Super Bowl influencer marketing strategies—how brands are increasingly integrating creators into experiential

For Super Bowl 2025, brands such as Hellmann’s, Instacart and Abercrombie & Fitch are going beyond traditional influencer posts, leveraging brand activations, exclusive parties and experiential events designed to generate organic buzz. Rather than relying solely on paid promotions, advertisers are making creators a core part of their Super Bowl marketing strategies, turning influencer partnerships into real-world experiences that extend beyond the screen. Brands inviting influencers to join them in the stands at the Super Bowl isn’t a new marketing tactic. But this year, influencer management firms such as Digital Brand Architects are seeing a dramatic rise in requests for creators to attend brand activations and events throughout the week leading up to the Super Bowl, rather than “just going to the game and doing social [content] around it,” said Kirstin MacGowan, VP of talent at the firm. A large group of creators represented by both Digital Brand Architects and its parent company, United Talent Agency, are flying down to New Orleans this week to attend dinner parties, cocktail hours and other events hosted by brands in the lead-up to the Super Bowl, she said. Abercrombie, for instance, invited several influencers to both a private brunch event during the week and a brand activation on the day of the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, including Halley Kate, Jaz Smith, Ella Halikas and twins Alexus and Ana Learmann, she said. Super Bowl commercials Tracking the latest brand and agency plans Click here Many of the DBA and UTA creators heading to New Orleans this week are in the food and lifestyle niches, MacGowan said, and are partnering with food and beverage brands on their Super Bowl activations. She declined to name specific brands or creators due to non-disclosure agreements. Compared to last year’s Super Bowl, when nearly all of DBA’s creators were working with brands on a “strictly social” basis, the majority of brands have reached out to the firm requesting partnerships that revolve around social content captured at brand activations, MacGowan said. “With real-life activations in general, you do typically see a higher sort of ROI for the social engagement that you get out of it, mostly because [creators] aren’t just making the social posts that they’re being contracted to do as part of the activation,” she said. “They’re sharing that they’re at these events, they’re sharing posts about being in New Orleans. [Brands] are going to get so much more added value with more posts—and more impressions and reach—than creators might originally have been contracted for.” Get behind-the-scenes details from Big Game advertisers at Ad Age’s live-streamed Super Bowl Playbook event on Feb. 4. Register and learn more at AdAge.com/SuperBowl2025. The slew of brand activations around Super Bowl LIX reflects the larger intersection of experiential activations and influencer partnerships that’s taken hold in the influencer marketing industry over the past year, MacGowan added. And because the Super Bowl has expanded from gameday into a week-long marketing moment (and sometimes longer), “you’re able to work with creators and influencers even more, because you’re not necessarily having to tie them to a specific [TV] spot,” said Emily Brown, senior manager of strategy at influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy. “You’re really just getting them [to New Orleans], getting them excited [and] getting your brand in their hand,” she said. “And then, obviously, getting them to interact with the event is always going to make that content feel much more natural and native [to social media].” Plus, if a brand only invites influencers to the Super Bowl itself, those influencers are effectively only able to create content from the stands of the Caesars Superdome, where the Big Game is being played, she said. More opportunities to film a range of social content ultimately means more views for brands hosting creators in New Orleans, she said. Ogilvy has also noted a “strong trend towards more experiential marketing” across its clients’ Super Bowl campaigns this year, said Ansley Williams, the agency’s head of influencer marketing for North America, in an email. Creators are a key part of most of these brand activations, she added, and are “playing an important role in amplifying these efforts” and helping them reach a broader audience, she said. On top of Uber Eats’ in-game ad and its social campaign centered around the stars of the ad—Martha Stewart, Charli XCX and Matthew McConaughey—the delivery platform will also “have creators on the ground in New Orleans capturing content” from the brand’s events around the Super Bowl, said Georgie Jeffreys, Uber’s head of marketing for North America, in an email. Also read: Pop-up event strategies from Poppi and Cetaphil For advertisers unwilling or unable to shell out around $8 million for 30 seconds of Super Bowl air time, brand activations that fuel influencer content offer are a far more cost-effective solution for amassing millions of views—particularly for brands targeting young consumers, said Carolyn Rooke, managing director at VML. Partnering with creators can help brands “hijack that media attention and screen attention during the critical mass of ad engagement” both during and in the lead-up to the Super Bowl, she said. Partnering with creators to amplify a Super Bowl campaign is “usually a fraction of the overall cost” of an in-game ad—typically a six-figure total, depending on the scale of the campaign and the size of the creators’ online audiences, said Ryan Detert, CEO of influencer marketing agency Influential. The NFL itself is hosting more than 150 creators from around the globe at several different Super Bowl week activations this year, Ian Trombetta, the league’s senior VP of social, influencer and content marketing, told Ad Age. It’s part of the NFL’s strategy to reach younger audiences and more casual sports fans for whom the Super Bowl “may be the only time [they’re] really tuned into the NFL,” he said. Read more about the NFL’s creator strategy here Beyond the Big Easy Other brands started blending brand activations with their influencer collaborations several days before brands and NFL players began descending upon New Orleans. Hellmann’s, for instance, invited several influencers, including food creators Jeremy Jacobowitz and Sam Schnur (aka @TheNaughtyFork) to an event at Katz’s Delicatessen in New York last week. There, the brand unveiled its Super Bowl ad—an updated version of the famous “fake orgasm” scene from the rom-com “When Harry Met Sally...,” filmed at the same restaurant. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ad Age (@adage) Instacart, too, is combining its social and influencer strategy leading up to its in-game TV spot with several “IRL components,” said Jasmine Taylor, the brand’s head of consumer marketing. Instacart tapped celebrity gossip account Deuxmoi to “leak” a staged paparazzi-style photo of “Old Spice Guy” Isaiah Mustafa and two “Heinz Weiner Dogs” to tease the inclusion of other brands’ mascots in its Super Bowl campaign, Taylor said. Over the next week, several other social media pages focused on pop culture and celebrity news will also be sharing content centered on some of the brand mascots featured in Instacart’s ad, where those characters will be framed as “celebrities” traveling from New York to New Orleans for the Big Game, she said. View this post on Instagram A post shared by curators of pop culture (@deuxmoi) This strategy of amplifying buzzy experiential marketing moments with influencer content is ultimately part of “a media rush” among marketers to secure as many views as possible across their Super Bowl campaigns, said Victoria Tabio, director of strategy and social branding at TBWA\Chiat\Day New York. “It’s about who has the most views by [Super Bowl] Sunday,” she said. “And that’s where you get different channels involved, like your social [media] influencers and celebrities. It just becomes this mass-reaching approach.” NextGen Marketing Summit Join us for a crash course on Gen Z, DTC marketing and the creator economy Register today

Super Bowl influencer marketing strategies—how brands are increasingly integrating creators into experiential

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