OpenAI is using Super Bowl advertising to reinforce its brand identity, a strategy that emphasizes the historical significance of its products while also emphasizing their utility in everyday life.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT has grown rapidly, reaching 100 million users in just two months since its launch in November 2022. It now has over 400 million users, but its brand awareness was relatively low. To improve this, OpenAI’s CMO Kate Rauch turned to Super Bowl advertising.
Rauch wanted to emphasize that ChatGPT is no longer a tool for tech enthusiasts. “The Super Bowl is an event that has 130 million viewers,” he said. “With ChatGPT having 400 million users, this is an opportunity to show that this is a tool for the masses.”
The ad uses ChatGPT’s dot-shaped cursor to visually represent the progression of human progress. The dot moves to show important technological advancements, from fire, the wheel, agriculture, trains, the light bulb, aviation, space exploration, and computers. The message at the end appears: “All progress has a beginning.”
Lauchi previously worked in marketing at Coinbase and successfully ran a QR code ad during the 2022 Super Bowl. This ad also adopted a strategy of connecting the brand message to the product. “When ChatGPT is used, a dot appears. This dot has become an element of OpenAI’s brand design. We hope that people who see the ad will naturally think of ChatGPT, have a conversation, and try it out for themselves,” he said.
The Super Bowl ad is aligned with OpenAI’s brand expansion strategy. The primary goal is to solidify ChatGPT’s leading position and establish its brand identity amidst the fierce competition in the AI market. “This is the beginning of the age of intelligence,” Rauch said. “We want to signal this historic change while also highlighting that ChatGPT is a tool that can be used immediately.”
The advertising planning process utilized OpenAI’s video generation AI, Sora. “The advertisement itself was produced by humans, but we used AI to conceptualize and experiment with the concept during the planning stage. Sora helped us quickly simulate camera angles and scene composition,” said Rauch.
