• by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, February 6, 2025

I was never a fan of ad agencies keeping Super Bowl commercials under wraps, like state secrets, until they broke on the Big Game.

After all, what's the advantage of the “big reveal” in real time, when most viewers are too busy drinking, talking, finishing up the avocado dip, or wrangling their avocado-dipped kids, to get the full effect?

That dilemma was solved in the last 15 years or so, with the avalanche of social media. Advertisers started releasing full commercials on these platforms ahead of the game, cashing in on a buzz multiplier so effective that the ad could pay for itself by game time.

Getting early access also prolongs the relationship for consumers, so that by the time the spot debuts, bowl-watchers can feel like in-the-know insiders, waiting for their new fave to appear.

That’s the case with this Hellman’s mayo spot from VML, which cleverly reconsiders the most famous scene in “When Harry Met Sally...”

Launched on Insta and revealed at a party for the press last week at Katz’s Delicatessen, where it and the original movie were both shot, the ad has already garnered a tidal wave of press, online hearts and shares.

The spot draws from two Super Bowl classic ad themes: movie-based nostalgia, and the use of celebrities. 

And as bland and wholesome as mayo is traditionally, the creatives have borrowed from a pretty spicy underlying storyline, at least for family viewing.

And therein lies the rub -- or several rubs.

After all, no matter how famous it has become, reviving a scene from a movie that opened in 1989, before many millennials were born, is a risk.

And the idea of a contemporary Meg Ryan reviving her performance feigning sexual ecstasy 35 years later could have gone, um, sideways.

But the spot is fun and successful because it’s beautifully acted, directed and smartly updated.

Rather than showing Harry that he’s been lied to by other women, here the focus is food- and product-centric: it's Sally's sandwich that “isn’t doing it” for her. And Hellman’s is what provides the release.

The dialogue is spot-on, cleverly echoing Harry’s urban (okay, nice Jewish boy comedian) jokey patter in the original, with responses authentic to the Sally character.

Open on a table at Katz’s on New York City's Lower East Side. It’s not just any table, it’s their now-famous spot from the movie that has since turned into hallowed ground (with a sign over it that reads, “Where Harry met Sally…Hope you have what she had! Enjoy.”)

Ever since, pastrami-minded tourists have made a pilgrimage to the place where the earth did not really move.

And here I must digress and mention the whole malaise about mayonnaise, a cultural movement that has been in development since the 2010s.

I won’t pretty it up: These days many have a palpable disgust of mayo. It’s a current thing to say that it’s “gross,” like mayo is the new anchovies. 

On the other hand, people who love mayonnaise love it to orgasmic proportions, so that’s the clever link. There are so-called “Mayo heads” who slather it on and in everything, including their coffee.

Last year, Hellman’s seemed to recognize this spectrum, releasing a funny series called “Mayotivations” culminating in a truly hilarious spot featuring the least-liked NFL quarterback ever to come along as an endorser: Will Levis.

In a spot that went hugely viral, he’s shown kissing and throwing the jar, and being otherwise besotted with the sauce inside.

What must also be mentioned is the old cultural no-no of putting mayonnaise on a pastrami sandwich with, gasp, white bread. For religious Jews, it’s not kosher to mix milk and meat, and a meat like pastrami must go on rye. 

The “horror” of that combo became such a cultural touchstone that Woody Allen joked about it in two of his movies: “Annie Hall” and “Hannah and Her Sisters.” In each, his bewitchingly Gentile girlfriend succumbed to that ordering error.

But as with the original movie, here Sally orders a turkey sandwich on rye, so the use of the white condiment is not so bad.

And it turns out that Hellman’s Mayo is kosher! (And is available at Katz’s, where you can order it “on the side.”)

After Meg-as-Sally reprises her robust performance, Billy-as-Harry quips “This one’s real,” which also nicely puns on Hellman’s “Real Mayonnaise” brand name.

But the best, most unexpected part of the spot is the button at the end.

In the original, director Rob Reiner cast his actress-mother, Estelle Reiner, as the older lady at a neighboring table. Observing Meg’s big finish, she famously deadpans, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

This time, the honor goes to a contemporary rom-com actress, the wide-eyed but knowing Sydney Sweeney, who grounds the spot in the modern day.  She’s pitch-perfect in delivering the iconic five-word line.

Sweeney, who has also appeared in "White Lotus," and could be argued to be the current Meg Ryan, has been the object of weird, boob-related chatter in pop culture for the last year. But in this cameo, she’s dressed in a polo-necked sweater, de-complicating that part of her anatomy, so that the spot remains sandwich-forward.

Altogether, the mayo update is a twist that people will buy.

And I forgot that the spot also fits into that third and fourth mainstay of successful Super Bowl commercials: It’s simple, and loud.