Ogilvy spread a conspiracy theory about Michael Cera to promote CeraVe – and it worked

In the ad, Cera acts out some of the traditional tropes of skincare marketing in his inimitably awkward manner for which he’s been famous since his early roles in Arrested Development and Juno.

The whole thing has a dreamy, funhouse mirror quality to it: Cera glides through an ethereal landscape of blue fabric and whispers, inexplicably, “Generosity”; he gives a clone of himself a massage; he climbs and rubs lotion on a wind-whipped mountain; he speaks to a narwhal in the animal’s own squeaky language.

The climax of the ad, if you could call it that, is a shot cutting to Cera standing in front of a CeraVe boardroom, pitching the idea for the campaign to company executives and white-coated dermatologists. He’s met with a roomful of awkward silence.

Viewers are then hit with yet another twist: CeraVe is in fact developed with the help of licensed skincare professionals, not Michael Cera.

The Super Bowl spot ‘Michael CeraVe’ was the culmination of a marketing effort that began weeks prior, after the team at Ogilvy noticed a post in the subreddit r/Showerthoughts posing the question: What if Michael Cera was actually behind CeraVe? That was the inspiration that led the team – which had already received an RFP from CeraVe to develop a Super Bowl ad – to begin planting the seeds of a conspiracy theory across the internet.

The goal was to start a tongue-in-cheek rumor that Michael Cera was in fact the original creator of CeraVe, in order to later emphasize the reality – that the product is developed with oversight from dermatologists.

“We essentially spread a lie so that we could reveal a product truth,” says Charlotte Tansill, North American president of Ogilvy PR, social and influence.

First, the agency went back to Reddit and posted fake paparazzi photos of Michael Cera strolling around Brooklyn, looking a bit forlorn and handing out lotion.

Then they teamed up with influencer Hayley Kalil, who posted a TikTok video of herself "serendipitously" running into Cera at a pharmacy and catching him signing – and attaching stickers of himself to – bottles of CeraVe.

“That Tiktok went completely viral in a way that I just don't think we could have anticipated,” says Tansill. Ogilvy actually partnered with that same pharmacy to sell the bottles of Cera-stickered CeraVe bottles, which she says sold out “very quickly.”

@haleyybaylee Guys run to this pharmacy in BK, I just saw MICHAEL CERA signing bottles!! I'm a #ceravepartner, and I'm asking @CeraVe what is going ON #nyc #fyp #celebritysighting ♬ original sound - haleyybaylee

The team also partnered with Bobbi Althoff, an influencer and interviewer known for interviewing celebrities in an exceptionally dry, borderline rude style. Althoff gently but firmly grilled Cera to find out if he had actually started CeraVe; Cera continually dodged the questions.

The narrative that Cera was the actual creator of CeraVe soon started gaining more online traction. “It’s almost like it was a conspiracy that people wanted to be true,” says Tansill.

Cera’s lovably off-kilter demeanor meshed perfectly with the playful tone that CeraVe and Ogilvy aimed for with the campaign. It helped that the actor was also enjoying some renewed fame off the back of the Barbie phenomenon (he played the lovable, non-problematic Allan in the Greta Gerwig-directed flick).

But the actor doesn’t have any social media presence, and doesn’t even own a smartphone, according to Tansill, a potential roadblock for the campaign, considering that a brand partner’s social media presence and following would typically be major considerations. But in Cera’s case, the actor’s Luddism only added to his charm, Tansill says – and forced the brand to creatively chase social engagement through channels it wouldn’t normally consider. “That obstacle ended up being a real opportunity for us,” she says.

And the effort was a stunning success.

The campaign landed more than 16bn impressions before the Super Bowl. After the game, that number doubled.

When asked if her team was at all nervous going into Super Bowl weekend, given the nontraditional approach it had taken with the CeraVe campaign, Tansill shrugs. “We had a sense of calm and confidence going into the weekend because, in a way, we had already succeeded.”

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