Hellmann’s teased its return to the Super Bowl commercial game by paring up with another ‘mayo’ in the form of former New England Patriots linebacker and now coach Jerod Mayo as well as comedian Pete Davidson for a social spot which is part of a wider effort to get viewers to ‘make taste, not waste’ when it comes to leftover ingredients.
The campaign launched on 31 January, a fortnight ahead of the NFL’s showpiece event, the Unilever brand promoted its centrepiece Big Game ad through a social media ‘Mayo x Mayo: The Call’ teaser phase featuring Jerod Mayo and Terry Tate (with Lester Speight reprising his Reebok ‘Office Linebacker’ ad role from the 2000s).
Destiny called and @Jerod_Mayo51 answered
Great recruiting #TerryTate Woo! #MakeTasteNotWaste pic.twitter.com/jWCNrZm7zq— Hellmann's (@Hellmanns) January 31, 2022
The campaign, created in harness with WPP Group agency Wunderman Thompson, culminated with the main Big Game commercial running the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LVI.
The main 60-second spot sees Mayo steamrolling through a group of food-wasters before stopping at Davidson, who informs Mayo that both he and his mother (played by Davidson’s actual mother – Amy) aren’t actually wasting food. But Mayo decides to poleaxe the Saturday Night Live star anyway, to which Davidson responds “I get it, I’m very hittable”.
The main message behind the Hellmann’s campaign is that its mayonnaise is the ideal accoutrement to enable people use up leftovers rather than wasting food – #MakeTasteNotWaste.
The teaser sees Mayo get a call from Hellmann’s Special Ops: aka ‘Terry Tate’ in homage to the long-running Reebok ‘Office Linebacker’ short film series from the early 2000s and from the 2003 Super Bowl in a tie-up that involved a licensing agreement between Unilever and Reebok and with Rawson Thurrber (the writer and director of the original spot).
Comment
The Super Bowl is not just a sports and cultural event in the USA, but also one of America’s biggest ‘food holidays’ and typically leads to significant ‘over-buying’ and recent Unilever research found that 40% of all food waste happens in homes.
Besides his mayonnaise spokesperson role, Jerod Mayo is in high demand at the end of the NFL season. The current New England Patriots coach was reported to be among those candidates interviewing for the open Denver Broncos head coaching role.
Last year, Mayo rolled out a Big Game spot starring Amy Schumer.
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