Branded content guaranteed to send you down a rabbit-hole

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There’s been a lot of talk about “rabbit holes” thanks to Tubi’s highly successful ad, launched during the Super Bowl. Here are a number of highly-engaging branded content pieces guaranteed to send you down that rabbit hole…

Pepsi Max x Kyrie Irving presents Uncle Drew

This series formed part of Pepsi’s new no-calorie Pepsi Max as “cola in disguise,” and in keeping with the theme of disguise, a 19-year-old Kyrie Irving transformed from a rising NBA star to an old man with glasses and a gut.

It launched in 2012, and grew into something bigger - a sports comedy film that ended up featuring additional stars such as Shaq, Reggie Miller and Chris Webber.

Want more? Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4

Blaze Pizza x LeBron James

LeBron James is an investor in Blaze Pizza and owns a 10% stake that Forbes estimates to be worth $30 million. Like many of his other investments, LeBron’s profile has no doubt been a major driver of it’s growth - The below video has had 2.5m+ views on Blaze Pizza’s YouTube channel alone.

Part 2: Watch Ron Upgrade the Way You Pizza

Barilla x Roger Federer

Roger Federer pays two special fans a surprise visit (post-covid lockdown) for a game of rooftop tennis, after they created a viral video of themselves playing a 12-shot rally between two rooftops, during lock down. The below video has 22m+ views on YouTube.

Roger Federer also featured in a piece for Barilla where he fulfilled a promise that he made five years ago, accepting a challenge laid out by one of his youngest supporters, Zizou. This video has 5.5m+ views on YouTube:

Barilla | The Promise with Roger Federer and Zizou

Vogue x Roger Federer

This piece is a simple, yet creative piece to camera giving fans more of an insight into the superstar behind the racquet. This video has had 12m+ views on YouTube:

Vogue | 73 Questions With Roger Federer

Nike x Ronaldinho presents “Crossbar”

The Crossbar ad features Ronaldinho launching a soccer ball onto the crossbar of the goal, at just the right angle, so that the ball returns right back to him where he then kept it under his control - He did this not once, not twice, not even three times, but four times, and did so without the ball ever touching the floor.

Greg Hoffman, Former CMO at Nike, notes: “Crossbar was a turning point into content and social media… In February 2005, YouTube went live but had not become the dominant video platform. That was a few years off. The concept of a viral video wasn’t really a thing… But when Nike put “Crossbar” on YouTube, the video exploded and became the first brand film to reach one million views…”

Reference: Emotion by Design: Creative Leadership Lessons from a Life at Nike

Nike x Kobe Bryant

Both the above Crossbar video, and the below video featuring Kobe Bryant jumping over an Aston Martin are so visually spectacular, they ended up being super-successful PR stunts, triggering a flurry of “Is it real” article across the internet.

….both stunts were FAKE.

Heineken - The Negotiation

A social experiment: In order to win tickets to the UEFA Champions League, men are given the challenge to convince their wives to buy two expensive plastic stadium seats.