The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2022
Gopuff gives Super Bowl's left-out rapper his own 'Quartertime Show'
When five legends took the halftime stage, Gopuff built Lil Dicky a musical event of his own, live-streamed between the first and second quarters.
Gopuff
What it had to solve
The 2022 Super Bowl halftime show featured five legendary rappers, leaving Lil Dicky — a rapper with millions of fans — out of the lineup. Gopuff partnered with the one rapper the show left out and needed a way to own a moment on the biggest advertising day of the year.
How it works
Every brand wants a Super Bowl moment, but the game's biggest slot — the halftime show — belonged to five legendary rappers. Gopuff found its way in through the exclusion: it partnered with Lil Dicky, the notable rapper the halftime lineup left out, and built him an event of his own.
The result was the world's first Gopuff Quartertime Show, a musical event streamed live across social channels between the first and second quarters. Teasers on PR and social promoted the show before the game, so the 'quartertime' slot became a destination rather than an afterthought.
The idea inverted the usual sponsorship logic: instead of buying a place inside the broadcast, the brand created a new moment beside it and made the exclusion itself the story. D&AD's jury praised the work as a fresh take on a Super Bowl brief, perfect for the client and the event, and the archive lists it among Digital Marketing and Entertainment winners.
Why it lands
- The exclusion gave the idea its hook: the one rapper left out was more interesting than the five included.
- Creating 'quartertime' gave a brand without a halftime slot a slot of its own, at no extra broadcast cost.
- A live social stream matched how younger audiences watch the Super Bowl anyway.
- Teasers before the game turned the gap between quarters into an appointment audiences planned around.
What it did
The D&AD jury called it a fresh take on a Super Bowl brief — perfect for the client, perfect for the event, with an influencer tie-in cleverly built for reach — and the archive files the work among its Digital Marketing and Entertainment winners.
What you can take
When a bigger show owns the moment, invent the slot around it: attention between the quarters is real, and the star who was left out carries a better story than the ones included.
Since then
The D&AD archive records the idea — the world's first Quartertime Show — and the jury verdict that the influencer tie-in was a clever approach to build reach. The page carries no viewership figures; what it preserves is the format itself, built on the insight that the moment everyone ignored could be turned into the moment the brand owned.
Sources
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