The city of Chicago has a heritage with 3-time champions. The legendary Bulls dynasty of the 1990s “three-peated” 2 times, earning 6 NBA titles. The Blackhawks received a few Stanley Cups above six years in the 2010s. And now, there is a new Chicago 3-time champion banner to hang from the rafters: advert company Highdive has captured the number-one rating on the Usa Now Super Bowl Advert Meter an astonishing a few decades in a row.
The agency has thrice conquered the hearts of the hundreds of thousands and thousands of viewers who tune in every 12 months for the Significant Match. But regardless of the enormity of that results, it is just 1 day of the yr. For the other 364 days, Highdive is launching international operate, building transformative 360 strategies for consumers like Jeep and the Nationwide Hockey League (NHL), and developing its trademark balanced shopper relationships. Like an reliable, all-toppings-provided Chicago warm dog, this agency is loaded.
7 a long time in the past, Highdive’s founders and co-main innovative officers Mark Gross and Chad Broude still left the major agency existence simply because they needed to get started their individual shop. Gross describes their motivations: “Chad and I have been searching around and observed a have to have for more compact, much more nimble resourceful outlets that slice out some of the levels.” They walked out the door of their careers with no purchasers in tow. “It’s mad to believe about it now,” Gross states, “but I have been in the business enterprise a very long time. I knew persons would select up the telephone. We took our contact book and hustled.”
Recall as a child when you very first climbed to the top of the best diving board at the local community pool? It took guts and bravery to dive off. Gross and Broude discovered obvious parallels to what they had been executing at the time. An agency identify was staring them in the encounter. “Sure, it’s a metaphor about starting up your personal company,” states Broude. “But for us, it was the great metaphor for the sort of work we preferred to do: the daringness, the spirit it normally takes to climb up the ladder and get to that area the place you can build operate so powerful it can not be disregarded.”
They jumped, and Highdive was born.
With a name established, they now essential a central function. Gross says, “All my activities in advertising and marketing exactly where we have performed killer operate, it’s been with a balanced company-and-client partnership.” So they produced it a tenet: constructing balanced shopper relationships will direct to incredible get the job done.
“The explanation for healthy shopper relationships is that you get a greater inventive product—there’s actual science behind it,” Broude clarifies. “When you have excellent relationships and construct rely on, the suggestions [flow freely] back and forth, which lets for better operate. It [lets] us say issues without anxiety for how shoppers will react, and they can do the exact same.”
When asked about likely desire shoppers they’d like to insert, they both of those stated it’s not about the who it’s the why. “We want daring consumers who are aligned with us and really like the obstacle of brand name transformations,” claims Broude. “What we never adore is that cruise handle mentality.
“[Chief marketing officers] like to function with us for the reason that we’re really keen on removing the ‘ta-da second,’” Broude continues. “Traditionally, an agency would get briefed, go away for a while and appear back with the one shiny campaign. Which is not our design and style at all. We like to bring our clientele in early and frequently. We leverage their know-how they are brand specialists who live and breathe the brand name 24/7. We aren’t going to fake like we understand their manufacturer superior than they do. We retain them in the process each move of the way.”
Chad and I had been looking all around and noticed a need for smaller, much more nimble creative stores that lower out some of the levels.” —Mark Gross
“When shoppers come in for a resourceful presentation, we’ll have the total tactic laid out on the wall,” states Gross. “It’s extremely significantly a function session, and that sales opportunities into the function.”
One substantial lover of Highdive is Olivier François, worldwide main marketing and advertising officer and brand name main executive officer of Abarth and Fiat at automotive firm Stellantis. “Highdive’s imaginative ambition is without the need of boundaries,” suggests François. He’s noticed firsthand the impact that the agency has had on his makes throughout a wide variety of media and tasks. “Between its perform on Tremendous Bowl campaigns this kind of as Groundhog Working day to solution launches which include Jeep Wrangler 4xe and Grand Cherokee 4xe, to our new partnership in between the Jeep manufacturer and Jurassic Earth: Dominion, [the ad agency] constantly and enthusiastically delivers creative magic. On prime of that, they’re genuinely good persons who are pretty to work with working day in and working day out.”
François’s have confidence in in Highdive led to the assignment in 2018 for Jeep’s Super Bowl place. The ad company created a reprise of the traditional film Groundhog Working day that includes Bill Murray, netting it its 1st quantity-just one Ad Meter ranking.
It wasn’t a new expertise for Gross, nevertheless, having received various selection-just one Advert Meter placements previously in his job. Has he uncovered the key components for producing the great Tremendous Bowl location? He outlines some of the key capabilities of a good Big Recreation advert. “It’s not a time for inside jokes and acquiring a pretentious voice,” Gross suggests. “It’s about populist humor and storytelling that everyone can really like. [More than] 100 million men and women are seeing. If you glimpse at all the prime-rated places, they all function excellent relatable storytelling that appeals to the masses.” In the 2022 Ad Meter winner for Rocket Home finance loan, Highdive found a way to just take the recent realities of the household shopping for current market and relate it to an All-American typical, Barbie, as the well-known doll attempts to get her “Dreamhouse.” Actress Anna Kendrick lends her humor and attraction to the place, with the storytelling highlighting the product all the way as a result of.
One more veteran of Tremendous Bowl promotion is O Good Films director Jim Jenkins, who worked with Highdive on the Groundhog Day-themed Tremendous Bowl spot. While building the commercial, he said to Broude and Gross, “The ideal ad of the game is normally the most effective ad,” a sentiment that the two concur with. “He [meant] that the finest ad is the one particular that obviously articulates the brand’s values in the most unforgettable way,” Broude provides. “What people today overlook are the fundamentals. Men and women want to feel one thing about the manufacturer immediately after the conclude. You check out the game—it can be a lot of bells and whistles, and viewers shed sight of the clear manufacturer concept. It’s satisfying for them to go through the journey.”
Just about every of Highdive’s number-a person rated places entails that marquee Super Bowl ingredient: famous people. Broude and Gross have learned that it’s important to get the most out of them. “You have to use [celebrities] correctly and understand they have a brand name to secure know their strengths and weaknesses,” says Broude. “It’s wonderful how lots of people today misuse celebs. We constantly try out to make the movie star enhance the notion and the story, alternatively than the other way close to.”
It’s also significant to bear in mind that the Tremendous Bowl is no more time a a person-working day celebration. “This is a industrial that has to final for our consumers all 12 months,” Broude adds. “Identifying that celeb is truly vital. Yeah, they may well be great for the spot, but how are they excellent for the content you build pregame and postgame to retain enthusiasts engaged and entertained?” To see an case in point, do a brief YouTube lookup and look at the hilarious teaser video clip they created with Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd to hoopla up Lays’s 2022 Large Video game place.
We’re in the business of setting up makes. Accomplishment will help us build our own model. When we get the Super Bowl three several years in a row or launch a international marketing campaign, it receives a large amount of interest and strengthens our manufacturer.” —Chad Broude
Is a modest company successful the amount a person difference 3 a long time in a row a new development, or is Highdive an outlier? “No just one our sizing has ever carried out this generally, it’s the large keeping corporations with the enormous client rosters,” Gross suggests. “For us, undertaking it at our dimensions, we’re actually happy of it.”
“We’re in the business enterprise of constructing models. Good results helps us create our have brand name,” Broude adds. “When we gain the Super Bowl 3 decades in a row or launch a worldwide marketing campaign, it gets a good deal of consideration and strengthens our brand name. It also would make people today come to feel something when they listen to the name Highdive. It can help the new organization pipeline much too. There is a optimistic brand affiliation with our reputations.”
If the Tremendous Bowl perform is Highdive humor at its finest, then recent adverts for the NHL probably qualify as the ad agency’s showcase for the spectacular. Setting up with the Nothing Standard marketing campaign that debuted for the duration of the 2021–2022 season and culminating with a few Stanley Cup–themed advertisements airing in the course of the playoffs, Highdive designed an iconic sequence that won the hearts of hockey fans. The places weren’t just highly effective they have been efficient way too. The Nothing Common campaign resulted in a 61-p.c enhance in ad awareness considering the fact that prior seasons. Earning content material which is equally inventive and powerful is section of the Highdive DNA and its blueprint for accomplishment.
The two imagine about foreseeable future agency development but experience confident it will consider care of alone. “The only issue that is important to us is we want to stay who we are,” states Broude. “We want to preserve our tradition our earth-class inventive and our tremendous favourable, healthier interactions with shoppers. If we do that, the sky’s the limit. But we’ll never expand at the danger of forgoing any of that.”
“For us, it’s about thorough expansion,” Gross provides. “I never feel we’re greedy. We want to do the job with customers who do terrific perform and make guaranteed our employees are happy as we increase.”
Their employees’ joy suggests every thing to them. “Many of the persons right here put on Highdive hoodies or swag as a badge of honor,” says Broude. “Until you start off an agency, you don’t definitely have a feeling of how satisfying that can be. We’re delivering work opportunities for nearly 100 folks. It is quite magical.”
So, are Broude and Gross pondering about earning 4-peat standing at this year’s Super Bowl? Of system, they say. And really do not be shocked if they pull it off. But Highdive’s Ad Meter wins are just component of its story. “We have a great deal of accomplishment in the Tremendous Bowl, and it keeps us top of intellect, but it’s a single day,” suggests Broude. “The relaxation of the yr, we’re launching nationwide and world wide strategies with very aggressive goals and key-effectiveness indicators. We get each challenge with an open up thoughts. That goes a prolonged way. Which is the Highdive way.” ca
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