State Farm isn’t the NFL’s official insurer and doesn’t construct an ordinary advertising and marketing schedule across the league’s gamers, groups, or massive occasions.
But when there’s a artistic alternative across the NFL that may put the model on the crossroads of sports activities and tradition, like that good neighbor we’ve heard about, State Farm is there.
This week, State Farm debuts two new adverts simply forward of the 2025 NFL season, capitalizing on each its connection to the league and its artistic partnership with The Advertising Arm.
Within the first, Detroit Lions defensive finish and defensive captain Aidan Hutchinson returns for his second season with State Farm as a comparability for the model and different insurers. On this case, Jake From State Farm explains that having common insurance coverage as a substitute of State Farm is like needing a captain in your protection—and getting a net-throwing, jig-dancing sea captain.
The theme continues right into a second spot, by which Kansas Metropolis Chiefs quarterback and longtime pal of State Farm, Patrick Mahomes—from jazz-saxophone baths to bundling with teammate Travis Kelce on “Maauto”—makes the identical comparability for trainers.
State Farm, he posits, is extra just like the educated and extremely useful Chiefs athletic coach Julie Frymyer (who makes a cameo within the spot), whereas normal insurance coverage is extra like pop star Meghan Trainor—who reworks her greatest hit into “All About That Brace” whereas attempting to connect a leg brace to Mahomes’ arm and utilizing athletic tape as rhythmic dance streamers.
The brand new marketing campaign will run throughout linear, digital, social, on-line video, and streaming, and can characteristic a collaboration with Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night time Soccer. The Advertising Arm offered artistic help, however the 360 marketing campaign pulled in company assist from Optimum Sports activities, Infinity Advertising Staff, OMD, and FleishmanHillard.
If the message of the adverts appears acquainted, it’s as a result of it calls again to State Farm’s ”Batman vs. Bateman” spot that ran throughout NCAA March Insanity. Simply earlier than the NFL season, State Farm remains to be utilizing the sports activities advertising and marketing calendar, athlete connections, and tailor-made artistic to echo its “not-the-same” theme.
“Our budgets in [the insurance] class are far smaller than our rivals, so we all the time have to consider how we break via,” stated Alyson Griffin, State Farm’s head of selling. “Problem No. 1 is, no person cares about insurance coverage. No person thinks about insurance coverage. No person’s waking up each morning going, ‘I’m wondering what the insurance coverage carriers assume at the moment.’ It’s simply not a factor, and so you need to break via.”
Choosing the performs
Whereas State Farm does have a workforce of athletes at its disposal to assist separate it from rivals—together with Mahomes, reigning WNBA Rookie of the 12 months Caitlin Clark, USC All-American JuJu Watkins, and Los Angeles Clippers 12-time All-Star Chris Paul—the model usually lets the narrative of campaigns like its newest NFL choices dictate its roster.
“We choose expertise based mostly on the artistic,” Griffin stated. “It actually is set by precisely the artistic we’re engaged on.”
State Farm
In Hutchinson’s case, the spot required a captain, and he simply occurred to be one which State Farm labored with final yr for a marketing campaign round insurance coverage bundling. After placing him in a ballet class with Jake From State Farm, the model realized he may be ultimate because the stoic setup man for an on-field sea captain as effectively.
The artistic can even current a chance for State Farm’s athlete companions to weigh in with their very own solutions. For his newest spot, Mahomes famous that Frymyer was not solely his personal coach, however certainly one of solely 21 girls employed by NFL groups as trainers. Whereas Mahomes had helped usher in Kelce, Chiefs coach Andy Reid, and even guard Trey Smith for State Farm adverts, each he and State Farm noticed a chance to focus on girls within the sport.
State Farm
Whereas Trainor ended up within the spot as a result of she was an enormous fan of State Farm and grew up in a family of siblings who cherished soccer, the fixed in each adverts was the presence of Kevin Miles, who’s been taking part in Jake From State Farm since 2020.
On State Farm’s restricted price range, Griffin stated he’s turn into important to the success of those campaigns just by being somebody who can exist in the true world, be seen with athlete companions, and, as he did two years in the past, present up with Travis Kelce’s mom, Donna, at a Philadelphia Eagles recreation every week after Taylor Swift travels to New Jersey to see Mahomes, Kelce, and the Chiefs play the New York Jets.
Griffin famous it’s all a part of the corporate’s technique for punching above its weight and tapping into cultural moments.
“I drive this workforce onerous on a regular basis on how are we producing future demand, capturing present demand, and serious about retention and loyalty for our present ebook, all on the similar time with a restricted price range,” Griffin stated. “After which getting anyone like Meghan Trainor, Aidan Hutchinson, Trey Smith, and others to come back into these moments in order that they’re endemic to the subject and may break via greater than only a common previous insurance coverage industrial.”
