H-E-B and Coca-Cola Southwest have an advertising game plan with local Super Bowl ads

H-E-B and Coca-Cola Southwest have an advertising game plan with local Super Bowl ads

H-E-B teaser for Super Bowl ad. (Courtesy | Plot Twist)
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Is it the Chiefs versus the 49ers? Or the Budweiser Clydesdales versus Doritos? 

With prices for a 30-second ad expected to be $6.5 million to $7 million, according to advertising industry officials, most local businesses are priced out. But the Super Bowl does sell localized ads, and two Texas firms are hoping to grab some eyeballs with their offerings. Both have been in the game before. H-E-B will air an ad in many Texas markets, and Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages will air ads in the Texas-Oklahoma market. 

Both ads come from Plot Twist Creativity, a Dallas-based advertising agency founded by former employees of The Richards Group.

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H-E-B did not make its 60-second ad available for preview, but a 15-second teaser ad was posted to YouTube. A woman shops in an H-E-B store, seemingly tempted by some items down an aisle. The tagline for the ad is, “You won’t believe what we have in store.” 

The H-E-B Super Bowl teaser ad. (Courtesy | Plot Twist)

“All I can say is that it’s very creative and H-E-B’s many fans will definitely relate to it,” said Dave Kroencke, principal and chief operating officer at Plot Twist. San Antonio-based H-E-B has been running regional ads for many years during the Super Bowl but expanded its ad reach last year after opening more locations in North Texas, Kroencke said. 

Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages, based in Dallas, is one of the largest Coca-Cola bottlers in the U.S., with more than 8,500 employees, seven production plants, including one in Fort Worth, and 37 distribution facilities. 

This is the third year the company is advertising in the big game. The previous 30-second ads focused on recruitment.

“The first ads helped us achieve our hiring targets in 2022 and 2023,” said Greg Artkop, director of business, brand and strategic communications at Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages. “We were able to fill the majority of our open roles and build a pipeline for the future.”

This year, the spot is promoting the company’s culture and community support. Accompanied by original music, the ad captures its values through a playful narrative featuring real merchandisers from the company’s Lubbock-based facility interacting with animation that brings a typical in-store display of Coke products to life. 

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The Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages ad for the 2024 Super Bowl. (Courtesy | Plot Twist)

“The ads have had a tremendous impact on our associates, who really enjoy seeing their colleagues in the ads each year,” said Artkop. “In fact, our engagement has increased significantly in the past three years, and we achieved our highest engagement ever in 2022 and 2023. The ad and the broader campaign around it have contributed to that.” 

The animation featured in the ad was developed by King and Country, a Los Angeles-based creative studio that specializes in design, animation, visual effects and live action.

Since the previous ads for the company were aimed at recruiting employees, it was fairly easy to gauge their impact, said Kroencke. This year will be a bit different. 

“I think employees at a game-watching party are going to be pretty proud to say that’s the company they work for and they’ll share it on social media, so it’ll have a huge internal benefit as well as an external one,” he said. 

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Both the H-E-B and the Coca-Cola Southwest Beverage ads came out of ideas from the most junior creative team members about a year out of college, Kroencke said. 

“It really shows that great ideas can come from anywhere and how open we are to new ideas,” he said. 

This year’s Super Bowl is expected to attract about 200 million viewers, though there may be more due to the Taylor Swift factor, said Kroencke. 

Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.

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