Super Bowl ads stand out in their own right. It’s an elite club. Any company that can afford $6.5 million for a 30-second spot must be doing well, right? Those who can afford to get here are thrust before a captive audience of 112.3 million viewers who assume these companies are at the top of their game.
It would’ve been too easy for Salesforce to make us chortle and choke on our nachos with mindless humor, but instead, it went big—and blazed a trail for all other ads to come. In doing so, it left behind clues to its branding success.
The familiar face of Matthew McConaughey turns heads in the ad’s first frame, but the ad script copy hooks the psyche and hangs on for 60 blessed seconds. (Not an easy feat, given today’s sub-goldfish attention span!) Opening with the Academy Award-winning actor dressed in astronaut garb, McConaughey floats through space to the classic voiceover trope:
“Space: the boundary of human achievement, the new frontier.”
With an unexpected shrug and flippant “eh,” McConaughey rejects this view of the future—as presumably many business leaders and viewers feel we collectively ought to. The ad continues:
“It’s not time to escape. It’s time to engage. It’s time to plant more trees. It’s time to build more trust. It’s time to make more space for all of us.”
The core message taps into the universal sentiment that’s bubbling beneath the surface of Virgin Galactic’s commercial space flight and all-too-palpable mockumentary “Don’t Look Up.” It’s an ad script appealing to anyone underwhelmed by Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse escape or Jeff Bezos’ rocket journey, touching upon the cloying sense of earth-saving urgency we feel as temperatures rise and progress remains elusive.
Salesforce brings us back to earth, assures us we can do better, and delivers the solution:
“It’s time to blaze our trail. ‘Cause the new frontier? It ain’t rocket science. It’s right here.”
The ad script copy is not only riveting; it’s indicative of a larger content strategy that has worked to make Salesforce the largest CRM provider in the world.
Salesforce never forgot its core audience: innovators
When Salesforce debuted in 1999, its cloud Customer Relationship Management (CRM) products made a modest splash in the market. Cloud? A vehicle for CRM? Competitors thought it laughable, while Salesforce appealed to pioneering startups and medium-sized businesses looking for fast, easy, affordable software capable of scaling and adapting to their changing needs.
With the ubiquity of “the big three”—Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure—that ripple became a tidal wave a few short years later. The cloud was shifting culture in favor of the underdog. Suddenly, wealth could be created remotely—bringing creative minds from diverse cultural backgrounds and humble beginnings to the forefront like never before. It was an exciting time to be swimming, but consistent on-brand messaging was the buoy that kept Salesforce afloat, despite market saturation from a host of eager new competitors.
Its spot-on content strategy provides actionable advice for leaders looking to future-proof their businesses through innovation and efficiency—a moving goal post to be sure, but one the ultra-perceptive Salesforce branding team canvassed yesterday.
Salesforce understands what we’ve said before: Great content marketing is agile. Audiences look to brand leaders to reflect what matters today, but—rather than ruminate—to sprint ahead to solutions. The Salesforce Super Bowl ad dishes up just what audiences are looking for—not status quo, but a call to something bigger. At a time when many business leaders are reassessing internal policies on inclusion, sustainability, and employee engagement, Salesforce empowers its audience to act with a sense of urgency (yes, the time is now), but also reassurance (don’t worry; the answers are right in front of us). The encouraging message broadly resonates and builds confidence for the brand as our ambassador to this new future.
Salesforce ad script copy builds off success to maintain momentum
The ad script copy is a beautiful, rousing speech—but it has legs, too. In a recent 360 blog, Salesforce acknowledges the reality that 32% of customers view net zero corporate commitments as meaningful and 47% view promises as superficial. The blog reminds us: “Against that skepticism, now comes the hard part: turning promises into action.” Sustainability requires transformative thinking, not just a single act or initiative.
Beyond platitudes, Salesforce announced on Sept. 21, 2021 that the company had achieved effective net zero energy usage across its entire value chain with 100% renewable energy. Salesforce offers more than a generic suggestion that “we need to plant more trees.” They’re already doing it; this year, the company is on track to grow 30 million new trees and they’re working with organizations that plant, grow, and restore 100 million trees over a decade. But to make this mission all-encompassing—and invite other enterprises into the fold—they’ve shared a free blueprint (the Salesforce Climate Action Plan) and released the Sustainability Cloud tool suite to help other businesses transform.
Brand missions and value sets may vary across companies, but connecting words to actions is necessary to create a scalable formula for successful copywriting.
Relevant core pillars keep messaging on-brand
In a sentence, the Salesforce brand promise—to bring companies and customers together, using their CRM platform to inspire change—applies to every piece of content, every ad script, and every action.
Whether businesses want to get to know their customers better with CRM software, adapt to changes in the workplace, or deliver on their mission to leave this world a better place than they found it, Salesforce is on the same team. By developing ad script copy targeted at a broad audience of business innovators and taking bold action to strengthen trust in their brand, Salesforce remains a beacon of brand resilience.
With the debut of the #TeamEarth ad, it’s easy to see how this “new frontier” of trust, engagement, equality, and sustainability aligns with Salesforce’s strategic core pillars—particularly trailblazing and using business as a platform for change. Their brand message continues to shine a light on how people can come together to build a better future. After all, it’s not rocket science.
At MarketSmiths, we understand the importance of creating down-to-earth messaging that’s relevant, inspiring, and on-brand. Contact us to connect with a team of writers who can help you blaze your trail and rally audiences around your mission.
