During the 2019 Super Bowl, the NFL ran an ad that celebrated its centennial season by featuring pigskin legends of yesterday and today engaging in an impromptu game of tackle football at a black-tie gala. The rollicking two-minute “100 Year Game” ad won widespread praise, including taking home the coveted top spot in the USA Today Ad Meter.

This year, the league is returning to that formula—with a twist that includes new production technology that blends puppetry and CGI. The NFL is using the same agency-director team that made the 2019 spot, 72andSunny and Peter Berg. But joining the team this year is the production studio Swaybox, a New Orleans-based startup that is attempting to take puppetry into new realms.

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The NFL does not plan to release the two-minute spot until it airs during the game, just before the halftime show. The production team is still adding finishing touches, and league officials as of late this week had still not seen the final product.

Like the 2019 ad, the spot will include a cast of current and former players—plus coaches, referees and announcers. But the setting is much different: It will begin with a brother and sister playing a football video game at their house with the scene then shifting to the players popping out of the screen and into the home. 

“The magic of that 100 Year ad was taking the game of football and putting it in an unexpected place and I think that will also happen in this film as well, when you take the game of football and put it in a suburban house,” said Zach Hilder, executive creative director at 72andSunny Los Angeles.

But the league and agency are counting on the real magic to happen with the production technique. Rather than bringing the entire cast together in one set, like for the 100 Year ad, players and ex-players were filmed separately from the comfort of their homes or offices to capture audio and facial expressions. Swaybox created puppet versions of the stars, and those props were blended with CGI to create the final product, which the NFL hopes will add a 3D-like quality to the ad, called “Bring Down the House.” The cast includes Walter Payton, Rob Gronkowski, Ray Lewis, Aaron Donald, Deion Sanders, Marshawn Lynch, Kyler Murray, Al Michaels and others.

NFL Chief Marketing Officer Tim Ellis owns a home in New Orleans and said he learned about Swaybox through connections there. The studio, he said, is set to have its technology used in two major motion pictures in 2023 that he declined to specify. 

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Swaybox is “creating the future of animation and they are blending real-world puppetry with human physicality with this proprietary CGI technology that allows the characters to move, emote and behave in ways that the world has just never seen before,” Ellis said.

“We learned about this technology and we decided we want to be the ones to bring this to the world, and what better stage than the Super Bowl,” he added. The league has been teasing the ad with footage of the player “casting” recordings that were used in the production, including one with Michael Strahan that ran on TV during the NFL playoffs. Another video, shared with Ad Age today, features Peyton Manning.

Another teaser portrays the post-game aftermath in the house.

New diversity scrutiny 

The league will run a separate 30-second ad in the second half, also from 72andSunny, that plugs its social cause initiatives, including community service partnerships and social justice efforts that are part of “It Takes All of Us” platform. Such messaging has become a priority under Ellis, whose CMO tenure has been marked by the league taking a more aggressive stance in using its marketing to back social justice, including the “Football Is for Everyone” campaign.

But the NFL’s diversity initiatives are under a microscope in the wake of a new lawsuit filed by former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores, who alleges that NFL teams have engaged in racist hiring practices. The league issued a statement calling the claims “without merit,” while saying that “diversity is core to everything we do.”

The unfolding story, which is drawing major headlines, could put the league’s Super Bowl marketing under more scrutiny than normal.

Asked whether the NFL reconsidered its approach in light of the situation, Ellis said: “There is no doubt that we need to continue to work harder. We are reminded of that every day and certainly right now it is clear there is so much more to do. The marketing team definitely has a role … and we take that very seriously.” 

But “there is no desire to pull back on what we are doing,” he added. “We still need to continue to do the things that are actually helping our communities out there. But this is a clear reminder that there is so much more to do and we all have to be better.”

The Super Bowl strategy of running one serious ad and one lighthearted one continues Ellis’s marketing approach driven by a dual goal of promoting the league’s community service programs while also leaning into the fun of football.

“We do a lot of research to really understand how fans are feeling and how football fits into their lives. While our fans clearly want us to continue to talk about important societal issues, they really want us to give them an escape and give them more lighthearted fun high-octane entertainment, he said. “While we are still going through the pandemic, fans really want to get back to fun and entertainment.”

When it comes to on-the-field fun, it’s hard to dispute that the league had one of its most successful seasons ever. Ellis noted that 39 games were decided in the final play, which is the most in NFL history. The tight games helped propel the league to massive TV ratings success—a trend that will likely continue on Super Bowl Sunday.

The league will try to get its “Bring Down the House” ad noticed beyond TV with integrations such as one with Roblox that involves bringing the house inside a game. Also in the works is an AR experience with Snapchat.

“This is all part of an ongoing strategy to lean into technology to work with our platform partners and bring fans fresh and interesting experiences,” Eillis said, while “injecting youthful energy into the NFL.”