The CEOs who spend $8 million on a Super Bowl ad

While there are naysayers that argue spending $8 million-plus on an ad is “about as smart as pinning your retirement on a scratch-off win,” the ad is typically the high point of a much longer branding campaign.  My favorite last year was the DoorDash-All-The-Ads, which promised one winner every item advertised during that game, from a BMW electric car to a 30-pound bucket of mayonnaise. It made you aware that DoorDash delivered more than just food, roused our crowd from a Tostinos-induced stupor to copy the code down, and was part of a longer campaign. 

I spoke with Neal Arthur, CEO of Wieden + Kennedy, which created the DoorDash ad, as well as this year’s version which will feature comedian Nate Bargatze as a profligate big spender. He says that branding has expanded far beyond ads to include “everything in a company’s actions, operations, anything that makes up the business, anything that a consumer has access to and can see.”

The goal, he says, is not so much to put something out there that makes people laugh but to “really prove who you are as a company, and what you believe in.” And with prices in the millions, Super Bowl advertising is not just a CMO showcase. “You sit down with the CEO, not just the CMO, and you figure out, what’s our objective? … How do I use the Super Bowl to further my agenda as a company?”

That also points to the shift in advertising agencies themselves. Arthur says his team is creating events, writing CEO speeches, managing social posts, and more. “Most of our clients understand the value of having a creative look from somebody who understands their brand’s voice, the entirety of the way their brand shows up.”

That said, nobody hires Nate Bargatze if they don’t want to entertain the gameday crowd. “There’s definitely a desire to shift back towards more humor and levity,” says Arthur. “But the amount that we talk about advertising is going down and the amount we’re talking about brand is going up massively.”

More news below.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady, diane.brady@fortune.com, LinkedIn.

Top news

Trump’s federal scourge continues. The president is preparing an order to fire thousands of employees of the Department of Health and Human Services. The cuts would fall on the FDA, CDC, NIH, Medicare, and Medicaid. Trump also sent a letter to the head of the Federal Election Commission telling her she was fired. She is refusing to go. 

Trump imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court for issuing “baseless” arrest warrants for the prime minister of Israel. Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a member of the ICC system.

The White House is cancelling all “media contracts,” like Politico. (Reality check: Most of this spending is simply government officials expensing the news subscriptions that help them stay up to date.)

Democrats have been banned from entering at least three agencies, the EPA, USAID, and the Treasury.

$5 billion EV charging network axed. Trump ordered the states to stop installing chargers on U.S. highways. It will be interesting to see how that affects Elon Musk’s Tesla, where global auto sales declined 8% in Q4, driven predominantly by a collapse of sales in Europe where customers have shied away from his racial politics.

Netanyahu v Hamas: The Israeli leader proposed that the leaders of the terrorist organization that controls Gaza go into exile as a way to permanently end the conflict.

From Fortune

Ford CEO sends tariffs warning
During the automaker’s earnings call on Wednesday, Ford CEO Jim Farley warned that Trump’s proposed tariffs will greatly favor Asian competitors and could cost those in the U.S. billions. To prepare for those tariffs, Farley announced that Ford would stockpile cars and parts that typically cross the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Fortune

Amazon’s (possibly) historic reported quarterly revenue
Amazon reported quarterly revenue of more than $187 billion on Thursday night, a figure that is expected to surpass Walmart’s Q4 quarterly revenue for the first time in the competitive history of the two retail giants. Walmart has led the Fortune 500, Fortune’s annual ranking of U.S. companies by revenue, since 2013, but could be surpassed by Amazon this year if the revenue Walmart reports on Feb. 20 falls short of Amazon’s quarterly revenue and sets a new precedent. Fortune

Capri’s failed merger bet
Fashion conglomerate Capri this week reported an 11.6% drop in their most recent quarter, and analysts blame the Michael Kors-parent company for hedging too hard on a failed merger with competitor Tapestry. The merger was blocked by the Federal Trade Commission in November, but Capri was banking on Tapestry’s help to revive failing brands like JImmy Choo and Versace. Fortune

The markets

• The jobs report is due today at 10 a.m. EST. The consensus estimate is for 170K-plus new jobs with unemployment unchanged at 4.1%. … Little drama in Europe and Asia … The S&P 500 closed up 0.4% at 6,083.57 last night. … US futures were going nowhere this morning.

From the analysts 

• Ark Invest on OpenAI: “OpenAI could surpass $10 billion in revenue in 2025, monetizing at a faster rate than social media companies over the past decade. If the adoption of ChatGPT is an indicator, AI should drive rapid demand for a range of new technologies,” per Cathie Wood’s “Big Ideas 2025” report.
• Goldman Sachs on inflation: “Everywhere I look, I see more—not less—inflation … Inflation has reset at a higher level, and that’s a genie that’s hard to put back in the bottle,” per Gregory Peters.
• Convera on the dollar: “Trump’s desire for a weaker dollar aims to close the deficit, but tariff threats may not be aiding his cause. As the dollar strengthened in December, driven by Trump’s tariff remarks, the trade deficit widened. Maybe this will catch the administration’s attention?”, per Kevin Ford.
• JP Morgan on Uber: “We are encouraged by Uber’s approach in building out AV supply on the platform and think the company should benefit as the AV market scales toward what could be a $1T in the US alone,” per Doug Anmuth and Neeraj Kookada.
• JP Morgan on Match Group: “We are encouraged that Tinder MAU trends improved from -10% Y/Y in October to -8% in January, but much more progress is needed for Tinder payers to return to growth, and we think 2H revenue acceleration could be tough in a challenged dating market,” per Cory Carpenter and Daniel Pfeiffer.

Around the watercooler