Workday builds on hit Super Bowl ad with Gwen Stefani, Travis Barker spots

Workday had a sleeper hit on the 2023 Super Bowl with its “Rock Star” spot, and it’s building on that success with a pair of new commercials that bring back Billy Idol from the original and add Gwen Stefani and Travis Barker to the mix. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs The concept is that calling your corporate colleagues rock stars is off-putting to actual rock stars, who’ve devoted their lives to rock ’n’ roll. This was established in the 2023 Super Bowl spot, which finished in the top 10 of the USA Today Ad Meter and won a Gold Lion at Cannes. Two new 30-second spots, from Ogilvy and director Jim Jenkins, extend the gag. They feature Stefani, Idol and Barker chastising office workers who are constantly congratulating each other—and throwing around the term rock star—for using Workday’s software. Workday told Ad Age that last year’s spot increased brand consideration by 65% and brand awareness by 14%. The proportion of people saying Workday is “a brand I can trust” rose by 24%. The campaign also reversed five years of slowing lead growth. Creatively, the challenge with the new work—which breaks during live coverage from The Masters on The Golf Channel beginning at 6 a.m. EDT on Monday—was to keep the campaign fresh with new talent and evolve it for an environment outside of the Super Bowl. Jenkins said while there are plenty of famous musicians in the world, the pool of people who work for this campaign is actually quite small—people who’ve truly earned the rock star title and look the part on camera. “It really comes down to who’s right for it and who you can get,” the O Positive director told Ad Age. “I love Greta van Fleet’s music, but you can’t have 23-year-olds complaining about this. It’s got to be somebody who’s devoted their life to it. “I was particularly happy that they got Travis Barker and Stefani, who are both well known, obviously for very different things, and both clearly look super out of place in a cubicle environment.” The storytelling is similar to the original spot but a little heavier on the workplace environments and on the corporate workers themselves, who get more of a chance to joke around and push back against the grumpy rock stars. The Super Bowl spot leaned more into spectacle, as a way to stand out in the busy visual environment of the Big Game. “When you’re working with non-actors, it’s good to be very specific about what we need from them,” said Jenkins. “None of them—in these spots or the last spot—ever refer to themselves as rock stars. I don’t think they would even feel comfortable doing that. They just don’t like anybody else using it. Letting them be kind of pissed off about that, in this environment, results in some funny stuff.” Shooting the three celebs required three separate shoots at an office building in Los Angeles. Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here “Everybody showed up on time and stayed their whole time,” said Jenkins. “I’ve had rock stars where I fly to go shoot them and, when you get there, it turns out they went to Japan because they wanted to. As long as people show up and kind of commit to it, it works out.” Jenkins added he was happy he didn’t have to compromise on the talent—that Workday was able to lock in the celebs that worked best creatively. “One thing I don’t love is when celebrities are interchangeable—if one says no, you can move on to the next one,” he said. “When I did the Bill Murray spot [for Jeep], if he had said no, that would have died. If Arnold [Schwarzenegger] had said no [to this year’s State Farm Super Bowl spot], that spot I did would have died. This is a pretty narrow window of rock stars who work for this, and I’m honestly grateful to Workday that once we identify them, they really get them.” The new ads will be on rotation across other properties including Bloomberg, CNBC, ESPN, LinkedIn, YouTube and more. The campaign will also air in Australia, Canada, the U.K., France and Germany.

Workday builds on hit Super Bowl ad with Gwen Stefani, Travis Barker spots

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