The candy giant Reese’s has a plan to stand out in a Super Bowl awash with celebrity cameos: No famous faces, just 30 seconds of frenetic absurdism.
The company has purchased 30 seconds of airtime on Fox during the Big Game to promote its recently-launched Reese’s Chocolate Lava Big Cup, which adds a layer of molten chocolate below the peanut butter.
And rather than distract with a cameo or pop culture reference, the spot leans into the “lava” in the product’s name, with a fast-paced spot featuring people trying to eat some lava spewing out of a volcano, as a park ranger desperately tries to stop them.
“I think not having a celebrity makes you stand out,” says Ryan Riess, VP of brand strategy and creative development for The Hershey Company . “We use celebrities all the time, and it’s great. But in this environment, I think we are so expecting to see it [that brands can stand out by not having them].”
“Often we’re not using a celebrity because we think Reese’s is a celebrity, and we don’t want to share the spotlight,” Riess adds. “There’s certainly times where you need it, but a brand such as Reese’s that already has a lot of love, we think that it’s important to kind of give the stage to the product, give the stage to the brand.”
Reese’s is in a slightly different position than many other Super Bowl advertisers. A movie studio may release a trailer for an upcoming film, and a car brand may tease a new model, but Reese’s is using its time to introduce a new product that is already on supermarket and convenience store shelves across the country.
“The timing works out well, as we often will launch products in Q4 and then we get the distribution so by the time that the Super Bowl comes in February, we still have very low awareness, very low household penetration of a new item, but it is widely available,” Riess says. “So the Super Bowl gives us a chance to say, ‘hey Reese’s fans, hey people that love chocolate and peanut butter — which is 70 percent of the country — we have something new for you to try. And the good news is you can go try it the next day.”
As has become standard practice, Reese’s is also bringing the campaign to places outside of the Big Game. That includes an activation in New Orleans, where passersby can yell “It’s Lava Time, Baby!” at a volcano to receive a free Chocolate Lava Big Cup, and brand integrations with Barstool Sports and Jason and Travis Kelce, through both their New Heights podcast and ESPN’s They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce.
“The way the game is shaping up, Eagles versus Chiefs, obviously becomes very relevant for for both of the Kelce brothers,” Riess notes. “We tried to do something that our consumers would love, something that will break through in a highly competitive environment, and something that at the end of the day you remember the brand and product, and the brand and product was central to the humor.”
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