The rates of premature birth are going down in most places around the world. But surprisingly, it’s rising in the United States. In fact, there are nearly 380,000 premature babies born in the US every year.

There are several reasons why- mothers are waiting longer before having babies, the economics of the US medical system means that many women don’t have access to adequate care during pregnancy, etc. As the brand that ensures every baby gets a great start in life, Enfamil is working on helping with those issues.

We also wanted to reassure the parents of premature babies that we were there for them. And that thanks to advanced nutrition and the efforts of countless dedicated medical professionals, 9 out of 10 premature babies grow up with no further complications.

To reassure the parents of premature babies and demonstrate our support for them, we created a Super Bowl ad featuring actual babies that were meant to be born during Super Bowl Sunday but were born early. And then we ran it prematurely.

Leveraging the one time of year Americans are actually excited by advertising, we played off the sense of expectation that people feel for Super Bowl commercials. While most brands run their ads a week or two before the game, we ran ours a month before the game- fitting the definition of prematurity.

We contrasted these premature Super Bowl babies with other kids who had been born prematurely but who had gone on to grow up and live very successful lives full of accomplishments in every part of life (even a professional football player who was born prematurely).

After all, plans may change. But our commitment never will.

The audience for baby formula changes every 9 months. So, most brands just talk about their ingredients. The result is that baby formula advertising feels largely the same- sweet pictures of babies with lots of science and nutrition talk.

We wanted the very tightly knit community of moms and advocates to understand our commitment to giving every baby the best start in life. And we did that by reassuring parents of the most vulnerable babies there are- those born prematurely. Our goal was to show them that even with a rough start, their children would have the resources to succeed.

Making the solution even more elegant from a business perspective, getting into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is often the best way for a formula brand to become a vendor for that hospital- and gain an advantage in becoming the brand of choice for expecting mothers.

We open under the bright lights of an (American) football stadium as we hear how the biggest commercials will play during football’s biggest game.

Suddenly, we find ourselves in a NICU to learn this spot has arrived over a month early, just like the stars of the commercial- actual premature babies who were supposed to be born during the Super Bowl.

We then see several former premature babies grown and successful, including professional football player Mekhi Becton- all to reassure parents that Enfamil supports every baby, including those who got an early kickoff.

Releasing online and featuring premature babies who were meant to be born the day of the big game- as well as premature babies who are now grown and successful, we permeated the mom and baby influencer communities and demonstrated Enfamil’s support for the most vulnerable of us all.

The Enfamil Early Kickoff was designed primarily for a very niche audience- the mom and premature baby online communities. Rather than a direct retail effort, it was designed to raise brand affinity within these groups. And it resonated with them. Viewers spent nearly 3x as long with our content and earned nearly 150% more likes than the channel average where we ran.