AdMiration feature: Lowe’s “Earn Your Sunday”

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we looked at consumer response to Lowe’s “Earn Your Sunday” ad, the latest spot from the retailer’s NFL platform, which puts three of football’s biggest stars to work in its aisles.

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad: Lowe’s “Earn Your Sunday”

Watch the ad here.

The ad opens in a Lowe’s store, where Dak Prescott takes over the store intercom to rally shoppers as if it’s game day, reminding them it’s time to earn their Sunday. On the shop floor, Justin Jefferson, dressed as a Lowe’s associate, tells a customer that Prescott is about to say his catchphrase, and right on cue, Prescott’s famous on-field catchphrase, “Here we go!”, rings out over the speakers, just as Jefferson predicted.

From there, the ad moves through the aisles, with each star getting their moment. When a Lowe’s associate starts telling a customer about the most powerful tool on the shelf, Myles Garrett can’t help assuming she means him. Asked whether he could drill through concrete himself, he starts working it out with some complicated math. Meanwhile, Jefferson hands a customer a pair of sparkly glasses, with a reminder that safety comes before style.

The ad ends back with Prescott, who has his own take on what pressure does for you: for the customer, it’s about performing, but for him, it’s about getting the patio spotless. The ad closes on the “Earn Your Sunday” tagline, followed by the Lowe’s logo and the NFL shield.

3-2-1 snapshot

3 facts

• “Earn Your Sunday” resonates okay with the total US audience (Sales Impact: 49; Brand Impact: 58) but it’s much more effective with American football fans (Sales Impact: 76; Brand Impact: 79).
• With football fans, the ad stands out more (Ad Distinctiveness: 3.9 vs. 3.7 norm) and grabs more attention (Claimed Attention: 4.1 vs. 3.9 norm) than the average US ad.
• The ad makes people laugh: Laughter comes in at 10% vs. 7% norm for the total audience and for fans.

2 learnings

The passion for sports can amplify an ad, just don’t let it bury your key message. “Earn Your Sunday” is a far stronger ad with football fans, landing in the top quarter of US ads on both Sales Impact and Brand Impact, but it doesn’t depend on them. The key message that “Lowe’s has the right products and tools to help you tackle any home project” comes through clearly and is believed by the total audience (Key Message Clarity: 4.3 vs. 4.2 norm; Believability: 4.3 vs. 4.1 norm), and the ad moves people towards Lowe’s just as well as it does with fans, with 57% of both groups choosing Lowe’s after watching. The football makes the ad more distinctive, more enjoyable and more relevant for the people who follow it but the benefits of shopping at Lowe’s land with everyone. So you can use a shared passion to make an ad more rewarding for fans, but don’t let the whole ad depend on it.

Cast athletes for who they are and make them part of the brand. Lowe’s set out to bring each player’s personality and playing style to the fore so every star arrives with a joke. The second-by-second trace shows every one of them resonating, from the Prescott and Jefferson opener that draws fans’ biggest laugh to Prescott’s closing line about pressure washing patios. What makes the humor work beyond football fans is that the jokes are as much about the products and the store as they are about the players. The stars also play Lowe’s staff and help ordinary customers with ordinary jobs, which is what viewers picked up on: “[I liked] the football stars and how they interact with regular people.” That makes them relatable and keeps the brand in every scene. Ultimately, the athletes win over the fans but to reach everyone else the humor has to come back to your brand.

1 reflection

What should a sports sponsorship do for your brand?

Big sponsorships are easy to buy and surprisingly hard to cash in on. Research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that on average just 1.5% of people could link a sponsoring brand to the athlete it paid for and rival brands often got the credit instead. The risk with any partnership is ending up building fame for the sport rather than for yourself.

Eight seasons into its NFL partnership, Lowe’s has found a way around that. By putting the stars in the Lowe’s uniform, it makes sure their fame stays attached to Lowe’s. As one viewer noticed: “The characters were also wearing Lowes Jerseys and Lowe’s name tags at times.” The partnership is also pointed at the business rather than the league. “A brand that understands football fans” sits down the list of attributes at 32% and barely moves even among fans (33%). What people take away is about the store: high-quality products (48%), wide variety of products (47%), everything they need for home projects (45%) and a store they can trust (44%). As one viewer put it: “It showed that they had a tool for every household need.” That matters for a business investing heavily in contractors: the NFL is what keeps everyday shoppers thinking of Lowe’s as their store.

So the real test of a sponsorship is whether people’s love of the sport carries over into what they believe about your brand, not just whether they see you as part of it. If you’re sitting on a big partnership, it’s worth asking: when people see it, do they see your brand and do they leave with a reason to shop with you?

About the campaign

“Earn Your Sunday” is Lowe’s NFL platform from its lead agency Dentsu Creative, now in its second season. Jen Wilson, Lowe’s CMO, describes it as “helping fans tackle their projects during the week, so they can kick back and enjoy every moment of NFL Sundays,” and ties it to the brand’s wider ambition “to be the most helpful brand in home improvement.”

This season, Myles Garrett and Jordan Love join Dak Prescott, Justin Jefferson and Christian McCaffrey on the Lowe’s Home Team. Lowe’s is also presenting sponsor of NBC’s Football Night in America, with a new custom set for the 2026 season.

Alongside the ads, the brand is taking a fan tour to its stores and NFL stadiums, selling toolboxes for all 32 teams and giving rewards members the chance to win a trip to the Super Bowl.

There’s also a deliberate play for a new audience beyond the traditional football fan. Wilson has pointed to the NFL’s changing viewership as the reason: “The NFL — thanks to Taylor Swift and all the Swifties — has become one of the most watched [programs for] Gen Z.” Those viewers aren’t buying lumber today, but they’re the next generation of homeowners, and a team toolbox is an easy way in.

Behind all this, Lowe’s is a business in transition. It’s been investing heavily in professional contractors, including an $8.8 billion acquisition of building supplier Foundation Building Materials last year, while spending from everyday DIYers has been under pressure.

A deep dive into the ad’s performance

“Earn Your Sunday” resonates okay with the total US audience (Sales Impact: 49; Brand Impact: 58) but it’s much more effective with American football fans — the people it’s most likely to reach, as it airs throughout the NFL season and around NBC’s Sunday Night Football coverage. Among them, the ad lands in the top quarter of US ads on both driving short-term sales and building brand equity over the long term (Sales Impact: 76; Brand Impact: 79).

The first job of any ad is to get noticed by the people it’s trying to reach. With three NFL stars appearing in a 30-second spot, “Earn Your Sunday” does that effortlessly with football fans. It stands out as highly distinctive (Ad Distinctiveness: 3.9 vs. 3.7 norm) and grabs attention (Claimed Attention: 4.1 vs. 3.9 norm).

Overall, fans really enjoyed the ad (Enjoyment: 4.1 vs. 3.9 norm) especially because it leans on humor. Laughter comes in at 10% (vs. 7% norm) for both the total audience and football fans. Here’s what people liked about it:

• “I liked that it felt like the 4th wall breaking, I liked the pinch of silly and humor in there.”

• “The ad was personable. It makes you laugh and have good feelings toward the store. It's very appealing.”

• “It was fast-moving and covered several different products. It was funny enough to help you remember what product it was advertising.”

The ad is structured so that every star arrives with a joke and the second-by-second trace shows that each joke lands. Dak Prescott and Justin Jefferson open the first joke and it draws the biggest laugh from fans the entire film. Myles Garrett’s stretch through the middle sustains the laughter, while Prescott’s closing line about pressure washing patios resonates most with the total audience with another laugh spike.

The NFL stars are also what respondents mention most when they talk about what they like about the ad, with around 4 in 10 bringing up the players, the NFL or football:

• “The football stars and how they interact with regular people.”

• “I really liked the way the NFL players just came as a random appearance.”

• “I liked the music and the charisma of the football players.”

• “I loved that Lowe’s was able to get 3 of the best players in the NFL to do a commercial together.”

• “I liked seeing Justin Jefferson. Go Vikings!”

And that’s a big part of why the ad works so well with football fans: knowing who the athletes are adds an extra layer to every joke, even though the humor still works without it.

The familiarity of the sport and its stars also means fans find it more relevant to their own lives (Relevance: 3.9 vs. 3.7 norm) and come away having learned something they didn’t know about Lowe’s (New Information: 3.9 vs. 3.7 norm).

Both messages get through, including to people who aren’t football fans. The retail promise that “Lowe’s has the right products and tools to help you tackle any home project” lands clearly and people believe it (Key Message Clarity: 4.3 vs. 4.2 norm; Believability: 4.3 vs. 4.1 norm).

The football promise that “Lowe’s helps you get home projects done, so you have more time to enjoy football on Sundays” lands the most with the football crowd (Key Message Clarity: 4.2 vs. 4.2 norm with the total audience, rising to 4.3 with fans; Believability: 4.1 vs. 4.1 norm, rising to 4.2).

That warmer response shows up in how people see the brand too. The store’s core strengths (quality, range, having everything people need and being a store they can trust) come through with everyone and even more so with fans.

The biggest shift for fans is in “for people like me,” which climbs from 27% to 32%, alongside “everything I need for home projects” (45% to 50%), “is a trusted store” (44% to 49%) and “good value for money” (31% to 35%). Fans not only enjoy the ad more, they come away thinking more highly of Lowe’s.

Ultimately, fans end up choosing Lowe’s at the same rate as the total audience (Post Exposure Brand Purchase: 57%), meaning the football wins their affection, but what persuades everyone is what the store has to offer.

Final thoughts

“Earn Your Sunday” is a clever piece of sponsorship from Lowe’s: the football wins over the fans, while the store’s benefits land with everyone.

What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ads on LinkedIn.

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