The actor achieved overwhelming success in one of the commercials during the 2017 Super Bowl.
Who wouldn't know the American actor John Malkovich, best known for his Broadway theater roles in the United States, while he became famous in our country for his movies, a three-time Golden Globe nominee and a two-time Oscar nominee? However, most people do not know that he is not only an actor but also a director, producer, and fashion designer, in short, a true multi-talent. And that's not all. He appeared in several interconnected, funny commercials during the 2017 Super Bowl halftime, which won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial.
Super Bowl – the Mecca of Advertising
The Super Bowl, considered a kind of national holiday in the United States, is the final game of the American football championship, the NFL. In 2017, 113.7 million people watched that year's 51st Super Bowl in the United States alone. Nearly 70% of American households tuned in at least once to the game during the day, so it's no wonder that the price of commercials shown during the game reached $5.02 million in 2017 for 30 seconds. Various companies make it a matter of prestige to advertise during the Super Bowl every year. Often, they showcase their best and most creative commercials here, and it frequently happens that they air only once during the game and never again.
John's Journey
One such advertiser at the 2017 Super Bowl was the American website builder and hosting service company, Squarespace When the company's representatives first met John Malkovich in the spring of 2016, they had no idea that the actor was thinking about building his own website. At that time, Squarespace invited Malkovich to play David Lynch's character in their digital marketing campaign called „Playing Lynch.” In a subsequent running conversation, Malkovich mentioned to Squarespace's CEO, Anthony Casalena, that he had launched a new fashion company, now the third since he started his career as a costume designer, and he wanted to create a website for his eponymous brand.
However, he encountered many obstacles and difficulties in creating the website and launching this line. It was then that the CEO realized how much the story resembled many of their Squarespace clients„ stories and what great material it could provide for a new campaign. This conversation initiated the creation of the film titled ”John's Journey,„ aimed at promoting Squarespace's ”Make Your Next Move" platform. The film, on one hand, is about the actual realization of johnmalkovich.comIt was also a tool for promoting the integrated campaign, but besides promoting the site, its other goal is to inspire others to take the next step in starting their business with Squarespace.
The positive reception of the film at the 2017 Super Bowl was reinforced by two short commercials, in which the actor-turned-fashion designer, John Malkovich, showcases one of the first problems businesses wanting to appear in the digital world face through his own real struggles: choosing and registering the right domain name. In the commercial, Malkovich, playing himself, realizes during the registration of the JohnMalkovich.com domain name that it is already owned by another John Malkovich. As a result, in one of the commercials, he drafts an email, while in the other, he calls the other John Malkovich, leading to a humorous and sometimes quite vulgar dialogue about the domain name being claimed by the other John Malkovich. The advertisement received unparalleled media attention, resulting in over 100,000 new businesses starting to use Squarespace.
The advertisement that wrote itself
Casalena stated that he hopes the advertisement will encourage others to appear online and, as a first step, secure their desired domain names before someone else snatches them away. According to the CEO of Squarespace, the message and goal of the commercial, in addition to the above, was to inspire others to follow their dreams, just as Malkovich followed his by starting a career in fashion. They wanted people to realize that no matter what their passion or interest is, anyone with a creative idea can take their next step with Squarespace. Of course, delivering this message to people was quite costly at $5 million for every 30 seconds. However, according to Casalena, this is a price worth paying, as he stated, „while it is definitely an investment, the Super Bowl is a unique opportunity since some people watch the event specifically for the commercials. The audience is huge, and it allows us to work more creatively than we would otherwise throughout the year.”
The Squarespace John Malkovich advertisement is not a story dreamed up by an advertising agency, but rather comes from reality. When Squarespace learned that Malkovich wanted to start another fashion company but could not acquire the JohnMalkovich.com domain name, the advertisement practically wrote itself. In parallel with the advertisement, Squarespace indeed created JohnMalkovich.com so that the actor could launch his fashion line, thus everyone won.
Emmy Award-winning commercial
Among the Squarespace commercials aired during the Super Bowl, the spot titled „Calling JohnMalkovich.com” won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial in 2017 and garnered over 4.5 million views on YouTube. However, its impact on consumers was even more astonishing, as it brought the highest traffic to Squarespace.com in the past 16 years, generating 3.15 billion media impressions. This could not have been achieved so effectively without John Malkovich's appearance. A well-packaged, clearly articulated message that reflects John Malkovich's multiple roles, paired with professional and entertaining execution, ensures it remains in people's memories.
In the film, the increasingly frustrated protagonist, who knows little about the internet, expresses a somewhat vulgar yet humorous outrage, making the problem relatable and easily digestible for the potential target audience, as it is easy to identify with him. This empathetic communication from the company is a wink between the company and the future customers watching the commercial, showing that „we understand you, and it's completely normal for your brain to explode in a similar situation.”.
Of course, the collaboration positively affected the sales figures of John Malkovich's clothing collection, as every piece of the entire collection sold out within a few months following the advertisement's debut.
Agency: Mirimar Creative Agency
