Porsche returns to Super Bowl advertising with The Heist

Returning to the Super Bowl after 23 years

On 2 February 2020, Porsche broadcasts The Heist during Super Bowl LIV, marking the first appearance of the brand in the broadcast since 1997.^{1, 2} The 60-second commercial introduces the all-electric Taycan to a US mass audience, framing the new model within the wider context of the Porsche Museum collection rather than presenting it as an isolated product launch.^{1, 3} The decision to return to Super Bowl advertising, taken in the context of the Taycan's North American market entry, reflects a strategic recalibration around the importance of mainstream reach for an automotive brand expanding its electric portfolio.

The creative work originates at Cramer-Krasselt, the Chicago agency that has held the Porsche Cars North America account since 2007.^{4, 5, 6} Filming takes place over five days across multiple locations in Germany, including Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, Heidelberg, and the Black Forest.^{4, 1} The production keeps the action grounded in identifiable Porsche territory, anchoring the spot's narrative in the brand's geographic and historical centre rather than transposing it to an abstract setting.

The narrative premise

The script is built around a single creative question: if any car from the Porsche Museum could chase a stolen Taycan, which one would the museum staff pick.^{7, 8} The premise gives Cramer-Krasselt a structural device that integrates the new electric model into a lineage of established icons, including the 917 K, the 918 Spyder, and several generations of the 911.^{1, 7} The Taycan opens the spot in silent rollout, then accelerates through Stuttgart in a sequence that frames its electric powertrain as both a quiet capability and a performance asset.⁴

The casting of the chase fleet positions the Taycan less as a departure from Porsche identity and more as the next entry in a continuous catalogue of Porsche performance cars. The film closes inside the museum, with the Taycan returning to its display position alongside the heritage cars, a beat that frames the new model's relationship to the brand archive.

Production and music

The musical track is built from a combination of Gramatik and Balkan Bump, layered to follow the rhythm of the chase.⁹ The audio mix integrates motor sounds with the electronic score, sustaining a tonal continuity between the 917 K's combustion engine and the Taycan's electric drive. Cramer-Krasselt structures the spot to use familiar motorsport iconography while allowing the Taycan to remain visually distinct, dressed in a high-contrast paint palette that reads cleanly on broadcast displays.

Multiple road closures, museum access in Stuttgart, and coordinated camera vehicles in three locations contribute to a final 60 seconds that compresses a museum's worth of brand assets into a single narrative.

Audience and impact

The Heist becomes the most successful integrated marketing campaign in Porsche Cars North America history at the time of release.¹⁰ The 60-second cut accumulates more than 17.7 million views on YouTube within the campaign window, with extended versions and behind-the-scenes content adding further reach.¹⁰ AdAge, Adweek, Time, and Campaign include the spot in their Super Bowl LIV best-of selections, while the Shorty Awards recognise the campaign in its 13th edition.¹⁰

The choice of Super Bowl LIV as a re-entry point also signals a longer-term commitment to broader brand visibility. The previous Porsche Super Bowl appearance in 1997 had positioned the brand as a niche performance manufacturer, while the 2020 spot uses the platform to introduce the Taycan to households where Porsche product consideration may have started outside the traditional sports car category. The integrated campaign extends across digital channels, dealer activations, and a series of teasers and museum content released in the weeks before broadcast.¹⁰

Position within the wider campaign

The Heist functions as the centrepiece of a campaign architecture that also includes several teaser films, a behind-the-scenes documentary on the museum staff featured in the spot, and an extended director's cut.^{1, 8, 10} Each asset reinforces the same brand proposition, that the Taycan extends the Porsche lineage into electric performance without sacrificing the brand's motorsport credentials. For Cramer-Krasselt and Porsche, the project marks a creative reference point that informs subsequent work for the Taycan and other electric models in the Porsche line.

Within the broader trajectory of automotive Super Bowl advertising, The Heist is widely cited as a benchmark for product launches that need to introduce a new technology while protecting an established brand image. Rather than building the spot around the Taycan in isolation, Cramer-Krasselt and Porsche use the museum frame to demonstrate that the new electric model occupies the same imaginative space as the cars that precede it, a narrative choice that has shaped much of the brand's electrification communication since.