From RoboCop to Groundhog Day: The Top 10 Licensed IP Campaigns of 2020
Each year Born Licensing celebrates how characters and entertainment IP has been utilised in advertising campaigns from around the world.
2020 was a unique year for advertising. The spread of Covid-19 had a major impact across the industry, which had to deal with tough production challenges. Creative was also impacted with brands wanting to proactively and quickly respond to the situation.
As always, Born Licensing were on the lookout for advertising campaigns which licensed characters, clips and other forms of entertainment IP.
Before we get into 2020, feel free to take a look back at our Top 10 campaigns from previous years:
10. Domino’s and Cheers
We love how this campaign cleverly takes existing footage of Norm Peterson from 80’s sitcom Cheers and places him in a modern-day Domino’s location. Really clever blending and super effective!
Brand: Domino’s
Agency: CP&B
Property: Cheers
9. Mountain Dew and The Shining
This is the first of five Super Bowl spots in this list, as big game advertisers really embraced IP this year! Here we see Bryan Cranston ‘shine’ in this recreation of the 1980 horror film The Shining. "Here’s Mountain Dew Zero!"
Brand: Mountain Dew
Agency: TBWA/Chiat/Day New York
Property: The Shining
8. DFS and Wallace & Gromit
British Furniture retailer DFS has been working with the Wallace & Gromit Characters for a number of years now. Their new Christmas campaign ‘A Comfy Carol’ was considered one of the best UK Christmas spots this year.
Brand: DFS
Agency: Krow London
Property: Wallace & Gromit
7. Facebook and Rocky
Facebook Wanted to ensure their first ever Super Bowl campaign packed a few punches, and did it ever! In a clever spot for their Facebook groups platform, they highlighted a number of groups related to the word ‘Rock’. The spot ends on the famous Rocky stairs with none other than Sylvester Stallone. It was a big success for Facebook, achieving 8.05% share of digital voice, almost 10 million online views and over 274 million social impressions. Born Licensing managed the licensing of Rocky for this campaign as licensing agent for Rocky Rights Holder MGM.
Brand: Facebook
Agency: Wieden+Kennedy Portland
Property: Rocky (licensing managed by Born Licensing)
6. Liftmaster x Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
An ad for garage-door opener doesn’t sound like it would be at all memorable or notable.However Liftmaster did exactly that this year by skilfully tying in 1980s cult-classic movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off into the campaign.
Brand: Liftmaster
Agency: Schafer Condon Carter
Property: Ferris Bueller's Day Off
5. Pringles And Rick and Morty
Here’s Another Super Bowl campaign. As the number one comedy for young people in America aged 18-30, Pringles felt that Rick and Morty would be the best characters to bank on capturing the attention of their target audience. In addition to the advertising campaign, Pringles launched a new Pickle Rick flavour.
Brand: Pringles
Agency: GREY
Property: Rick and Morty
4. Advance Auto Parts and Die Hard
This Campaign screams ‘high budget’! Not only did they invest in licensing the rights to bring back Die Hard’s John McClane, they also splurged on hiring Bruce Willis to reprise the role. The campaign was shared by several high profile celebrities including Willis’ daughter Rumer.
Brand: Advance Auto Parts
Agency: The Marketing Arm
Property: Die Hard
3. Direct Line and Donatello
UK insurance firm Direct Line understand the power of fictional characters thanks to the five years working with the Winston Wolf character from Pulp Fiction. Enter RoboCop, Donatello and Bumblebee to take things to the next level. Each character appeared in their own 60” spot and across other campaign material. Born Licensing managed the licensing of RoboCop, Donatello and Bumblebee for this campaign as licensing agent for Rights Holders MGM, Viacom CBS and Hasbro.
Brand: Direct Line
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi London
Property: Donatello (licensing managed by Born Licensing)
2. Walmart and Various
Last year we named Walmart’s ‘Cars’ campaign as our #1 of the year due to an incredible 13 famous film and TV cars being part of the spot. This year they took things ‘out of this world’ by featuring at least 12 famous space themed characters. This was a real Super Bowl LIV favourite.
Brand: Walmart
Agency: Publicis
Property: Flash Gordon, Buzz Lightyear, Bill S. Preston of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Arrival, Blade Runner, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Lego Movie, Mars Attacks!, Marvin the Martian, Men In Black, Star Trek and Star Wars
1. Jeep and Groundhog Day
This Super Bowl spot was so popular that it achieved 14.58% of digital share of voice according to iSpot.tv. It had over 16.5 million views on game day and was commonly considered the #1 Super Bowl spot of the year. The most impressive thing was getting Bill Murray to reprise the role of Phil Connors.
Brand: Jeep
Agency: Highdrive Advertising
Property: Groundhog Day
Because we couldn’t fit all our favourites into our top ten here’s some honourable mentions of other amazing campaigns from the year that featured licensed entertainment IP:
Discover Card and Various films and TV shows
Brand: Discover Card
Agency: The Martin Agency
Property: Austin Powers, Clueless, School of Rock, Uncle Buck, Friends, Ted, Girls Trip,Mean Girls, Old School, Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Google and Casablanca
Brand: Google
Property: Casablanca
Brand: Old Navy
Agency: The Martin Agency
Property: Love Actually
Ghostbusters And Quickbooks
Brand: Quickbooks
Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day
Property: Ghostbusters
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