Live from New York, it’s not just Saturday Night.
This weekend, brands like AllState, Capital One, Maybelline, and T-Mobile are set to show up during a Sunday night red carpet show ahead of Saturday Night Live’s three-hour 50-anniversary special at Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center.
Allstate will host a countdown clock leading up to the event, VW cars are driving up to the red carpet, Maybelline will host a “Last Looks Lounge” as SNL50’s official makeup sponsor, and T-Mobile will host a red carpet glambot. Capital One is also set to be there, hosting a fan pit.
The programming and brand integrations are set to cap off a season throughout which NBCU strategically wove advertisers into SNL’s milestone year, using some of the sketch comedy series’ most iconic castmembers and sketches old and new to boost revenue and engagement.
“After 50 years, it’s going as strong as ever,” Sari Feinberg, NBCUniversal’s SVP of marketing and brand partnerships, advertising and partnerships, told Marketing Brew. “It’s a place that brands have always wanted to be, and this is really the first time that we’ve opened the doors for partnership in such a big way.”
Lights, camera, action!
Ahead of the red-carpet show, sponsors for the anniversary will see additional visibility on Peacock with placements during the livestream of a Radio City Hall concert celebrating the anniversary on Friday night. Artists like Post Malone, Lady Gaga, and Jelly Roll are set to take to the stage to commemorate the milestone.
All season long, brands have gotten a front-row seat. NBCU built content campaigns for each of its SNL50 partners, which were “the crown jewel of each of the partnerships,” Feinberg said; branded content was promoted on linear, streaming, social, and digital.
The campaigns included SNL alums and current cast members, with some of them repurposing popular old SNL sketches, Feninberg told us. One 30-second spot for Capital One that debuted on YouTube in November features SNL alums Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer recording a podcast with Samuel L. Jackson and promoting the Capital One Savor card; another T-Mobile spot from January featured current SNL castmembers Kenan Thompson and Marcello Hernández singing a reggaeton tune and lauding the brand’s rewards program.
Get marketing news you’ll actually want to read
Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.
Volkswagen, meanwhile, repurposed the popular SNL sketch “The Californians” with former SNL castmembers Kristen Wiig, Fred Armisen, and Bill Hader to highlight its electric bus, the ID. Buzz.
Take the wheel
To support the anniversary, advertisers are also hosting their own SNL-branded events, Feinberg said. This week, T-Mobile held an event at its Times Square branch featuring Hernandez and Thompson, and over the weekend, Capital One is hosting two SNL50 parties in New York for Capital One cardholders. (Customers also get a discount on SNL merch if they bought it with their Capital One card in the NBC store.)
“It’s still the 50th season up through May, and we’ve really been celebrating in earnest since the summer Olympics,” Feinberg said.
Brands also bought into the broadcast: Linear and streaming inventory for SNL50 is sold out, Feinberg said Thursday, adding that there was a 51% increase in the likelihood that audiences would search for brands featured in SNL compared to in other late-night programming.
Looks like anniversaries are good for business. SNL brought in record-setting revenue this season, Feinberg said. In 2024, network media spend on the program exceeded $81 million, 7% more than the $75.5 million spent in 2023, according to data from MediaRadar.
“This is one of the biggest shows in culture,” she said.
Read the full article here
