Citing the Los Angeles wildfires, insurance company State Farm canceled plans to air an ad for next month’s Super Bowl and also delayed production of a campaign tied to the Apple TV+ series. Breakup.
The Super Bowl commercial should have marked a return to the Big Game for the insurer, whose outing last year with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito ranked among the most received spots during the telecast. He finished #1 on The United States todayAdMeter viewer survey.
No details have yet been released about the expected ad for this year’s Super Bowl, but circumstances in Southern California have complicated the optics of a 30-second joke worth of airtime costing several million dollars. For over a week, State Farm has been dealing with a rapidly evolving fire situation. The disaster killed at least 25 people, destroyed 12,000 structures and forced tens of thousands of evacuations for a second week.
State Farm is California’s largest insurer and will play a central role in an anticipated recovery effort that has yet to begin in earnest. Insurance industry experts predict that insured losses will be between $15 billion and $40 billion, and economic losses between $150 billion and $275 billion.
“Our number one priority at this time is the safety of our customers, agents and employees affected by the fires and providing assistance to our customers in the midst of this tragedy,” State Farm said in a statement.
Fox Sports declined to comment on the Super Bowl ad when contacted by Deadline. Fox sold out of inventory months ago and will therefore find a surplus of willing buyers on a waiting list.
Representatives for State Farm did not respond to Deadline’s requests for additional comment.
Ad age was the first to report on the Super Bowl ad cancellation. Advertising week also reported on the Super Bowl withdrawal and learned that State Farm was suspending production of a series of co-branded spots tied to Season 2 of Breakup. On-screen pitchman Jake from State Farm interacts with the show’s characters and was scheduled to appear at the Los Angeles premiere last week for the new season, which was scrapped due to the fires.
Although these co-marketing messages likely would have been released later in the new season, such as with the Super Bowl, it is difficult to predict the societal and media environment that will exist in a few weeks. Although the episode did not cause serious damage to State Farm, the NFL’s decision to move the LA Rams’ playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings from SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona , generated a notable sum. unfavorable discussions on social networks. Even before the fires, State Farm had drawn attention for discontinuing coverage on 72,000 homes and apartments last summer, blaming skyrocketing costs of covering fires and other disasters. A few days ago, news also broke that 1,600 policies in Pacific Palisades were discontinued by the company in July and an additional 2,000 policies in two other Los Angeles zip codes.
Although scripted dramas are a far cry from the Super Bowl, the affiliation with Breakup also brings trademark sensibilities, especially for Apple’s legendarily meticulous avant-gardes. Although Apple TV+ is an ad-free subscription service, a number of advertisers have been attracted to the cachet of the critically acclaimed series despite its sometimes violent and explicit scenes. The promotional campaign for season 2 continues to generate buzz. Marketers staged a daring stunt Tuesday at New York’s Grand Central Terminal, in which actors Adam Scott, Britt Lower and Zach Cherry appeared as their characters in a pop-up glass cube.
A source familiar with Super Bowl buying and selling trends told Deadline that no other brand in the insurance category — a strong one for sports — appears poised to follow State Farm to the sidelines from the Fox show.
