• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Comedian Andy Samberg turned Neil Diamond’s 1969 hit "Sweet Caroline” into a musical ad for Hellmann’s 2026 Super Bowl commercial. This allowed Unilever, the brand’s parent, to twist the rock icon’s signature hit into a long-running interactive karaoke experience on Fire TV.

Amazon Ads Brand Innovation Lab wanted to help Unilever reach the same energy as when Diamond broke out in a rendition of his song in 1983 at the Forum in Inglewood, California.

The lab created the "Mayo for a Melody" concept and pitched it to Hellmann's, then worked collaboratively to workshop the mechanics and ensure that the look and feel matched their larger, gameday campaign to follow the ad airing during the Super Bowl. (Watch the Super Bowl ad first.)

The campaign features a 70-second karaoke video and custom karaoke-room-inspired key visuals designed specifically for Fire TV and Amazon.com, with interactive sing-along features. The experience ends later this week.

The experience has psychedelic visuals of flying sandwiches, kaleidoscopic jars of Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise, and playful moments of mayo-meeting-sandwich in beautiful harmony.

"We measure multiple engagement signals throughout the customer journey, including participation rates and conversion from engagement to purchase,” Lauren Anderson, US Head of Amazon Ads Brand Innovation Lab, told MediaPost.

The interactive experience, combined with Amazon's ability to connect advertising and retail, allows it to track how the campaign drives engagement and sales for Hellmann’s.

By building a shoppable, interactive extension, Hellmann’s aimed to ensure the creative continues to work harder long after the Super Bowl ended.

Rather than a one-time awareness expense, the investment becomes a sustained commerce driver, improving the overall value extracted from the original creative and media spend, Jessica Grigoriou, senior vice president of marketing, condiments, Unilever North America, told MediaPost.

In the ad, Samberg portrays "Meal Diamond," a deli-dwelling patron, who replaces the original romantic lyrics with lines only a foodie could love. The campaign, for participants, unlocks discounts on Hellmann's products. 

Measuring success means following engagement metrics such as the number of karaoke participants, time spent in the experience, repeat visits, and cross-device activation rates help determine how compelling the activation was.

On the commerce side, discount unlocks, redemption rates, conversion to purchase, and incremental sales lift provide tangible proof of impact.

“This approach aims to drive brand engagement, deepen recall, and turn viewers into participants, rather than simply entertaining audiences for 30 seconds,” Grigoriou said, explaining the campaign is rooted in turning a one-time advertising moment into a broader brand experience that keeps consumers engaged beyond the broadcast.

Hellmann’s also invited viewers to step into the spotlight themselves and be rewarded for it, she said. Rather than rely solely on a surge in awareness for one night, Hellmann’s extended the creative idea into an interactive platform that lives through the end of February.

By stretching the idea across multiple weeks and media, Hellmann’s remains top of mind well beyond game day -- reinforcing relevance at the exact moments consumers are planning meals and making grocery decisions.

That shift from passive viewing to active participation fundamentally changes the relationship between the consumer and the brand, she explained. “The ad becomes an experience, the TV becomes a stage, and the moment becomes something that generates continued engagement, conversation, and commerce.

When asked to cite specific data Unilever sees, Grigoriou said “we’re still in the midst of the campaign, so we’ll have to wait to get a total overview but we’re hoping that we’ll have significant engagement and behavioral data to react to, including things like how consumers interact with shoppable TV experiences, when they participate, how quickly they convert after unlocking a discount, and which offers drive the strongest purchase response.”

The insights can inform future campaign design, from optimal reward structures and duration of post-event extensions to the effectiveness of low-barrier participation mechanics.

The data may also help identify the audience segments most responsive to interactive retail media experiences and how entertainment formats can best be engineered to drive commerce.

Amazon Ads and Hellmann’s tried, but it’s difficult to generate the energy Diamond did when he performed at The Forum in Inglewood, California, in 1983, where he rocked the house with his original rendition of the song.

“It was awesome to see additional touchpoints in the broader zeitgeist organically align with our plan like with the release of a current Blockbuster movie or a singalong of ‘Sweet Caroline happening in stadium during the Big Game,” Grigoriou said, referring to the ad campaign.