We tackled the hottest debate in American football—a new rule meant to make quarterbacks safer that wound up altering the game in ways the NFL didn’t predict, infuriating fans and players alike. To show Lexus believes you can never go too far in the name of safety, we poked fun at the rule and debate with QUARTERBACK SAFETY SYSTEM+, safety features inspired by the UX crossover. We launched the campaign just in time for the Super Bowl, earning reviews as one of the best Big Game commercials—even though we didn’t buy airtime in the game.

No one liked this new rule, and Lexus could uniquely turn into an effective and entertaining safety story. So we leveraged this hot conversation and poked fun at the NFL in a way we knew fans would love. We created QBSS+, which reimagined the Lexus UX’s safety tech (called Lexus Safety System Plus) as safety features for quarterbacks.

Our airbags became QB Cocoon. The UX’s blind spot monitor became the QB’s blind side monitor. Even the UX’s industry-leading noise dampening became the QB’s Boo Dampening, that converted jeers into cheers.

We then hired a famous former QB with a great sense of humor to bring it home.

Lexus asked us to do something culturally around the NFL that would cut through the media clutter that always accompanies the Super Bowl, and show that they never stop trying to make drivers safer. The target audience of the UX is affluent millennials, but Lexus was interested in a campaign that introduced Lexus to a larger audience in a surprising way.

Most of the NFL fan world was caught up in the debate about QB safety, so it presented a rare opportunity to turn it into a Lexus UX safety story.

We made a :30 TVC that drove to a longform on YouTube. We created cutdowns (:06s, :15s)—for Instagram, Twitter and Facebook—gifs, and in-depth videos about each specific safety feature that drove to a microsite that explained the fictitious features of QBSS+ in great detail.

We launched our campaign a week and a half before the Super Bowl, when most advertisers were putting their in-game ads up on YouTube. We were in dozens of Super Bowl advertising round ups even though we didn’t have an in-game buy. We then released new content every day to build anticipation and momentum for the Super Bowl. We uploaded Super Bowl-relevant gifs on Giphy that became some of the most seen during the game.

During the game, we reacted to plays with gifs on Twitter, and earned replies from brands who caught on to what we were doing.

-25 million views on YouTube (2X Audi and 3X Mercedes who rans 60s in game)

-946 million impressions

-132 million views on Giphy

-25.7 million social engagements

-Reviewed as one of the best and funniest Super Bowl ads (without buying airtime)