Pete Carter Comes Clean On Pantene’s ‘Super Bowl Spot Without The Super Bowl Buy’

P&G marketing director Pete Carter discusses the shampoo brand’s “unconventional” approach to its Effie award-winning “#DadDo” ad campaign.

Pete Carter Comes Clean On Pantene’s ‘Super Bowl Spot Without The Super Bowl Buy’

As part of an ongoing series of podcasts with 2017 Effie-winning marketers, I spoke with Pete Carter, who, as marketing director at Procter & Gamble, heads up the Pantene business.

Carter talked in detail about Pantene’s “#DadDo” campaign. The 2016 campaign was unveiled, somewhat unconventionally, leading up to and during Super Bowl 50 (the league eschewed the use of a Roman numerals that year to highlight the game’s golden anniversary). The campaign used a series of how-to videos and in-store activations before culminating in a 30-second spot that did not air during the game. Carter described it as a Super Bowl spot without the Super Bowl buy.

One aspect of the campaign Carter touched on is that they knew they had a powerful idea but were faced with logistical challenges in getting it in front of people during the advertising industry’s highest-profile extravaganza. Ultimately, Carter and Pantene went for it. Carter summed up how they arrived at their decision: “You know what? We’re going to do this … we’re just going to find a different way.”

They did find a way, and it paid off big. The “#DadDo” campaign took home a 2017 Effie.

Highlights from this week’s “Marketing Today” podcast include:

https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/5538408/height/90/width/640/theme/custom/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/autoplay/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/7f3889/

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