There’s always a standout during the Super Bowl—and no, we’re not talking about the players.

In 2022, the Super Bowl was so full of ads from cryptocurrency brands that it was unofficially dubbed the Crypto Bowl. Last year, sportsbooks were among the most prevalent Super Bowl advertisers. This year, don’t be surprised if you find yourself craving a little treat during the Big Game.

“Snacks are back, from the first-time advertisers to the seasoned vets,” Rick Suter, a senior content strategist at Gannett and editor of USA Today’s Ad Meter, told Marketing Brew. “You’re going to have the Molson Coors rumblings, obviously, a lot of people are looking at Budweiser and Bud Light as well, but none of that has really held a candle to the amount of snack brands…These brands are coming out swinging.”

In addition to snacks and beer, experts are eyeing a few other industries that seem poised to flood the Super Bowl ad zone this year—as well as others that could be ceding some of their usual territory.

Snack attack: Hungry yet? There are at least eight snack and dessert brands lined up for the game this year, including returning brands Pringles, Doritos, Oreo, Reese’s, and M&M’s, as well as first-time Super Bowl advertisers like Drumstick, Nerds, and Lindt.

To explain the Super Bowl snack load, Michelle Deignan, VP of Oreo US, pointed to the “lipstick effect,” the theory that consumers continue to spend on less expensive products like lipstick and treats during times of economic uncertainty.

“Snacking brands get a benefit when some of the economic pressures exist more broadly,” she said.

Keep reading here.—AM

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E.l.f. Cosmetics is betting that there will be demand for beauty content at this year’s Super Bowl. And that was even before the Kansas City Chiefs—and, therefore, Taylor Swift—secured their spot in the game.

The two-decade-old beauty brand, known for its repeated TikTok virality, ran its first regional Super Bowl campaign last year with a spot starring Jennifer Coolidge. That ad performed “way outside of our expectations,” according to CMO Kory Marchisotto, so this year, e.l.f. opted for a national buy—and an even bigger cast of celebrities.

“The reason we showed up at the Big Game last year is because we had a hypothesis that women were being underserved,” even though they represent a substantial share of Super Bowl viewers, Marchisotto told Marketing Brew. “After the game, we said, ‘How did we do on that hypothesis?’...Not only did people want us there, but they wanted more entertainment from e.l.f. They wanted us to put more people like Jennifer Coolidge on a big stage.”

Who’s who: While Coolidge isn’t in e.l.f.’s 2024 ad, another cultural powerhouse is: Judge Judy Sheindlin, aka Judge Judy. The 30-second spot, titled “Judge Beauty,” tells the tale of a woman, played by Gina Torres of Suits, standing trial for overspending on makeup.

The ad also features Torres’s former Suits co-stars Rick Hoffman and Sarah Rafferty; singer Meghan Trainor; sports analyst and former NFL player Emmanuel Acho; Jury Duty’s Ronald Gladden; Sarah Rose, Sheindlin’s granddaughter and law clerk on Sheindlin’s Freevee series Justice Judy; HeidiNCloset from RuPaul’s Drag Race; and TikToker Benito Skinner.

Continue reading here.—AM

For the first time, Nerds and its parent company, Ferrara, are going to the Super Bowl. And they’re bringing Addison Rae with them.

The candy company’s 30-second spot, released Tuesday, shows a gummy candy doing Flashdance-esque moves before being showered in Nerds and forming a Nerds Gummy Cluster. A teaser released last month implies that creator Addison Rae, who makes a brief appearance at the end of the ad, served as the coach for the dancing candy character.

Joey Rath, marketing director for Nerds Candy at Ferrara, told us the decision to get involved with the Super Bowl (and work with Addison Rae, who has nearly 89 million TikTok followers) was based on the brand’s interest in engaging with Gen Z, a demographic that has given Gummy Clusters a lot of online attention—and, evidently, sales—since the product was released in 2020.

According to Rath, Gummy Clusters have become the No. 1-selling candy at “only 15% household penetration,” meaning that the Super Bowl provides the opportunity to bring awareness to the remaining 85%—through animated song and dance.

A lot to chew on: Preparation for this year’s game began last February when the team started developing creative concepts to convey its brand positioning to its target audience—“as many eyeballs as possible,” Rath said, and specifically Gen Zers.

“They are the demographic segment that’s really propelled the brand to a category-leading position,” she said. “We wanted to make sure that our creative resonated with them.”

Read more here.—AM, KH

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Cookie crumbs: Tips for search marketers bracing for a post-cookie world.

Inspo: Some top-tier short-form videos to inspire you, according to content creators.

Listen up: How some fashion and beauty brands are using ASMR to promote their wares.

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2023’s Black Friday + Cyber Monday (BFCM) was one for the books. So, uh, what exactly was written in said books?

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