super bowl

Nerds Sends Shaboozey, Louis Armstrong To Super Bowl

  

 

 

Shaboozey might sing about Hermès and Jack Daniels, but his Super Bowl ad appearance will be about something sweeter: The country star strolls through New Orleans with Nerds Gummy Clusters, belting Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”

Ferrara hopes that the musician, red-hot from his recent performance at the Grammys, will spark the same kind of sales magic as last year’s “Flashdance"-themed spot, which introduced the world to Gummy, a big red mascot.

“This commercial is inspired by the vibrancy of New Orleans, and we wanted people to feel that, musically,” says Katie Duffy, vice president, of global brands. “We knew we wanted to use 'What a Wonderful World,’ with talent that could bring the song to life in a new way.”

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Shaboozey, who fuses genres from hip-hop to country, “has a unique approach to music in the same way that we do, with Gummy Clusters bridging together that combination of crunchy and gummy. He’s got the same ethos we do.”

In the playful spot, created by Digitas Chicago, Shaboozey walks through a New Orleans bedazzled by Nerd-ish colors as Gummy leads a second-line band.

There’s considerable “Can you top this?” pressure on the company. Last year’s Super Bowl spot, also from Digitas, featured influencer Addison Rae. The ad sent the brand through the stadium roof. Nerds’ sales have risen 36% in retail dollar sales in the last 52 weeks, reaching $869 million. Household penetration has grown by 4.3 points, topping 25%.

“We know some chocolate brands have a household penetration close to 50%,” Duffy tells Marketing Daily. “That means we have plenty of room to grow.”

Since overall category growth is the goal, “we want as many eyeballs on the brand as we possibly can, and the Big Game is our single best way to do that.”

With music as the tentpole, the company plans to support the spot with a 360-marketing campaign, using paid media, retail, PR, partnerships, gifting, digital and social media.

The ad is scheduled to run in the third quarter.

Ferrara specializes in sugar candy, while parent Ferrero owns plenty of chocolate brands in the U.S., including Nutella, Kinder and Baby Ruth. And just as Nerds has been rescued from relative candy-store obscurity by product and marketing innovation over the last five years, Duffy says the company also sees some of its other brands as potential sleepers.

“Jelly Belly has been a part of our portfolio for just over a year now, and it is so known and loved,” she says. “SweetTarts and Trolli also have unique, ownable category positioning and a lot of loyal fans.”

While she concedes that in some ways, the company didn’t predict the Nerds growth story, “we’ll keep trying to understand consumers and address unmet needs.”

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