Rocket Mortgage will premiere a new ad, “Room to Dream,” on Netflix during the prime-time Christmas Day game between the Detroit Lions and the Minnesota Vikings, per details shared with Marketing Dive.
The 30-second spot stars Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs as he explores his childhood bedroom, which is filled with photographs, posters and newspaper clippings from his journey to the pros. The ad then reveals that the bedroom is a two-sided set at the 50-yard line at Ford Field, the Lions’ home stadium. Rocket Mortgage and its parent Rocket Companies share a hometown with the team.
“We have a long-standing relationship with the Detroit Lions and under the umbrella of ‘Own the Dream,’ our core creative idea, we saw a unique opportunity to make sure that we connected who we are and what we do with who the Lions are and how the Lions show up with us,” said Rego Marquiis, executive creative director at Rocket and head of the company’s in-house creative team.
The campaign continues the brand’s marketing focus around the idea of home ownership as the American dream, a platform that kicked off at the Super Bowl with a 60-second ad that was followed by a synchronized singalong in the stadium. By debuting the new creative during a Christmas Day game on Netflix, Rocket will be able to reach a sizable audience — Netflix’s two Dec. 25 games averaged more than 26 million U.S. viewers in 2024 — likely at a fraction of the cost of a Super Bowl ad.
“The hardest part of marketing lately is finding a big enough audience to share something. We probably have more ideas than we do suitable audiences,” said Peter Giorgi, senior vice president of brand marketing at Rocket. Netflix — a leader in streaming video poised to grow even larger — helps solve for that problem, the executive added.
The concept, development and production of the new spot was led internally by the Rocket creative team, Dream Factory. The team pushed themselves to find a compelling, creative way to tie the brand to football — connecting financial products like cash-out refinancing to sports by keying in on the idea that sports are first viewed and experienced in childhood homes.
“The ability to get out of the way of a really simple insight is really valuable,” Giorgi said. “We've been wanting to build more context and meaning around that [idea] and embracing the simplicity of it instead of trying to complicate it. I think marketers are really good at complicating things.”
Supercharging with AI
The new campaign comes as Rocket and Dream Factory work to restructure the team around artificial intelligence — not just as an efficiency play, but in a way that allows the game-changing tech to boost its creative powers. The initiative began about a year ago as the team worked to use AI to turn everyone at Dream Factory into a creative director, no matter where they sit in the organization.
“To what degree could this entire team be not just dabbling in AI, but be proficient in delivering creative using AI as a foundation, to make the team … more effective in the way that they build their creative?” Marquiis said of the impetus for the work.
While Rocket is working to make everyone on the marketing team a creative director, the steps for creative development are still in place. Instead of handing over the creative keys to AI, the company is using an AI tech stack to break down barriers between employees with different levels of experience.
“Now you have the ability to supercharge your thinking [and] challenge your biases,” Marquiis explained. “The speed at which people can ideate, the way that they can take in the world's information and the brand's information, and come to a conclusion more effectively, or to break through ideas more effectively [has increased].”
The Dream Factory used its AI tech stack first for CRM email writing and eventually took the approach to larger creative efforts, including a full-funnel campaign that was Rocket’s most effective piece of marketing this year. Upon seeing the 30-second “Lake House” spot, Rocket CMO Jonathan Mildenhall had no notes for the first time in his career, Marquiis said.
“We used the tool set to find a breakthrough early and then iterate on messaging,” Marquiis said. “The specialness of us using [our] AI super stack was about messaging refinement.”
While the new “Room to Dream” creative was ideated in a traditional way — through conversations around insights — AI was a part of the workflow, demonstrating some of the different ways that the technology can help brands like Rocket in all phases of marketing.
“AI helped us shorten the distance between concept and execution,” Giorgi said. “We can help team members buy into our creative vision sooner, so that we can update with feedback faster. It’s an idea accelerator for us.”
