Regional Super Bowl Deal

A story about how Kara Goldin secured an incredible last-minute Super Bowl ad deal for her company Hint Water.

"We had started doing some TV ads and were running remnants. One Sunday, I reached out to an old CNN colleague who connected me with someone at Fox Sports. Though they were sold out nationally, they mentioned having some regional inventory available in major markets like San Francisco, New York, and Chicago. This was just two and a half weeks before the Super Bowl.

I told my CMO to submit a lowball offer, despite everyone at the company saying it wouldn't work. One week before the Super Bowl, on Friday at 5 PM, we submitted our bid. Everything had to be trafficked by the NFL by Tuesday morning.

We ended up getting 80% of the country's coverage for less than $1 million with a 30-second spot. They said it would run somewhere between 30-45 minutes before or after the halftime show. We landed right before the halftime show when everyone was tuning in.

The ad featured people licking each other's faces and while some found it offensive, Gen X and Gen Z thought it was hilarious. My phone exploded with over 400 texts from people all over the country. It wasn't just consumers noticing - it was investors, industry people, and most importantly, our employees were thrilled to see their underdog company competing alongside Pepsi and Coca-Cola."