Hello,
Welcome back to another edition of Adweek's Super Bowl newsletter, where of course the biggest Super Bowl ad news is not about an actual Super Bowl ad.
Taste the Stunts
One year after creating a bonkers Super Bowl ad featuring David Schwimmer that the brand only showed to one mega-fan, Skittles is trolling the Super Bowl ad experience once again. This time around, it's with a Broadway play that will open and close on Super Bowl Sunday, according to reporter Robert Klara.
Last year's stunt generated Skittles billions of earned media impressions without the candy brand spending $5 million on a Super Bowl ad. Not surprisingly, the candy brand is chasing that same idea this year.
The 17-person play featuring at least one celebrity won't interfere with the game, though. It starts at 1 p.m. and will last just a half hour. Skittles is selling 1,500 tickets for the event, and will donate the ticket sales to charity.
Skittles brand director Debbie Litow wouldn't give us any insight into what this show will look like—yet—but did confirm “there will be Skittles involved.”
Brands are snapping up inventory
CBS said last week that it has sold at least 90 percent of its inventory for the Super Bowl. Ads are selling for north of $5 million per 30-second spot, with the strongest categories including beer, soda, automotive, theatrical and tech. Returning sponsors include Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, Doritos, Avocados From Mexico and WeatherTech.
Turkish Airlines is back again
The first Turkish brand to advertise in the Super Bowl will once again have 30 seconds in the game. The brand is known for having a celebrity anchor its spot—Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman and Dr. Oz previously appeared in Super Bowl ads. This year, maybe they'll put a woman like Brie Larson, who stars in the upcoming film Captain Marvel, front and center.
Will you Devour this ad?
Kraft-Heinz’s frozen food brand Devour has been "growing explosively," so the brand is getting the Super Bowl treatment this year. The brand promised the ad will be "bold" and "edgy," so we can only guess at this point what that means.
That's all the Super Bowl news for now—but odds are more will come today, so follow Adweek on Twitter to get the latest scoops as soon as they're live on our site.
—Jameson Fleming, News Editor
jameson.fleming@adweek.com
(P.S. If you don't have a horse in the race at this point, we're all Chiefs fans, right?)
