OUR COMMUNITY
Actors Timothee Chalamet and Winona Ryder
‘Scissorhands’ Thrills Fans
“OUR TEAM KEPT JOKING WE WERE BREAKING THE INTERNET.” — LAURA MARKOFSKY
Laura Markofsky
Ex-Detroiter’s Cadillac Super Bowl commercial goes viral.
DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER
I
f you watched the Super Bowl along with nearly 100 million Americans on the evening of Feb. 7, you may have seen a commercial in which a Jewish ex-Detroiter played an instrumental role. Laura Markofsky, who grew up in West Bloomfield, did the PR work to get TV and online media buzz for the Cadillac commercial that aired during the big game. “It’s been so exciting and truthfully a big honor to work on a brand of this size and legacy that it holds,” Markofsky said. Markofsky attended Hillel Day School, West Bloomfield High School and the University of Michigan for undergrad. She moved to New York in 2007 and had stops at multiple talent agencies, eventually joining MSLGROUP where she currently serves as senior vice president. Markofsky’s specialty is in consumer lifestyle clients, especially in the luxury space, working on everything from American Express to Verizon. She’s had previous work in TV, doing publicity for different shows on the USA Network, E! and Bravo. In Markofsky’s tenure with MSL, she’s worked on everything from JennAir, a luxury kitchen appliance company, to now working on Cadillac. Markofsky and MSL work side-by-side as an integrated agency team with Leo Burnett, a creative agency that does work for Cadillac. “Leo Burnett had an opportunity to present a series of Super Bowl ideas to Cadillac to see if anything resonated to translate off paper and into a TV spot,” Markofsky said.
20
|
FEBRUARY 25 • 2021
“We were lucky enough that Cadillac fell in love with the concept.” The concept, ScissorHandsFree, paid homage to the 1990 film Edward Scissorhands. The commercial followed Edward’s son “Edgar” Scissorhands, played by Jewish actor Timothee Chalamet, through the trials and tribulations he faces in daily life while having scissors for hands. Another Jewish actor, Winona Ryder, played his mother, Kim. The commercial eventually cuts to Edgar being gifted a new Cadillac LYRIQ, an upcoming electric vehicle being produced by the company. The car enables Super Cruise technology, Cadillac’s hands-free driving assistant, allowing Edgar to finally complete an everyday task without his “scissorhands” getting in the way. “Because he’s using Super Cruise technology, he’s able to drive and take his hands off the wheel, and for the first time you see a smile come across his face because he feels empowered and the freedom of not being hindered by his hands,” Markofsky said. PLANNING STRATEGY The Leo Burnett team came up with the idea, and Markofsky and her team came up with the strategy of realizing that idea and garnering coverage and excitement for it. Carat, the media agency that supports Cadillac, also helped bring the idea to life. “I think now is a time more than ever that people need a little bit of nostalgia and that comfort of things they know and love from when they were younger,” she said.
An eight-second teaser of the ad aired on ABC’s Good Morning America on the Thursday before the game, and on Super Bowl Sunday morning, there was a coordinated effort with a plethora of media interviews with the full ad going live online at 11 a.m. Sunday. When the ad went live, hits started rolling in, kicking off with an article in Vogue. “The coverage catapulted from there with a People.com article, CNN, Variety, Vanity Fair, and then by 3 p.m. that afternoon, we were trending on Twitter because people were talking about it so much,” Markofsky said. “Our team kept joking we were breaking the internet because we were getting so much coverage.” Markofsky said she and her team were working during the game, setting up a “virtual war room” where the team members were tracking what kind of coverage was coming in while also proactively reaching out to media and sharing press materials with them. “When the ad finally aired, I cried,” Markofsky reflected. “It was such an honor to see the results of our labor come to fruition and on such an incredible stage. I don’t think I have ever felt such a sense of pride associated with a project in my career.”
