we took that 30-second spot and made it into this new hybrid live commercial,” Isaacson said.
The event joins a mini-trend of mixed-reality ads popping into sports over recent months—some of which went better than others.
Chipotle did a mixed-reality stunt to spring a surprise on viewers of a Stanley Cup playoff game between the Colorado Avalanche and St. Louis Blues in May, which made it appear a gigantic gloved hand broke through the ice to grab a burrito bowl—all merged into live programming during a commercial break.
HBO Max got more mixed reviews—including from announcer Bob Costas on Warner Bros. Discovery sibling network TBS—for a stunt earlier this month during a New York Yankees-Cleveland Guardians playoff game that had a dragon from the “House of the Dragon” series appearing to fly into Yankee Stadium. The awkward flyover was clearly not one Costas enjoyed being involved with.