There is no bigger stage in advertising than the Super Bowl. You have a captive, 120 million-person audience, most of whom are actually excited for the ads. You have clients willing to take big swings in an attempt to stand out from the crowded field. And you finally have a positive answer to give your distant relatives when they inevitably ask, “Do you have any Super Bowl commercials this year?”
In a lot of ways, the Super Bowl is the pinnacle of advertising for a creative. But it’s also one of the toughest and most stressful briefs imaginable. And it never gets any easier.
We have been lucky enough to have worked on three different Super Bowl campaigns over the years with Droga5. (Well, four if you count the spot that was killed mid-shoot in 2015…a devastating memory we blacked out as young creatives). The first real one, in 2018, was a tourism ad for Australia disguised as a new Crocodile Dundee movie. The second, last year, marked the return of Molson Coors to the Super Bowl with “The High Stakes Beer Ad,” the first commercial people could bet on. And most recently, this past Sunday, we helped Coors Light bring back its iconic beer train for the big game.
All of them have been very different campaigns, but each has the same daunting brief: win the Super Bowl—a double-edged sword when it comes to creativity.
This year, in a heavyweight fight of celebrities, never-been-dones and “hacking” the broadcast, we decided to take a different path and focus on something that never gets old: nostalgia. The beloved Coors Light Train was first introduced in 2005 and quickly became a piece of advertising lore. And while it’s been retired since 2012, the call for its return has been constant over the last decade.
The frosty train, the unforgettable song and ability to make ice-cold Coors Lights appear out of nowhere, proved to be a magic formula. The brand just needed the right moment to bring back the icon…and that moment was now.
However, the train needed some updates for 2024. We partnered with director Daniel Warwick and bEpic Studios in Berlin to help us reimagine the train for today, retaining key elements from the original train while modernizing others. (If you think the engine looks strangely reminiscent of an ice-cold Coors Light can, you’re not wrong). In total, more than 20 different versions of the train were presented before we ultimately landed on one, something that needed to happen before shooting began in South Africa.
REELated:
This leads us to one big secret about our ice-cold beer train: it’s not real, as much as we wish it was. We had to go full movie magic with this one, using CGI, green screens, high-speed drones, a real South African steam engine and, of course, a life-size, custom-built model of the train that could be driven into the family living room. We only had one take to capture the crash, which we did from three angles, because the house would inevitably be destroyed. For safety reasons, only the stunt driver was allowed to be on set while the rest of us watched on monitors in another room. It was epic.
We weren’t just going to bring the train back, we were going to bring it back with a bang. Literally. Through the front door.
A monumental effort on all fronts, the glorious return of the train lit up the beer world.
Now, on Super Bowl Monday, the exhausting ride is over…until ultimately, we (and other agencies) get in line to do it all over again next year. The high stakes. The high stress. And hopefully, a game-changing, Super Bowl–winning idea. But those are hard to come by.
For all of Reel 360 News’ Super Bowl coverage, click here.
Nominate Someone You know For The Reel Black List OR Reel Women
