Could Your Company Benefit from Fastvertising?

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It's harder than ever for companies to get their marketing messages in front of the right customers. One increasingly popular -- but also risky -- tactic is fastvertising, the rapid development of ads that tap into a cultural moment, aiming to increase brand relevance and awareness. Harvard Business School associate professor Ayelet Israeli shares pitch-perfect examples, including those from her coauthor, the actor Ryan Reynolds, and his marketing firm Maximum Effort. She explains the importance of timing, describes the talent, culture, and processes you need to succeed, and outlines how to extend the impact of these ads. Ayelet, along with Leonard Schlesinger, Matt Higgins, and Ryan Reynolds, wrote the HBR article "Marketing at the Speed of Culture."

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Alison Beard.
0:11.6	And I'm Adi Ignatius, and this is the HBR Ideacast.
0:14.5	Adi, do you remember the 2013 Super Bowl?
0:24.8	I do not remember the 2013 Super Bowl.
0:27.6	Okay, so the Ravens beat the 49ers 34 to 31.
0:31.4	Beyonce performed at halftime.
0:32.9	But now that I'm jogging your memory,
0:34.9	you might also recall that there was a power outage in the stadium that night, and it delayed the game for a full half hour.
0:41.3	So you can imagine that the NFL and the TV network and all the advertisers that had bought
0:44.8	expensive Super Bowl ads were panicking.
0:48.0	But amidst all that, the marketing team at Oreo saw an opportunity.
0:52.4	They tweeted out a picture of one of their cookies against a dark background.
0:56.0	With the line power out, no problem, you can still dunk in the dark.
0:59.7	Okay, so now I totally remember that. I mean, that, I'm assuming that went very viral.
1:05.3	Yes, it was this pivotal moment in social media advertising. It got around 525 million impressions, and it was one of the
1:12.7	first examples of a strategy that's become increasingly common ever since, fast advertising.
1:18.9	Oreo was super strategic. They did have a commercial in the Super Bowl that year, but they also
1:23.0	created a sort of war room of people ready to put out other really relevant of the moment marketing,
1:29.1	and it was the latter that got all the attention. So I love the term facetizing, and I assume
1:34.9	it is the ability to produce ads really quickly around a cultural moment. Yes, and it's obviously
1:41.1	been aided by the rise of social media where so many people see ads today.
1:46.0	But there are risks and a lot goes into getting it right.
	...

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