This 2-Minute Super Bowl Commercial May Be the Best Thing Paramount+ Has Ever Produced
With all due respect to “The Good Fight,” the new Paramount+ Super Bowl spot starring Patrick Stewart may be the finest thing Paramount+ has ever done.
The one-minute, 58-second “Hail Patrick” ad, from creative agency Droga5, is the 15th commercial in the “A Mountain of Entertainment” series. Paramount+ first introduced “Paramount Mountain” three years ago at Super Bowl LV; Stewart was waiting for his colleagues at the summit back then.
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Those ads were…not great — but “Hail Patrick” undoubtedly is. In it, Stewart is in the trenches at base camp but still the group’s leader, which tees up a double meaning to the commercial’s title.
We open on Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa attempting to toss a grappling hook to the top of Paramount Mountain. It falls a bit short. This is, after all, a mountain of entertainment; it is no easy task.
“If it were a football, I’d be able to reach the top,” Tagovailoa says to Stewart. The “Star Trek” icon has a suggestion: “What about a football-shaped head?”
Lt. Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon in “Reno 911!”) and Knuckles (Idris Elba) from “Sonic the Hedgehog” like the plan. The only one who hates it more than Drew Barrymore (“The Drew Barrymore Show”) is Arnold (from “Hey Arnold!”), the one with the football-shaped head.
Tua doesn’t compromise his morals, but Stewart proves to be a capable backup. Well, sort of. His monologued play-by-play is all wrong and his arm ain’t what it used to be — not even when pumped up by musical guests Creed.
Arnold doesn’t quite make it to the mountain peak, but the gang, which this time also includes Master Chief from “Halo,” “Survivor” host Jeff Probst, and Dora from “Dora the Explorer,” are not out options yet.
“If only someone was made of pigskin,” Stewart says, finally getting a football reference right.
Cut to: Peppa Pig. “Oh dear,” indeed.
Watch the commercial below.
Super Bowl LVIII between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs takes place Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. ET in Las Vegas; it will air on CBS and stream live on Paramount+. While the vast majority of viewers will tune in via the broadcast network, streaming will (again) claim a larger piece of the pie than ever before.
Through a recent poll, the digital marketing agency Adtaxi forecasts 36 percent of Super Bowl LVIII viewers to watch via streaming TV. A good game will reach more than 100 million total viewers, so that’s a big number. Paramount+ ended September 2023 with 63 million subscribers; we’ll get an update on the total at the end of the month.
The NFL on CBS enjoyed its most-streamed season yet, and football “became one of the top drivers for Paramount+subscriptions in 2023,” the company recently stated to press. The network’s AFC Championship matchup between the Chiefs and the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday was the most-streamed live event ever on Paramount+, and unlike the controversial Peacock wildcard game, it was not a streaming exclusive. The Super Bowl should eclipse it.
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