The goal of a Super Bowl campaign is to get a brand in front of a massive live audience, leading brands to shell out millions of dollars for TV spots. But for this year’s Super Bowl, Blockbuster and creative agency Atlantic New York opted to take a completely opposite approach, skipping—or should we say fast-forwarding—past the actual game to make the viewing experience as exclusive as possible.
With the “Until the Bitter End” campaign, Blockbuster sought to spotlight its last remaining brick-and-mortar store in Bend, Oregon. Atlantic leaned into the resilience of the video rental service’s final storefront by likening it to a cockroach in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, infusing cockroach imagery into a series of social media teasers—including one captioned “Just when you thought we were gone, we’re crawling right back”—and a T-shirt tied to the campaign.