Coming into Super Bowl LVII, Rakuten, a cash back & rewards shopping platform, was at an inflection point. We’d had strong growth with a loyal audience of Ebates users, but the business was starting to plateau in awareness following the Rakuten rebrand in 2019. Today, we’re facing historic inflation and a looming recession, so the need to save couldn’t be more important. The brand needed a campaign that would build mass awareness + understanding of our value proposition, while creating influence with millennial women.

We know this younger woman is fashion and style minded. Rakuten has over 3,500 merchant partners, many of whom are fashion brands that she loves, but these brands are often overshadowed by Rakuten’s mass merchants. With (Not So) Clueless as the brand’s Super Bowl campaign, Rakuten had the opportunity to expand the campaign’s reach beyond the Big Game, while building fashion credibility in an authentic way.

Super Bowl LVII happened to intersect with the Super Bowl of style: New York Fashion Week (NYFW). Upon discovering this, Rakuten tapped Christian Siriano and the iconic NYFW to engage fashion lovers in a multi-layered program that combined star power & the biggest fashion moment of the season. Award-winning designer and Clueless’ Alicia Silverstone’s close friend, Siriano was enlisted to redesign one of ‘90s fashion’s most iconic looks: Cher’s yellow plaid suit for the Super Bowl spot. Siriano made a surprise cameo in the commercial, an Easter egg for fans once the commercial was revealed. Siriano also designed four Clueless inspired looks to walk the runway in his show during NYFW, two days ahead of Super Bowl Sunday. Finally, to spotlight the breadth of fashion brands on Rakuten, Siriano created the (Not So) Clueless Edit, a shoppable curation of Clueless inspired looks from brands across price points on Rakuten’s site.

Siriano was selected as our partner because of his love of Clueless and friendship with its star, Alicia Silverstone. Press follow this star-studded friendship, tracking appearances together, especially their TikTok reenactments of Clueless scenes. Given this, we had a hunch press would be excited about this partnership but we were after a specific target with this strategy: fashion press. Fashion’s toughest critics are often the fashion press so placing stories about Rakuten’s activations with influential fashion press was an important factor in the campaign’s success. To achieve this, we developed a two-prong PR strategy: (1) place a feature story about the partnership by offering an exclusive story with a key fashion outlet (2) leverage Siriano’s surprise appearance in the commercial to entice fashion press, who might not otherwise cover the Super Bowl, to write about the ad - driving broader awareness for the campaign, especially with the fashion minded.

The reveal began with a blind item - Alicia Silverstone dropped a gif of Cher in 2023 on her socials without brand mention. The following day, Rakuten partnered with People and Variety to reveal that Rakuten was behind the return of Clueless. These press partners were selected as catalysts for coverage in other outlets - and it worked with 130 stories just about the teaser. Concurrently Alicia spoke with lifestyle outlets during an embargoed press day for coverage in outlets who wouldn’t normally cover Super Bowl campaigns.

One week later, details of the Game spot were released with wide-reaching press partners: TODAY and New York Times and the embargo lifted on Alicia’s interviews. This campaign crescendo revealed the Game spot and Christian Siriano’s role in the campaign, including redesigning the iconic yellow plaid outfit. Coverage continued through Super Bowl with the press hooks of NYFW & airing of the commercial.

The PR strategy drove press coverage that supercharged the reach of the (Not So) Clueless campaign - and Rakuten. The campaign received coverage in more than 600 stories, overwhelmingly in outlets read by our target millennial woman, with a potential reach of 13.9B impressions and an estimated advertising value of $128M.

The coverage spanned from top news sources (e.g. Daily Mail and The New York Times) to some of fashion’s highest press (namely Harper’s Bazaar and InStyle) to lifestyle and entertainment press (Glamour, Entertainment Weekly, etc.) The campaign swept broadcast television with 200+ television segments including Today Show, Good Morning America, the Drew Barrymore Show, CBS’ The Talk, E!, Entertainment Tonight, CNN - all without an interview with the talent.

Amongst media outlets’ “best of” lists, (Not So) Clueless consistently appeared as one of the most loved Super Bowl advertisements to air, including TIME, CNN, NBC Sports, and many others.

During the crowded Super Bowl season, when 51 other brands also launched ads, more than half (50%) of these stories were standalone features about the campaign. News of Rakuten’s (Not So) Clueless campaign made it across borders with international press coverage in countries including: Brazil, France, England, Spain and Canada.

This groundswell of press coverage contributed to more than 27,000,000 views of the campaign and a significant uptick in Rakuten's brand awareness and first time buyers. Since Super Bowl Sunday, Rakuten’s unaided awareness increased by 11% and new buyers increased 15% YOY for Super Bowl Sunday.