• by Aaron Baar , January 14, 2016

Wix.com is bringing in some heavy — in every sense of the word — hitters to help it make a bang during this year’s Super Bowl. 

The Tel Aviv-based Web hosting service has partnered with Dreamworks Animation and its “Kung Fu Panda” franchise (which opens its third film on Jan. 29) to tell the story of how the company helps small businesses. A video released this week (the first in a series to be released in the run-up to the big game) depicts Kung Fu Panda’s titular Po character looking to promote his stepfather’s noodle shop via skywriting (which goes disastrously wrong). 

“We share so many values with Dreamworks Animation, and we thought working with them could add some fun to the story we want to tell,” Omer Shai, chief marketing officer at Wix.com, tells Marketing Daily. “It’s meant to be a funny way to promote Mr. Ping’s Noodles. Eventually we find out the best way to start is with a quality Web site.”

The campaign, which carries the tagline “Start Stunning,” (which is also being used as a hashtag), will see other videos demonstrating Po’s zany attempts to promote the business rolling out throughout the next few weeks before the Super Bowl and shortly thereafter, with a successful Web site. The videos will be housed on a Wix-hosted site, startstunning.com. The campaign will also include exclusive made-for-Web content and social media activations. 

The extended run-up to the campaign not only takes advantage of the movie’s premiere, but also presents a way to build buzz in the run-up to the big game, Shai says. “It’s a great opportunity to tell a broader story,” he says. 

This is not the brand’s first go around on the big game. Last year, Wix.com had a spot that depicted retired football greats Brett Favre, Emmitt Smith, Terrell Owens, Larry Allen and Franco Harris trying their hand at running small businesses and using Wix-supported websites to help. That campaign carried the tagline, “It’s that easy.”

Although different in execution, this year’s campaign runs along the same themes as last year’s, Shai says -- namely that it’s easy to create a Web site using Wix.com’s services.