State Farm isn’t the NFL’s official insurer and doesn’t build a standard marketing schedule around the league’s players, teams, or big events.
But if there’s a creative opportunity around the NFL that can put the brand at the crossroads of sports and culture, like that good neighbor we’ve heard about, State Farm is there.
This week, State Farm debuts two new ads just ahead of the 2025 NFL season, capitalizing on both its connection to the league and its creative partnership with The Marketing Arm.
In the first, Detroit Lions defensive end and defensive captain Aidan Hutchinson returns for his second season with State Farm as a comparison for the brand and other insurers. In this case, Jake From State Farm explains that having average insurance instead of State Farm is like needing a captain for your defense—and getting a net-throwing, jig-dancing sea captain.
The theme continues into a second spot, in which Kansas City Chiefs quarterback and longtime friend of State Farm, Patrick Mahomes—from jazz-saxophone baths to bundling with teammate Travis Kelce on “Maauto”—makes the same comparison for trainers.
State Farm, he posits, is more like the knowledgeable and incredibly helpful Chiefs athletic trainer Julie Frymyer (who makes a cameo in the spot), while standard insurance is more like pop star Meghan Trainor—who reworks her biggest hit into “All About That Brace” while trying to attach a leg brace to Mahomes’ arm and using athletic tape as rhythmic dance streamers.
The new campaign will run across linear, digital, social, online video, and streaming, and will feature a collaboration with Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football. The Marketing Arm provided creative support, but the 360 campaign pulled in agency help from Optimum Sports, Infinity Marketing Team, OMD, and FleishmanHillard.
If the message of the ads seems familiar, it’s because it calls back to State Farm’s ”Batman vs. Bateman” spot that ran during NCAA March Madness. Just before the NFL season, State Farm is still using the sports marketing calendar, athlete connections, and tailored creative to echo its “not-the-same” theme.
“Our budgets in [the insurance] category are far smaller than our competitors, so we always have to think about how we break through,” said Alyson Griffin, State Farm’s head of marketing. “Challenge No. 1 is, nobody cares about insurance. Nobody thinks about insurance. Nobody’s waking up every morning going, ‘I wonder what the insurance carriers think today.’ It’s just not a thing, and so you have to break through.”
State Farm is gearing up for its biggest season yet of Gamerhood, its reality TV-style show on Twitch and YouTube, where gaming creators compete in physical and virtual games that are inspired by insurance mishaps.
Picking the plays
While State Farm does have a team of athletes at its disposal to help separate it from competitors—including Mahomes, reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark, USC All-American JuJu Watkins, and Los Angeles Clippers 12-time All-Star Chris Paul—the brand often lets the narrative of campaigns like its latest NFL offerings dictate its roster.
“We select talent based on the creative,” Griffin said. “It really is decided by exactly the creative we’re working on.”
State Farm
In Hutchinson’s case, the spot required a captain, and he just happened to be one that State Farm worked with last year for a campaign around insurance bundling. After putting him in a ballet class with Jake From State Farm, the brand realized he might be ideal as the stoic setup man for an on-field sea captain as well.
The creative can also present an opportunity for State Farm’s athlete partners to weigh in with their own suggestions. For his latest spot, Mahomes noted that Frymyer was not only his own trainer, but one of only 21 women employed by NFL teams as trainers. While Mahomes had helped bring in Kelce, Chiefs coach Andy Reid, and even guard Trey Smith for State Farm ads, both he and State Farm saw an opportunity to highlight women in the sport.
State Farm
While Trainor ended up in the spot because she was a big fan of State Farm and grew up in a household of siblings who loved football, the constant in both ads was the presence of Kevin Miles, who’s been playing Jake From State Farm since 2020.
On State Farm’s limited budget, Griffin said he’s become essential to the success of these campaigns simply by being someone who can exist in the real world, be seen with athlete partners, and, as he did two years ago, show up with Travis Kelce’s mother, Donna, at a Philadelphia Eagles game a week after Taylor Swift travels to New Jersey to see Mahomes, Kelce, and the Chiefs play the New York Jets.
Griffin noted it’s all part of the company’s strategy for punching above its weight and tapping into cultural moments.
“I drive this team hard all the time on how are we generating future demand, capturing current demand, and thinking about retention and loyalty for our current book, all at the same time with a limited budget,” Griffin said. “And then getting somebody like Meghan Trainor, Aidan Hutchinson, Trey Smith, and others to come into these moments so that they’re endemic to the topic and can break through more than just a regular old insurance commercial.”
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