The enterprise software firm Rippling will make its Super Bowl debut this year with a 30-second spot starring Tim Robinson, marking the SaaS company’s largest brand campaign to date and its first appearance during the Big Game.
The ad, which will run during Super Bowl LX in the third quarter, introduces a new campaign called “Rule Your Business.” The spot, created in partnership with the agency Tombras, features Robinson as a would-be corporate mastermind whose grand plans are repeatedly undone by clunky, fragmented business software.
The Super Bowl ad is one of five planned spots starring Robinson, which will roll out across television, streaming services, social, and other channels throughout the year, according to vice president of brand Nick Wiesner. Rippling will also air the campaign during the Olympics, using the same creative framework to reach a broad, mainstream audience.
For Rippling, the Super Bowl marks a shift from performance-driven marketing toward mass awareness, according to Wiesner. The goal is to introduce Rippling to a wider set of businesses beyond its core tech audience.
“We’re at a stage now where we think the whole world should be operating on Rippling,” Wiesner said. “This is our opportunity to meet a bigger audience on a bigger stage and share that story.”
In the ad, Robinson’s character is positioned as an obsessive, increasingly unhinged executive whose vision is sabotaged not by competitors or market forces, but by basic operational failures: onboarding delays, laptop provisioning issues, and disconnected finance and benefits systems. The setup mirrors the frustrations Rippling is designed to solve by consolidating HR, IT, and finance tools into a single platform.
Robinson was a natural fit for the role, according to Wiesner, given his reputation for portraying characters pushed to the brink by minor but maddening problems. “When you imagine that mastermind being at his absolute wit’s end, the only answer was [Robinson],” he said.
“That visceral frustration is something business leaders really relate to,” Wiesner added.
While the Super Bowl spot introduces Rippling’s most broadly relatable products, including onboarding and benefits, later ads will focus more narrowly on offerings like payroll, IT management, and global HR.
The campaign will also extend into out-of-home advertising, events, and social media, where Rippling plans to lean into Robinson’s cultural resonance. The actor, famous for cult comedies including I Think You Should Leave and HBO’s The Chair Company, previously starred in Totino’s’ 2025 Super Bowl spot, “Chazmo Finally Goes Home.”
The ad will air nationally during the Super Bowl, with additional linear placements in select markets including San Francisco, San Diego, Atlanta, and Minneapolis, alongside runs on Peacock.
