SNL Books Talent on Ads

Saturday Night Live kicked off its slate of corporate partnerships for its 50th anniversary with a surprising Allstate ad that featured the Please Don’t Destroy trio of Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy.

Why It Hits: SNL’s wide-ranging sponsorships this season could pave the way for ongoing deals that give the comedy show a bump in production value while also rewriting the rules of “brand safety” for marketing campaigns.

Between the Lines: Please Don’t Destroy didn’t have a short during SNL’s broadcast over the weekend, but they did have an Allstate ad co-starring the brand’s “Mayhem” character.

• The very-funny commercial, which SNL had creative control over and felt like an actual Please Don’t Destroy short, played during the show’s opening credits, ensuring a prime spotlight.
• It’s just one of the many high-profile sponsorships for SNL this season, which includes a Maybelline ad starring former castmember Vanessa Bayer and a series of Volkswagen commercials with various still-unnamed cast members.
• It’s a culmination of creator Lorne Michaels’ outreach to advertisers in 2017 to work with them on developing commercials that could be tied to the show — most of which never made it to air, other than a Google one in 2018 and an Old Navy one in 2021.

The Future: While SNL has historically resisted letting current castmembers appear in ads to not muddy the waters between the show and commercial breaks (including SNL’s many fake ads)… but muddying is exactly what the show, NBCUniversal, and advertisers now want. It’s becoming increasingly harder for any show to convince audiences to watch shows live, as opposed to clips on YouTube and TikTok the next day to avoid ads. By making the ads extensions for the shows themselves, more people may be willing to tune in during the broadcast.