Squarespace is a technology platform that makes it easy to build a website or online store. For the 2023 Super Bowl, our brief was to create a standout advertising moment on and around the game to drive brand recognition, comprehension and conversation, all while showcasing our elevated aesthetic point of view.

One of Squarespace’s key benefits as a product is its simplicity — it’s incredibly easy to build a website or online store using our platform. Our challenge was to explain it in an equally simple way and the solution was found in our founding story. When our CEO Anthony Casalena started the company, he often pitched it to potential clients as “a website that makes websites.” We took that genius bit of accidental copywriting and made it the centerpiece of our campaign.

In our film, the realization that Squarespace is a website that makes websites sends actor Adam Driver on an epic journey to the fraying edges of reality, where he spawns multiple versions of himself and ultimately triggers “The Singularity” — the end of our physical reality and the beginning of something new. We continued to explore all of those themes in the surrounding films, social posts and website.

Squarespace speaks to a mass audience that has varying degrees of comfort with technology. Many of our potential consumers see building a website as confusing and intimidating, so our goal here was to make it as clear, simple and memorable as possible. Squarespace isn’t an all in one platform for digital presence and online commerce — it’s a website that makes websites.

The campaign launched on 30 January 2023 with our talent reveal online film, featuring multiple Adam Drivers interacting backstage at our Super Bowl commercial shoot.

On 05 February 2023, we dropped a ten second teaser for the ad, as well as a series of three movie posters treating The Singularity as if it were a theatrical release.

On 09 February 2023, we launched the ninety second film, as well as six animated loops that present “A website that makes websites” in a striking black and white design system.

On 12 February 2023, Super Bowl Sunday, the thirty second cutdown ran on the game. We also launched a website where visitors could interact with a 3D model of Adam Driver’s head to choose a Squarespace website template. The site also features a limited edition Singularity template, designed specifically for the campaign.

On 13 February, we launched the supporting 15 second ads.

The work generated over 200 million media impressions, 656,600,603 total video views and drove over 250,000 visits to squarespace.com on Super Bowl Sunday. It also created a massive swell of activity on social media, leading to Adam Driver trending on Twitter and the campaign line “a website that makes websites” becoming a meme.