I had too many sloppy joes during the Super Bowl. I hosted friends at my place so I could live tweet the ads, and I’m still feeling all those Fritos. A couple ads have stuck with me as long as the stomach pain, though. Let’s talk about:

• How Dunkin’ made incredible behind-the-scenes content

• Another social media newsletter for you to read

• 3 smart essays on social media strategy

—Jack Appleby

How Dunkin’ nailed behind-the-scenes social content

“Behind-the-scenes” social content is always cost effective, but rarely actually effective in the feed. And why would it be? Social teams & second cams run around commercial shoots in hopes of capturing candids that rarely happen. It’s worth having that b-roll, but if we’re honest, it’s rarely strategic. The best content comes with intentionality.

That’s why I’m so obsessed with this Dunkin’ behind-the-scenes content from their Super Bowl commercial shoot—it’s entertaining, it’s social-first, it’s brand-centric, and I’ve watched it as many times as the primary ad.

Give it a watch, then we’ll break it down.

@dunkin

Making the Band: The DunKings episode

You’ve got Ben Affleck & Matt Damon challenging Tom Brady to a tire, err, donut target contest. Three major stars in all smiles, throwing a football, while quite literally wearing Dunkin’ from head to toe.

Sure, the star power is a major factor here, but the social team deserves a ton of credit for building a moment that’s viral-worthy. Let’s dive into two fundamental strategies Dunkin’ used to craft the content.

Always create context for content

That tire target the boys are throwing at? That’s not in the Super Bowl commercial. Dunkin’ knew they’d have plenty of free time during the shoot, so they created an activity for the stars, threw their branding on the target, and let the boys be boys.

Social extension videos are the redheaded step-child of big commercial shoots. Rather than listing off videos your social team needs the star far, consider creating activities like this that talent will happily participate in, then keep the cameras rolling.

Make it stand-alone without context

A frequent mistake of behind-the-scenes content: you gotta know the scene it’s behind to get the content. “The making of” is interesting for us industry pros, but your consumer audience probably doesn’t care much about the nuts & bolts.

Dunkin’s football toss would be perfectly entertaining if I didn’t know the Super Bowl ad existed. Hell, many of the replies on Twitter say they like the clip more than the ad. The video works as a self-contained piece without needing the larger context, and the data shows it’s working.

The Results?

The Reel has 12.5 million views on Instagram.

The Super Bowl spot itself? 5.9 million.

We’ll get into that 20.7 million view Reel another time.

Here’s another social newsletter for ya.

Most of my social strategy write-ups come from reading news-based social media newsletters. Tubefilter is one of my favorites, covering TikTok, YouTube, the creator economy, and trends happening in the video content space. Recent pieces include:

• How Twitter launched a YouTube Select competitor

• YouTube vertical stream strategies

• How Beyonce launched her Twitch channel

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