We turned our biggest competitor, Verizon, into a literal sadist. This twist gave us a creative avenue to illustrate Verizon’s punitive practices and we delighted at exploring the analogs between the worlds of wireless and kink, from contracts that guarantee pain to the striking resemblance selfie sticks bear to batons.

To keep the metaphor lighthearted and silly, we cast comedienne Kristen Schaal as the overzealous masochist ready to receive Verizon’s punishment. Her quirky performance and awkward demeanor provided comedic contrast to the spot’s ominous ambience and art direction, but the message was still clear: Wireless pain is fine…if you’re into that sort of thing. If not, then T-Mobile is there with the pain-free solution.

This spot appeared halfway through the third quarter of Super Bowl LI. We anticipated that the audience would be firmly invested in the outcome of the game at this point, and thus highly attentive. Audience attention was critical because this spot laid the conceptual groundwork for a follow up spot and a social campaign that continued the story of Kristen Schaal’s character’s deviance. We also leaked the spot a day early online to help viewers get acquainted with Schaal’s character and to help signal that T-Mobile was planning to take the Super Bowl by storm.

This spot was listed in The Washington Post’s “Top Five Super Bowl 51 Commercials” as well as the Chicago Tribune’s top five, and earned 418.9 million impressions. It was also organically mentioned on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon during an interview with Will Forte. Overall, the spot played a significant role in T-Mobile’s Super Bowl strategy, making it the second most mentioned brand of the day (second only to half-time show sponsor, Pepsi).