Reddit’s 5-Second Superb Owl Ad

Powerful things happen when people rally around something they really care about

In January 2021, Reddit watched as a subset of its users went toe-to-toe with Wall Street hedge funds, inciting a press and social media frenzy. As site traffic and app downloads surged, we were presented with a unique opportunity to build on this unprecedented momentum. The result was a Super Bowl ad that ran for just five seconds in the U.S.’s nine largest markets. Produced in collaboration with our agency of record, R/GA, the micro spot consisted of a still image with 11 sentences of text. It subtly acknowledged the redditors behind the GameStop stock debacle and positioned our brand as an underdog itself among big-spending Super Bowl advertisers. Both the delivery and message were simple: anything can happen when people come together.

On social, there were roughly 15K mentions discussing Reddit’s Super Bowl ad. The response was overwhelmingly positive with an estimated 96% positive/neutral sentiment. The most common themes among mentions ranged from “WTF did Reddit just hack the Super Bowl?” to “Here’s a screenshot for those who missed the Reddit ad” to “Reddit just won the night.”

We extended the surprise and delight aspect of our Super Bowl spot to our owned social media handles by sharing it directly to our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages, leveraging Twitter as a medium for actively engaging with users who were complimentary (and curious) about it. Our responsive Twitter strategy, which included a few real-time memes, helped us achieve an additional 3.5M impressions on Super Bowl Sunday.

Press Coverage

Awards