Social media trends: Teasers and crowd-pleasers

Each week, Marketing Brew recaps what people are talking about on social media, the trends that took over our feeds, and how marketers are responding.

Teasing it out: Anticipation for the Super Bowl is heating up, and that includes the ads. Of the many teasers, influencer posts, and seemingly staged paparazzi pics we’ve seen so far, here are some that seem to be getting some buzz ahead of the game:

• Michael Cera’s CeraVe campaign, which has sparked what is likely confusion-driven engagement in the last few weeks over stunts like creator Haley Kalil seeing Cera in a pharmacy and Cera walking out of a staged interview with creator-podcaster Bobbi Althoff. This week, it was revealed that the stunts were part of a Super Bowl campaign.
• Paramount+’s ad featuring a slew of stars, characters, and athletes streaming on its platform—and Creed—also seems to be resonating, and even inspired a response from the creator of Hey Arnold!
• Uber Eats’s teaser, which references Victoria Beckham’s viral humbling moment in Beckham where she claimed to have grown up middle class in a household with a Rolls-Royce, seems to be a hit. But the ad itself, which appears to make light of peanut allergies, is sparking some discourse.

Musically inclined: Following the Grammys on Sunday, where Taylor Swift announced her next album, The Tortured Poets Department, Teletubbies saw a pun opportunity and ran with it.

In an ode to another Grammy nominee, Lana Del Rey, Bratz recreated her recent Valentine’s Day shoot with Skims that reportedly earned millions worth of media exposure for the brand. Perhaps the doll brand wanted a piece of the pie?

Makeup brand Pat McGrath Labs also saw some strong engagement by posting a clip of Grammy-winner Miley Cyrus’s performance at the awards, noting that she was wearing a full face of the brand’s makeup.

Thin ice…and seats: Something people aren’t loving? Southwest Airlines’s promo video for its plane’s new interiors. Comments and stitches, both on the original video and in the brand’s subsequent post, are mostly about people choosing other airlines in response to what look like rock-hard, paper-thin seats.

The FOOH continues: H&M’s TikTok ads promoting its new store in New York appear to have taken a page from Maybelline’s book with a CGI-car-driving-through-Manhattan approach. It’s not clear who made the creative, but as social media consultant Rachel Karten told us last month, unless you’re working with the creator of the trend Ian Padgham, it might be best to sit this trend out.