Offer extended:

Save 50% on a 3-month Digiday+ membership. Ends Dec 12.

SUBSCRIBE

People already love T-Mobile’s ‘genius’ Super Bowl ad with Drake

SuperBowl50-editorialSeriesv2

It took six months, but a mobile phone brand finally realized that Drake’s “Hotline Bling” is perfectly suitable for a marketing tie-in.

T-Mobile revealed its Super Bowl 50 ad this morning on Twitter starring the rapper, whose song became a massive hit bolstered by his viral music video. The 30-second spot replicates Drake recording the music video and singing the lyric “you used to call me on my cellphone,” before three executives by a rival companies drop in slamming him with strict contract rules.

Besides giving the world another opportunity to laugh at Drake’s dad dancing, T-Mobile is promoting its “Un-Carrier” shtick that let’s people upgrade their phones and stream unlimited music and video with its albeit controversial “Music Freedom” and “Binge On” programs.

T-Mobile gravitates toward using popular celebrities for the Super Bowl. Last year, the brand hired Kim Kardashian to star in a similar self-aware spot. But judging by the Internet’s reaction, Drake is more beloved than Kardashian with people openly tweeting about loving….a phone company.

Your move, Verizon.

More in Marketing

Agencies push curation upstream, reclaiming control of the programmatic bidstream

Curation spent much of this year in a fog, loosely defined and inconsistently applied. Agencies say they plan to tighten the screws in 2026.

‘A trader won’t need to leave our platform’: PMG builds its own CTV buying platform

The platform, called Alli Buyer Cloud, sits inside PMG’s broader operating system Alli. It’s currently in alpha testing with three clients.

Why 2026 could be Snap’s biggest year yet – according to one exec

Snap’s senior director of product marketing, Abby Laursen talked to Digiday about its campaign automation plans for 2026.