NatGeo – Genius
Winner: Super Clio Award for Best Super Bowl Commercial

For National Geographic’s first-ever Super Bowl commercial, we created a bold, unforgettable launch for the new scripted series Genius, starring Geoffrey Rush as Albert Einstein. With just three weeks until the Big Game, we had to move fast, and think even faster.

Then came the game-changing news: our commercial would air immediately after Lady Gaga’s Halftime Show. Sensing an opportunity, we secured the rights to "Bad Romance" and hoped Gaga would close her performance with it. She did.

The shoot took place on Geoffrey Rush’s only day off, during production in Prague. We tapped acclaimed director Ivan Zacharias (Smuggler) and executed a rapid-turnaround production that included a reimagined violin arrangement of Gaga’s hit, recorded and mixed within 24 hours.

And the tongue? That was Geoffrey’s idea. A perfect, irreverent wink at the man behind the math.

The result: a cultural mic drop, a Super Clio win, and a brilliant reintroduction of Einstein to a whole new generation.