ASMR made it to the Super Bowl.
On Feb 3, 2019, an ASMR commercial featuring Zoe Kravitz and Michelob Ultra Pure Gold played during the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl.
In full disclosure, I was the ASMR consultant for the past couple of months to the creative and production teams behind the commercial. These individuals truly wanted to understand ASMR and represent it appropriately in the commercial – and I think they did a fantastic job, as do some ASMR artists.
The ASMR artist, Somni Rosae, sent me the following email:
“Hi Dr. Richard! Have you seen the new beer ad for the Super Bowl? Personally, I think this is the first ad I think the advertising agencies got it right. Cheers, Somni”
The ASMR artist, Gibi ASMR, commented on the commercial in the Chicago Tribune:
“I thought it was awesome. They hit the nail on the head. You can tell they did their research: They had the binaural microphones, had her whispering back and forth. They had tapping, nice sounds. They definitely watched content and had done their research on what ASMR is supposed to be. They, of course, blew it up, made it Hollywood, used a big budget, and so it was very cool. They were accurate.”
The video is currently posted on the YouTube channel for Michelob Ultra (it is the most viewed video on the channel) and contains positive comments from additional ASMR artists like ASMR Darling, fastASMR, Karuna Satori ASMR, The ASMR Ryan, ASMR Destiny, Holly ASMR, and Tyson ASMR.
The production was selected as one of the 10 Best Super Bowl Commercials by The Washington Post, Thrillist, and Oprah Magazine, and five months later was described as, “the prime example of an incredibly successful ASMR brand advertisement.” The Pantagraph also selected it as a “Super Bowl Winner.”
How did the ASMR-inspired ad affect sales? “Azania Andrews, VP of Marketing for Michelob Ultra, said sales volume for the beer grew in the triple digits following the airing of the ad“.
My favorite article about the commercial was by Dr William Halligan, a dentist in San Diego who saw it and asked, “what in the world was this?” Dr Halligan then went searching about ASMR and even strapped a heart rate monitor on himself to see his physiological response to ASMR videos.
The Super Bowl commercial is linked below and here are some of the key ASMR elements to watch for:
ASMR University 