In partnership with
{{rh_onboarding_line}}
Over 70,000 social media professionals are reading this newsletter today!
Welcome Back to TWISM’s Autopsy Series!
In this series, we examine the biggest actual marketing deaths worldwide. While others made expensive mistakes, you, along with 70,000+ professional TWISM readers, are learning from their failures for free.
Keep in mind that these weekly autopsies could save your career.
Together with Roku: 🤝 You know where to find customers this holiday season.
Find customers on Roku this holiday season
Now through the end of the year is prime streaming time on Roku, with viewers spending 3.5 hours each day streaming content and shopping online. Roku Ads Manager simplifies campaign setup, lets you segment audiences, and provides real-time reporting. And, you can test creative variants and run shoppable ads to drive purchases directly on-screen.
Bonus: we’re gifting you $5K in ad credits when you spend your first $5K on Roku Ads Manager. Just sign up and use code GET5K. Terms apply.
✨ Want to advertise in TWISM?
Reach 70K+ social media pros • Top-Rated Service • We optimize your copy
🔬 The Main Autopsy: State Farm’s Super Bowl Slot That Died on the Table
Brand: State Farm
Campaign: A planned Super Bowl LIX commercial that was canceled days after public backlash intensified around California wildfire coverage and nonrenewals.
Budget: ~$7M for a 30-second Super Bowl LIX slot (media only, not production).
Cause of Death: Crisis optics mismatch: “Like a good neighbor” branding collided with a real-world disaster narrative.
Time of Death: January 15 to 16, 2025, when State Farm confirmed it would not advertise during the game.
What They Intended
State Farm’s recent playbook has been high-visibility sports culture advertising, including major NFL buys and past Super Bowl creative.
The original strategy was simple: show up in the most expensive living room in America, reinforce brand warmth, and ride the weeklong earned media halo that the Super Bowl now reliably generates.
What Actually Happened
Online criticism surged as the company faced scrutiny tied to California wildfire impacts and policy nonrenewals, turning “neighbor” language into a punchline on social media.
State Farm announced it would not advertise during the Super Bowl, saying its focus was on supporting Los Angeles area customers affected by fires.
In its statements, State Farm emphasized scale and response, including a 90% customer contact rate, over 7,400 claims, and tens of millions of dollars being paid out.
The withdrawal did not stop the news cycle. It became the story, and the brand ceded control of the narrative to critics and commentators.
Fox had no shortage of replacement demand since Super Bowl inventory was reported as sold out with a waitlist.
The Numbers
$7M range for a 30-second Super Bowl LIX unit, widely reported during the sales cycle.
Super Bowl LIX ad pricing also climbed to $8M for some units, showing how expensive it is to be wrong on that stage.
State Farm reported 90% customer contact during the disaster response period. They also reported 7,400+ home and auto claims linked to the fires, paying “tens of millions of dollars” to customers.
The Super Bowl broadcast itself drew a record 127.7 million viewers, meaning there is no such thing as a “small” Super Bowl mistake.
Timeline of Destruction
Jan 15, 2025: Front Office Sports reports State Farm pulled its planned Super Bowl ad and publishes the company statement.
Jan 16, 2025: CBS News confirms State Farm is canceling its planned ad, citing wildfire response focus.
Jan 16, 2025: Marketing Dive reports the pull and details backlash context, plus State Farm’s claim and payout figures.
Jan 29, 2025: Reuters reports Super Bowl LIX set ad pricing “up to $8M” and record audience context, reinforcing the size of the stage.
Feb 3, 2025: The trend of brands releasing Super Bowl ads early to extend earned media, highlighting what State Farm forfeited when it withdrew.
Together with Attio: Do you know what your customers really want?
Powered by the next-generation CRM
Connect your email, and you’ll instantly get a CRM with enriched customer insights and a platform that grows with your business.
With AI at the core, Attio lets you:
Prospect and route leads with research agents
Get real-time insights during customer calls
Build powerful automations for your complex workflows
🧬 Failure DNA Analysis
The Root Cause: Reputation Triage Without Narrative Control
Cognitive Bias #1: Negativity Bias
Bad news weighs more than good news, even when the “good” is real. In a crisis cycle, audiences disproportionately encode the negative frame.
Cognitive Bias #2: Fundamental Attribution Error
People tend to attribute outcomes to character rather than context, turning “complex insurance regulation and risk” into “the company is greedy and cruel.”
Warning Signs They Ignored:
The brand promise is explicitly relational (“neighbor”), making it uniquely vulnerable to hypocrisy narratives.
The Super Bowl is no longer a single-night ad buy. It is a multi-week social media content tournament.
Pulling an ad creates a vacuum, and vacuums get filled by your loudest critics.
The broadcaster had a waitlist, meaning withdrawal does not reduce ad clutter. It just removes your voice.
Why Smart People Made This Dumb Decision:
Under acute pressure, teams often reach for the fastest visible “do something” move. Canceling the spot is legible and immediate. But it confuses media presence with message control.
In a moralized social media story, the audience is not scoring you on operational intent. They are scoring you on perceived values alignment.
🎭 Myth Busted: "If We Pull the Ad, the Story Dies"
The Myth: Canceling a high-profile placement stops the backlash.
The Reality: Pulling the ad often becomes the headline, especially when the platform ecosystem is already primed to discuss the controversy.
Data Points:
A 30-second unit was widely priced in the $7M range, so any change becomes newsworthy by default.
Super Bowl LIX’s audience hit 127.7 million, amplifying every adjacent story.
Some Super Bowl LIX units sold for $8M, reinforcing that the game is an attention monopoly where even absence is noticeable.
Why This Myth Persists:
Because in pre-social media eras, fewer channels meant fewer aftershocks. Today, “the ad” is just a trigger. The real asset is the narrative, and narrative travels whether you buy media or not.
What to Do Instead:
Keep the media plan flexible, but replace “silence” with a service-led content plan: real-time help updates, claims guidance, local resources, and third-party verification.
In other words, publish proof, not vibes.
🛡️ Failure Prevention Toolkit: The "Neighbor Proof" Checklist
Before launching a high-visibility campaign during an active crisis:
✓ Optics Autopsy
Run a “headline swap” drill: if critics rewrite your tagline, is it devastating or defensible?
Pre-write the two worst faith interpretations and decide what evidence would rebut them.
Identify which customer pain points your creative could accidentally trivialize.
✓ Proof Over Promises
Ship a public-facing claims help hub and link it everywhere your campaign would have driven traffic.
Use numbers you can stand behind, updated on a predictable cadence.
Add an independent source or partner voice where possible.
✓ Scenario-Based Social Listening
Monitor keyword clusters tied to the crisis and your brand promise, not just brand mentions.
Escalate when sentiment flips on the promise word (here: “neighbor”).
Staff weekend coverage and approve response templates in advance.
✓ Media Plan Contingencies
Build a pivot plan that keeps the slot but changes the creative to service messaging.
If you must pull, announce what replaces it (funding, direct relief, claims support), with receipts.
Coordinate with partners so earned media does not contradict owned messaging.
Red Flags to Watch For:
Your campaign relies on “warmth” while customers are experiencing “harm.”
Your spokesperson statement contains numbers, but your owned channels do not.
The story centers on what you are not doing rather than what you are doing.
Your brand promise is being used as a meme template.
Screenshots save careers. Which failure lesson are you bookmarking?
Forward this to someone who needs to see it.
P.S. - Have a social media disaster story to share anonymously? Reply with "AUTOPSY" and I'll send you our submission guidelines.
That’s all for today. Thanks for reading. Now…
Go BIG or go home!
~ Josh from “This Week in Social Media”
Was this newsletter forwarded to you?