With its first Super Bowl ad, Squarespace aims to draw a distinction between "the mess that exists on the Internet right now," and what the company enables customers to build.
The Internet is a marvelous thing, what with all of the things we can do, see, buy, and share. Instantly. With its vastness, however, comes a veritable jungle of junk. In a teaser spot for its Super Bowl debut, web-publishing platform Squarespace visualized the nefarious underbelly of our online lifeline, in its entire deal-hawking, tantalizing, false-promising, base-humor splendor.
While we speculated that this jumble would provide a counterpoint to the type of websites that Squarespace offers, we now know this suspicion to be true. The full ad--which was created in-house and directed by Malcolm Venville--reveals that what catches the eye of the regular dude walking through a carnival incarnation of the web (as previously teased), is, in fact, an encroaching mob of every internet cliché imaginable: viruses, medical claims, pleas to "like" photos, low mortgage rates, and impossibly proportioned babes. The claim: “We can’t change what the web has become, but we can change what it can be.”
Anthony Casalena, founder and CEO of Squarespace says the ad is about “drawing a distinction between some of the mess that exists on the Internet right now, and what Squarespace enables our customers to build.
“We took a playful jab at some of these concepts in an attempt to create a stark contrast between that and the kinds of websites our customers create. Squarespace is about giving your ideas a home on the web, and if we have our way, hopefully that home is a beautiful one.”
While the company has been around for 10 years, this is the first time it’s run an ad on the Super Bowl. Casalena says the decision to join the big game came from the success of Squarespace 6 since it’s launch in July 2012.
“Our company has been growing at an unprecedented rate. We’ve been able to fulfill more stages of our ambition than ever before, expanding our platform so that it can be used not only by creatives, but businesses, authors, restaurants, and more,” Casalena says. “We believe Squarespace can be a platform that everyone uses to publish their ideas, no matter what field they are in. With such a general purpose, it makes sense for us to advertise in places that reach a mass audience.”
Following the Super Bowl, the campaign will be expanded nationwide and include TV, digital, social, and out-of-home components. The commercials, created in 60-second and 30-second formats, can be viewed atSquarespace.com starting February 2.