Why AT&T turned its new ad into a reunion for ‘The Office’
The new campaign is just the latest example of using pop culture nostalgia to get our attention.
Former star of The Office Rainn Wilson is starting a new small business, and he invited some old friends from the hit show to join in. “Dream With Rainn” is a luxury pillow with an embedded speaker that plays calming, snooze-inducing vocalizing from the man who gave us Dwight Schrute.
“Dream with Rainn” is part of a new ad campaign for AT&T Business, which focuses on small business customers and their need for a reliable network. Created with ad agency BBDO, it features Wilson, and fellow Office alumni Craig Robinson, Jenna Fischer, Creed Bratton, Kate Flannery, and Brian Baumgartner.
Val Vargas, senior vice president of advertising and retail at AT&T, says the goal was to showcase the high-pressure moments and quick decision-making where small business teams rely on a next-level network to get the job done.
“What better way to demonstrate the unique plight and challenges of small businesses than reuniting some of America’s favorite costars as they embark on a journey to launch a brand-new product, with the help of the experts at AT&T Business?” says Vargas. “It’s a way to play in each other’s worlds, and delight the fans, that simply makes sense.”
BBDO Los Angeles executive creative director Ash Tavassoli says that they wanted to avoid A-list movie stars and focus on people who everyday entrepreneurs could identify with. “We just really liked the idea of actors who are beloved, but maybe typecast as people who could not run a business, to come back together and see if they actually could run a business,” says Tavassoli.
Risk and reward
Brands have long brought back beloved characters from TV and movies in a bid to quickly get people’s attention. In 2022, AT&T rival Verizon tapped Jim Carrey to bring back The Cable Guy character from the 1996 comedy. Last year, Frito-Lay’s PopCorners somehow made a Breaking Bad combo make sense for its Super Bowl debut. And earlier this month, Target enlisted former SNL star Kristen Wiig to don a red vest and bring back her “Target Lady” character.
Over the years, various faces from The Office have popped up in ads. Brian Baumgartner starred in a 2020 campaign from Bush’s Beans, while Leslie David Baker and Phyllis Smith teamed up for a Cheerios campaign last year.
University of Michigan marketing professor and best-selling author Marcus Collins says that using existing IP can create an effective shorthand for the message the brand wants to convey. “If I’m AT&T and my focus is connectivity in the office, then it’s great to use The Office because people immediately get the references and love it,” says Collins. “Not only are we creating this shorthand, but also emotive connections for what [the brand] wants to accomplish.”
But using well-known TV and movie characters and actors also carries significant risk. Too often, people are so excited by the celebrity or characters, they forget who the ad is for in the first place. Remember that Ferris Bueller Super Bowl ad from 2012? If so, what brand was it for? Exactly. It was for Honda, but could easily have been for any other car brand. The litmus test for making these investments worth it for the brand is to make sure that brand is so deeply embedded into the idea that it couldn’t be swapped out for another.
One recent example is State Farm’s Super Bowl work with Arnold Schwarzenegger, which made the entire premise revolve around the brand’s tagline. Every time Schwarzenegger said neighbaaaaa, he was making the spot uniquely State Farm.
Brand connection
Because it’s a campaign for AT&T Business, the brand first seeded the campaign on LinkedIn, with Wilson teasing the potential reunion. In addition to the standard spot, there’s a six-minute version for super fans.
AT&T’s Vargas says the key to making it work was to embrace collaboration among brand, agency, and the actors. “Rainn, Jenna, and the entire crew fully embraced it and cocreated this with AT&T,” says Vargas.
This new campaign is really fun and will undoubtedly get plenty of attention. But—much like Verizon’s Cable Guy ad—it doesn’t quite pass the litmus test, since any internet provider hyping its network capabilities could fit. The good news is there will be an IRL “Dream with Rainn” pillow merch drop. The bad news is it’s only available through a contest launching April 29. But if you miss out, just keep using Squarespace’s “Jeff Bridges Sleep Tapes” album from 2015 to nod off.
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