In Short:
- Great ads don't start with ideas — they start with the brief. The Super Bowl shows what a sharp brief can produce.
- Anthropic's "A Time and a Place" brief was about trust: Claude serves users, not advertisers — ~80% of revenue comes from enterprise contracts, not ad spend.
- Pepsi's "Polar Bears" brief was about proof: people prefer Pepsi in blind taste tests — so let Coca-Cola's own mascots do the testing.
- Budweiser's "American Icons" brief was about timing: Budweiser's 150th anniversary meeting America's 250th birthday — a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
- The lesson: the best campaigns aren't built on big ideas. They're built on strong briefs.
Every year, Super Bowl ads dominate the conversation. But great advertising doesn't start with ideas — it starts with the brief. Here's what three standout ads reveal about the briefs behind them.
Super Bowl Brief #1: Anthropic “A Time and a Place”
The idea is a great example of leveraging a strong reason to believe.
While OpenAI has announced that ads are coming to ChatGPT, Anthropic has a fundamentally different setup: around 80% of its revenue comes from enterprise contracts, not consumers.
Which means they don’t need advertising. More importantly, they can refuse it.
So the brief isn’t “we’re better at AI.” It’s to prove that Claude is designed to serve user interests, not advertiser interests.
The message would have been something like: Claude won’t compromise your conversations with advertising incentives.
The reason to believe would have been something like: Revenue comes from enterprise contracts and paid subscriptions — not advertisers.
And what a great idea has come from that brief.
Enter a therapist who pivots from maternal advice to pitching a cougar dating site.
Enter a fitness coach who shifts from workout tips to height-boosting insoles.
Enter a business mentor who pivots from warm entrepreneurial guidance to pitching a payday loan.
“By keeping Claude free of advertising incentives, the only thing it’s optimising for is helping you do your best thinking”: Sasha De Marigny, CCO, Anthropic
Super Bowl Brief #2: Pepsi “Polar Bears”
The ad is a great example of leveraging a strong reason to believe. For years, Pepsi has had a stubborn, provable truth on its side: people prefer Pepsi in blind taste tests.
That’s not a line, that’s evidence. So the brief isn’t “be funny at the Super Bowl.” It’s to dramatically prove preference.
And what a neat idea has come from that brief.
Enter Coca-Cola polar bears. No logos. No bias. Just taste.
Super Bowl Brief #3: Budweiser “American Icons”
The ad is a great example of leveraging a unique opportunity in a brief.
This year, Budweiser’s 150th anniversary collides with America’s 250th birthday, creating a clear, time-bound reason for communication. For the brand, it’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reassert Budweiser as the American beer.
Enter the iconic Clydesdales and a rescued eagle named Lincoln.
Pieter-Paul von Weiler is the co-founder of BetterBriefs, an advisory and training business that helps marketers write better briefs and deliver more impactful ideas. A highly awarded former agency strategist, having worked at Publicis Amsterdam, Publicis London, Saatchi & Saatchi and AJF Partnership. Pieter-Paul has served as an Effie judge across Australia and APAC for over a decade.
Together with co-founder Matt Davies, he wrote the BetterBriefs Project and The Best Way for a Client to Brief an Agency, a practical guide for marketers to improve the quality of briefs, co-authored by Mark Ritson and published in partnership with the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA). Pieter-Paul (together with Matt) also led the BetterIdeas Project, a global study exposing the poor state of the creative evaluation process. The study aims to improve the creative decision-making and evaluation practices and was launched in partnership with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and the IPA.