Brands for years have commissioned original songs and, increasingly, remixed old favorites into new jingles to engage music-obsessed consumers. For its latest campaign, CSAA Insurance Group went even further than that, recruiting a group comprised of familiar faces from boy bands past.

The campaign, “Boys No More,” revolves around an eponymous group featuring Joey Fatone (NSYNC), Joey McIntyre (New Kids On the Block), Nick Lachey (98 Degrees) and Wanya Morris (Boyz II Men). Together, they appear in a pitch-perfect song and video, “Make It Right,” that taps into nostalgia for boy bands of the ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s. 

Along with the original song and video, the effort — created by experience consultancy Deloitte Digital and music house Heavy Duty Projects — features TikTok and Instagram dance and karaoke challenges and out-of-home elements including mobile billboards, stadium advertising and a roving tour bus. 

Beyond the novelty of starring a band that lives up to its name (with an average age approaching 50) and a song that could have been a hit on MTV’s “Total Request Live,” the campaign plays on the fact that the lyrical content of boy band songs and the promises offered by insurance companies are often the same. Deloitte Digital delivered that strategic insight and Heavy Duty Projects was happy to run with it.

“Almost in the same way that Christian rock songs could be a love song, but it turns out they’re about Jesus, these songs could very well be ‘90s boy band love songs, but it turns out they’re about insurance,” said Zach Pollakoff, executive producer at Heavy Duty Projects. “There’s a great listener experience when you catch the joke.”

Making the band

CSAA and Deloitte Digital in 2022 found great success mining musical nostalgia with an “Ultimate Rick Roll” campaign and decided to go down a similar path for what would eventually become Boys No More. The consultancy had started doing talent searches when Heavy Duty Projects was brought on, but the music house didn’t start writing until the talent was locked.

“It made a lot of sense to write with those specific people in mind, not only because our temp vocalists would match those singers, but also, they have different timbres of voice and different calling cards about their careers that we’d want to play into,” Pollakoff said.

By coming on very early in the process, Heavy Duty Projects was able to craft the effort with the team rather than being reactive or serving as a “life raft” to get the campaign past the finish line. The music house demoed 10 songs, providing a verse and chorus for each and using some ex-boy band singers as temp vocalists. Soon, the campaign team gravitated towards what would become “Make It Right,” a song that uses the keyboards, drum machines and a sonic palette popularized by hitmaking producers like Max Martin.

After tweaking lyrics and harmonies with Deloitte Digital, Heavy Duty Projects recorded the four members of Boys No More at a studio in Los Angeles the day before a music video shoot helmed by director Calmatic (“Old Town Road,” the “White Men Can’t Jump” remake). Like the song, the video required the nostalgic touchstones of boy band music videos from the past, manifested in the transitions, matching outfits and dance sequences.

“It was important to us to create something that felt grounded in the era without being a parody of it,” Lora Faris and Zac Carroll, Deloitte Digital creative directors, said over email. “We must have watched over a hundred music videos in preparation for the shoot, so we knew going into it that we wanted to create a loose storyline that was complimented by a few key visuals prevalent in the boy band era.”

Tapping into nostalgia for the ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s continues to be a go-to strategy for marketers looking to connect with consumers navigating a particularly fraught few years. For brands like CSAA, music is a key channel to hit those nostalgic notes (The AAA insurer isn’t the only brand to nod to boy bands this year: Cat food purveyor Meow Mix last month created a cat boy band to remix its iconic jingle). 

“[Music] has a certain kind of stickiness that visual mediums don’t. The brand’s goal is to get in someone’s head, and I think music has that quality,” Pollakoff said. “Music has become a really great tool to do that for brands.”