• by Aaron Baar , September 10, 2015

Peyton Manning’s obsession with an earworm advertising jingle (and chicken parmesan sandwiches) is about to spread from inside his head to the rest of the world. 

For the second-year of its NFL sponsorship, Nationwide Insurance is reprising its popular commercial featuring the Denver Broncos quarterback singing everyday phrases to the tune of its “Nationwide is on your side” jingle. this year, however, Manning isn’t the only one obsessed; others — such as his car’s navigation system — are doing it too.

“It came naturally as we talked to Peyton about it,” Rick Jackson, associate vice president of brand management at Nationwide, tells Marketing Daily. “He shared some stories about how much fun he had with the jingle ad, and how much fans wanted to talk to him about it.”

In this year’s spot, Manning is once again obsessed with the jingle, using it to form everyday phrases such as, “That’s a first-rate queso dip,” and “I haven’t been this lost in years,” (to which his navigation system responds: “recalculating shortest route”). The new commercial also includes a callback to the original spot, when Manning watches a television chef make a chicken parmesan sandwich, with the chef singing the “chicken parm, you taste so good” line. 

Unlike last year’s effort, which was only one spot, this year’s spot will include more situations dropped in through the year. “The big goal of this year is to make it a season-long conversation,” Jackson says. “That will be a fun way to expand the target and the conversation beyond the one ad.”

Now in the second-year of a three-year sponsorship with the League, Nationwide has also expanded its reach to include relationships individual teams adding six franchises — the Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, Oakland Raider and Pittsburgh Steelers — in addition to continuing with the Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos. Local spots for those teams feature everyday fans saying football-related phrases to the tune of the jingle.

“Last year, we wanted to establish Nationwide as part of the NFL landscape and [be linked] to Peyton,” Jackson says. “After having established that, we see this as a way to expand the campaign and our target.”

The television ad, which makes its debut on the opening game of the NFL season on Thursday night, will be supplemented by “a lot of paid social media,” which will include additional content and footage from other teams’ production shoots, Jackson says.