One of my favorite quarterbacks growing up was Baker Mayfield. Mayfield was a walk-on quarterback for the University of Oklahoma who would eventually develop into a Heisman Trophy award winner and number one overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft. In a tweet from Pro Football Focus, analysts even name Mayfield as the best college quarterback in the last 10 years. An accomplished resume such as Baker’s presents plenty of opportunities. Mayfield took advantage of these lucrative opportunities and has appeared in numerous TV advertisements. Although some were good and some were bad, my favorite series of advertisements came from Progressive’s “At Home with Baker Mayfield” campaign.
This campaign of commercials follows Baker Mayfield through his ventures at his “home” FirstEnergy Stadium. FirstEnergy Stadium is the Browns’ home field, which is why this advertisement makes sense. The premise of this series of advertisements is that Mayfield treats his home stadium where he plays as if it was his home. Progressive is trying to promote their home insurance policies and therefore is trying to make it seem as though Mayfield lives at his stadium. The ad above was released for the Halloween season and depicts Mayfield giving out nachos to trick-or-treaters who do not seem very pleased. At first, I thought this campaign was pretty corny. However, as more and more continue to be released, they are beginning to grow on me.
I see the ad above aired on television or YouTube all the time. I don’t watch a lot of cable tv, so I mostly see this ad on YouTube. Ads on YouTube are very annoying to me because I just want to watch my video, but when this one airs it makes me chuckle. Sticking with the at-home theme, this ad follows Mayfield as he does various tasks in the stadium. However, Mayfield’s actions are narrated by a play-by-play announcer. These ads stick to the football theme and make jokes about how he lives his life in the stadium. I see the connection between the house theme and Progressive wanting to promote their services, but to me, it seems like they are trying to create conversation about their policies through funny commercials featuring a well-known football player. Overall, these ads are very creative and I find them funny at times.