BBDO Snickers teased its “live” Super Bowl spot for Snickers last month, with a glimpse at its casting for horses and a dead cowboy. At the time, it was also revealed that Adam Driver (of Star Wars: The Force Awakens fame) would star in the ad.
The spot, which ran during the third quarter of the Super Bowl, opens with word “Live” and a Western frontier town. Some adversaries call out Driver’s character but he seems confused as to the timing of the start of the “live” ad. From there, he just proceeds to make things worse.
The spot ends with the line, “You ruin live Super Bowl commercials when you’re hungry,” tying the whole stunt to the brand’s long-running “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign. While it mixes up the formula a bit, “A Live Super Bowl Commercial” comes as something of a letdown after all the hype. Those hoping for BBDO New York and Snickers to recreate the kind of success they found with 2015’s excellent “The Brady Bunch” (easily one of the best Super Bowl ads that year) after last year’s “Marilyn” spot with Willem Dafoe will likely be disappointed.
Today, BBDO New York and Snickers launched a brief follow-up in which Driver offers an apology. Predictably, that doesn’t go so well either.