Microsoft “Be The One” Highlights The Brand Value Instead of The Product Itself
Microsoft’s 2020 Super Bowl Commercial traces Katie Sowers’s journey and celebrates her accomplishment.
Microsoft has a long-term partnership with the NFL, which gives the company an opportunity to find a suitable one — Katie Sowers the offensive assistant coach for the San Francisco 49ers — to be their brand spokesperson.
Even though her team 49ers had lost the game, it does not diminish the fact that Katie Sowers is a change-maker and ‘a woman of many inspiring firsts’. The commercial has displayed the whole life journey of Katie Sowers, from growing up in Kansas and dreaming to be a football player, to playing in the American women’s football league, and finally to becoming the first female and openly LGTBQ NFL coach in Super Bowl.
Unlike most of the other Super Bowl commercials, of which companies try their best to impress the audience with their products in a limited and extremely expensive 30s-60s ad, “Be The One” has no close-ups for the products, except for few scenes that Sowers is using Microsoft’s Surface touchscreen laptop for training the team. The company has put an emphasis on messaging the brand idea instead, which is the reason why this advertisement has stood out to me. Through Katie Sowers, a symbol of empowering and inspiring, Microsoft tries to send the message to the public that Katie Sowers’s story and her spirit are consistent with Microsoft’s mission statement — “to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more” — and Microsoft’s products aim to help and support brave pioneers like Katie Sower.
The commercial has garnered much attention from all kinds of media channels. On YouTube the advertisement has more than 20M views. The well-told compelling story has pulled many people, including myself, in. People are sharing the video link and @Katie Sowers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, expressing their gratitude and how they as well as their children are inspired by the story. The commercial has also been posted and discussed by many medias, such as CNBC and the Advocate, and been selected as one of ‘the 10 Best Super Bowl Ads of 2020’ by AdWeek.
This Microsoft commercial is shareable because I’ve always believed that highlighting the brand idea is a more effective way of advertising than focusing on the product itself. My favorite campaign is the Real Beauty campaign by Dove, which is a perfect model of impressing and inspiring people with their consistent brand value. I believe that similar to the Dove campaign, Microsoft’s “Be The One” commercial is effective and has done a good job on building brand image and attracting customers who are empowered by their story and message.
