Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there—“there” being the Netflix show Running Point.
Today, the insurance company announced a collaboration with the streamer, which includes a co-branded ad featuring characters from Running Point, the basketball-centric comedy starring Kate Hudson. As part of the deal, Jake from State Farm is set to appear as a character in Season 2 of the show.
State Farm has inserted Jake in fictional worlds before, but only in ad form, and having him show up in an actual television show is a first, according to State Farm Head of Marketing Alyson Griffin.
“We like to create conditions over time that allow us to take advantage of lightning in the bottle, should it present itself, and this is one of those moments,” she said. “Jake from State Farm is a character unlike any other that moves in the world, really—that can show up to support a Caitlin Clark in the stands, who can dap up Travis Scott in real life, who can walk around Coachella, who will be in the stands with Mama Kelce at an NFL game. It’s like he is real.”
While getting Jake cast in a show is a new move for State Farm, the effort is indicative of the company’s broader approach to brand marketing, which Griffin said revolves around using assets like Jake to get involved with major sports and entertainment moments to drive reach, engagement, and buzz.
Supporting cast
The ad features Hudson as Isla Gordon, president of the fictional basketball team the Los Angeles Waves, and Chet Hanks as Travis Bugg, a player known for landing himself in hot water. “You put the team at risk,” Gordon tells Bugg in the spot.
Enter Jake “with the assist,” which also happens to be the name of State Farm’s ongoing basketball campaign platform. Jake spends the rest of the ad helping Bugg narrowly avoid disasters, like putting his foot in his mouth during a postgame press conference, microwaving tinfoil, and fighting with a ref.
The process of landing on the final scripts—both for the ad and for the show itself—was collaborative, Griffin said, something of a necessity for brands hoping to work with Hollywood talent. The State Farm team wanted to be “respectful of the spirit of the show” in its campaign, and the Netflix writers were interested in leveraging State Farm, a major basketball sponsor, to help make the Wave seem like an authentic NBA team, she said.
The fact that Jake has become something of a regular at sporting events like NBA All-Star Weekend also “lends credibility” to the show, Magno Herran, VP of global brand marketing and partnerships for Netflix, told us. When Jake attends games in real life, “he’s got a mob of people wanting pictures, autographs,” Herran said, so he’s betting the cameo will sit well with most fans. Jake is set to show up courtside in Running Point, which “feels like a natural appearance that he would have anyway,” Herran added.
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While it’s the first time State Farm has gotten Jake in a show, it’s not Running Point‘s first time name-dropping real-world basketball sponsors. Remember its Sephora CMO plot?
In this case, the teams worked together to come up with plot arcs that made sense for both the brand and the show, and Griffin said the writers were open to feedback about how to incorporate Jake. In the initial script, for instance, his character acted “slightly to the side of what Jake from State Farm would do,” she said; it ultimately got rewritten.
“I really appreciated that,” Griffin said. “They said, ‘Look, this is our first opening salvo, and if we didn’t get your character right, we want to.’ And they did.”
The real deal
The co-branded campaign, which is running in 15- and 30-second cuts through May 22 on digital platforms including Netflix, Peacock, and YouTube, is meant to contribute to State Farm’s usual marketing goals: “overall reach, engagement, excitement, [and] talk value,” Griffin told us. Her team uses brand lift studies and looks at time spent on its site and campaign landing pages to help gauge performance.
“And of course, we’re interested in the fandom,” she said. “Are we tapping in, with retargeting, to the Netflix customer ecosystem? How is that continuing to evolve our business?” For the brand partnerships team at Netflix, the campaign will ideally entertain fans while also serving State Farm’s KPIs, Herran said.
Running Point has had a significant following since its debut last February: In its first week on Nielsen’s streaming chart, the show was the No. 4 most-streamed show with more than a billion minutes viewed, according to Nielsen data cited by THR.
And Jake is no stranger to fandom. In addition to his jaunts at real-life sporting events and music festivals, the character is adding video game appearances to his résumé along with Netflix shows; he now appears in the crowd during certain matchups in the soccer simulation game EA Sports FC 26.
Incorporating Jake throughout culture is a strategy State Farm has been using for a while, and one it’s leaning into with a particular eye on the upcoming World Cup, Griffin said. While the brand isn’t an official sponsor, State Farm isn’t planning to miss the biggest sporting event in the world.
“We will participate,” Griffin said. “Where people spend their time, we’re not disrupting them and pulling them to us; we’re inserting ourselves there in authentic ways that are a delight rather than a disruption.”
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