Rocket Mortgage is on a mission to help consumers “own the dream,” which is the inspiration for its latest campaign “Room to Dream.”
The spot stars Detroit Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs in his childhood bedroom and transforms into the 50-yard line at Ford Field – illustrating how the dream began at home.
“We’ve thought really seriously about how a product like a mortgage can work in the context of something like the NFL or sports, generally and so we arrived at this insight that your love for sports starts at home,” said Peter Giorgi, senior vice president of brand marketing, partnerships and creative excellence at Rocket Mortgage, noting that like Gibbs, the Rocket itself was born and raised in Detroit. “We wanted to be able to share Jahmyr’s story because where he came from is very meaningful to his journey.”
The campaign was created by Rocket’s in-house creative team with the intention to strike an emotional tone, as Giorgi explained that brands that resonate are able to connect with consumers emotionally.
“There is nothing more emotional than home and the idea of home or being a homeowner and yet the financial services category tends to talk about rates, rebates and terms,” he said. “Those things are important but we want to talk about the more emotional side of homeownership and what it can mean.”
The ad dropped during the Christmas Day broadcast of the Detroit Lions vs. Minnesota Vikings game on Netflix. “One of the hardest things to do right now is to get an audience,” said Giorgi. “It’s been harder and harder every year of my career to find those moments and with the Lions playing on Christmas Day on Netflix, that was a perfect moment to have an audience that would respond to something like this. It all lined up.”
The brand has been making bigger bets on the NFL in recent years. The brand ran ads starring celebrities including Jason Momoa, Tracy Morgan and Anna Kendrick in the early 2020s. After sitting out 23-24, the company dropped a non-celebrity focused Super Bowl spot timed with a brand refresh that aimed to reposition itself as the “Apple of home ownership.”
The spot focused on bringing America together through the idea of home ownership. And so that, “In a country that feels increasingly divided, we found that the American Dream of homeownership is something that people still agree on,” said Giorgi. “It was like a bright shining light. The American dream is still meaningful. We wanted to create a story that was unifying around this idea of homeownership, but also motivating in terms of us being able to help people achieve that dream for themselves.”
The brand will return to the Super Bowl this year with a new spot featuring Rocket and its sister brand Redfin.
