Scientology We Are Giants Turns Super Bowl LVI Into a Giant Awakening
We Are Giants is a 2022 Super Bowl LVI advertisement created by Scientology Media Productions for the Church of Scientology, aired in the United States on February 13, 2022, using narrative-driven storytelling to position personal empowerment and self-discovery as the central proposition of modern religious outreach advertising.
The campaign operates on a single, sustained metaphor: the individual as a giant held down by string, capable of rising at any moment. Its narration — "Deep down, you know. You're not defeated. You're not weak. You're not too old or too young, or too small. You are a giant tied down with string. And at any moment you can rise. The only question is how" — delivers its message without doctrinal language, instead framing Scientology as a practical answer to a universal human question. The closing line redirects viewers toward a free online personality test, functioning as the campaign's primary conversion mechanism, as documented on the campaign's own YouTube page.
In the United States, We Are Giants marked Scientology's tenth consecutive Super Bowl advertisement, according to scientology.tv, establishing an unbroken run of national broadcast presence dating back to the Church's 2013 debut spot. The campaign was produced entirely in-house at Scientology Media Productions' Los Angeles studio, with no external agency involvement, placing the full weight of creative and production decision-making within the organisation itself. It belongs to the integrated medium category within the religion sector and carries a Clapboard Score of 71 out of 100, reflecting a competent but institutionally constrained creative execution. The campaign hashtags — #WeAreGiants and #YouCanRise — extended the narrative across social platforms, while the advertisement itself was translated into 16 languages for a worldwide audience, according to scientology.tv.
Scientology Media Productions built We Are Giants around a secular emotional insight rather than a theological argument. The creative premise — that individuals feel constrained by invisible limitations and possess latent potential they have not yet accessed — speaks to a broadly felt human condition, deliberately bypassing the doctrinal friction that has historically complicated Scientology's public communications in the United States.
The Super Bowl remains the most expensive and most watched single-night advertising environment in the American market. According to campaignlive.com, a 30-second national commercial slot during Super Bowl LVI cost approximately seven million dollars in 2022, placing any brand that commits to that environment in direct competition with the most well-resourced advertisers in the world. Scientology's decision to occupy that space for a tenth consecutive year signals a long-term brand-building commitment that few religious organisations have attempted at comparable scale. The Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have both invested in national broadcast religion advertising in the United States, but neither has maintained the Super Bowl as a sustained annual platform in the way Scientology has, according to reporting by deseret.com.
The conversion mechanism — a free online personality test surfaced at the campaign's close — mirrors direct-response logic imported from performance marketing, embedding a measurable action inside what is otherwise a brand-awareness vehicle. This dual architecture, combining emotional narrative with a specific next step, distinguishes We Are Giants from the majority of Super Bowl public service advertising, which typically ends at awareness without directing audiences toward an identifiable behaviour. The campaign's #YouCanRise hashtag reinforced the call to action across social channels, extending the media investment beyond the broadcast window into organic digital circulation across the United States and internationally.
We Are Giants achieves its effect almost entirely through narration and tone. The spot constructs its argument without a visible spokesperson, without testimonial, and without explicit reference to Scientology's belief system, relying instead on voice, pacing, and the accumulated weight of its central metaphor to carry the emotional load.
The language of the narration is carefully calibrated. Short declarative statements — "You are not defeated," "You are not weak" — function as direct rebuttals to the internal monologue of a viewer experiencing self-doubt, a rhetorical structure more common in motivational content than in institutional advertising. The phrase "a giant tied down with string" is the campaign's defining image, borrowed from the register of fable and myth to suggest that the limitation is external and artificial rather than intrinsic, and therefore removable. The closing question — "The only question is how" — deliberately leaves the answer unstated within the advertisement itself, redirecting curiosity toward the personality test as the threshold experience.
Production credits for We Are Giants confirm that the campaign was produced entirely in-house at Scientology Media Productions' Los Angeles studio, as documented by scientology.tv and send2press.com. No external director, creative director, or production company is identified in publicly available records; the director's identity is not disclosed in any available source. The Hermes Awards, which recognised the campaign in 2023 with two Platinum Awards in the Video — TV Ad and Video Creativity — Videography categories, represent the only independently documented creative accolades the spot received. The production's visual and sonic choices — warm colour grading, an original score available for download — indicate a self-contained creative infrastructure capable of broadcast-quality output without external agency partnership, a distinction that is itself strategically significant for an organisation that has historically maintained tight control over its public image in the United States.
We Are Giants generated more than 15 million YouTube views by April 16, 2022, with archived records showing approximately 15.98 million views and 692 comments, according to the campaign's own documented record. That figure, cited by scientology.tv and corroborated by send2press.com, positions the advertisement among the more widely viewed Super Bowl spots of the 2022 cycle in terms of post-broadcast digital accumulation, though direct comparative data against other Super Bowl LVI advertisers is not independently verified in available sources.
The campaign was translated into 16 languages for international distribution, according to scientology.tv, extending the reach of a United States Super Bowl placement into a genuinely global content asset. This translation scope is unusual for a religious organisation operating primarily in the American domestic market and reflects a media production capability that rivals secular brand advertisers. In terms of independent recognition, the spot received two Hermes Platinum Awards in 2023 — in the Video — TV Ad and Video Creativity — Videography categories — representing the only externally verified creative honours the campaign earned. No verified reviews or analysis from Ad Age, Adweek, Campaign, The Drum, or Contagious are publicly available for this advertisement.
The Clapboard Score of 71 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its chosen narrative register with discipline and achieves measurable digital distribution, while remaining constrained by its institutional context and the deliberate narrowness of its creative vocabulary. The absence of a disclosed director and the in-house production model limit the kind of industry-press coverage that typically amplifies Super Bowl creative work, leaving YouTube viewership as the campaign's most legible public metric.
We Are Giants is a 2022 Super Bowl LVI advertisement created by Scientology Media Productions for the Church of Scientology in the United States. It uses narration built around the metaphor of a giant held down by string to frame personal empowerment as the entry point into Scientology, directing viewers toward a free online personality test.
We Are Giants exceeded 15 million YouTube views by April 2022. Archived records documented approximately 15.98 million views and 692 comments, according to scientology.tv and the campaign's own YouTube record, making it one of the more widely circulated Super Bowl spots of the 2022 cycle in digital terms.
Scientology Media Productions produced We Are Giants entirely in-house at its Los Angeles studio. No external agency or production company was involved. The director's identity is not disclosed in publicly available sources, as confirmed by records from scientology.tv and send2press.com.
We Are Giants was not the first Scientology Super Bowl ad. According to scientology.tv, it was the tenth consecutive Scientology Super Bowl advertisement, placing the beginning of the unbroken run around 2013, when the Church aired its debut Super Bowl spot, the Knowledge campaign, produced by Golden Era Productions.
We Are Giants won two Hermes Platinum Awards in 2023 in the Video — TV Ad and Video Creativity — Videography categories. No verified recognition from Cannes Lions, the Clio Awards, D&AD, the Effie Awards, or the One Show is publicly documented for this campaign.
The We Are Giants advertisement directed viewers to take a free online personality test as its primary conversion step. This direct-response mechanism, surfaced at the close of an otherwise brand-awareness-oriented narrative, reflects a dual-architecture strategy that distinguishes the campaign from most Super Bowl public service advertising in the United States.
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