Super Bowl XLIX Commercials!

All the Marketers, Agencies, Creative Plans and Backstories, as We Learn Them

Psssst…first things first! Thanks to the AdAge team for the heads-up on this story. Secondly, if you need to see some of the spots before game day, go here. Now, on with the countdown..

The soft TV ad market this year is extending even to Super Bowl XLIX, where NBC said in November ad sales were moving along slightly more slowly than in prior years. Among returning advertisers, Coca-Cola and GoDaddy are each running one commercial instead of the two they bought in 2014.

Automakers, too, aren’t crowding the field as much as they have lately, without as many new models that the game is well-timed to promote. (Volkswagen is out, among the notables.) There will be about a dozen new advertisers in the 2015 game, especially in digital commerce and technology. And, sadly, my Korean Ice Cream Commercial didn’t make the cut:

Avocados From Mexico
Buy: One 30-second spot near the end of the first quarter
Creative: The spot and its approach will not be released until the ad airs.
Agency: Not disclosed

Anheuser-Busch InBev
Buy: The company has secured a total of seven 30-second ad units — or 210 seconds — for the game. That’s slightly down from last year’s 240 seconds of airtime. In Super Bowl XLVIII in February, 2014, the brewer’s critical and costly Super Bowl play totaled three ads for Bud Light and two for
Budweiser.
Creative: The brewer, which has exclusive beer advertising rights for the game, will spotlight Bud Light with a 60-second, 80s-themed spot from BBDO and Budweiser with two 60-second ads from Anomaly. That leaves 30 seconds that could expand the Bud Light ad or be used by the brewer another way. The Clydesdales will return in one Bud ad, despite a brief internet scare, while the other will highlight Bud’s “brewing credentials.” Bud Light will continue the “Up for Whatever” campaign that began with in the 2014 game, this time promoting new packaging that will eventually feature more than 100 different messages scrolled on Bud Light bottles. The brewer plans to release all of its ads early to take advantage of the usual pre-game ad buzz.
Agency: BBDO (Bud Light); Anomaly (Budweiser)

BMW
Buy: One 60-second spot during the first quarter
Creative: Not disclosed
Agency: KBS handled creative duties and UM handled media buying.

Carnival Corp.
Buy: One 60-second spot, the company’s first Super Bowl ad, as part of its campaign promoting its full range of brands. Carnival Corp. owns brands including Princess Cruises, Cunard, Holland America Line, Costa Cruises and Seabourn.
Creative: The company in December released four potential commercials and asked consumers to vote for their favorite, which will ultimately run in the game. Voters were entered in a contest promising a yearly cruise for life.
Agency: BBDO, Atlanta

Coca-Cola
Buy: One 60-second commercial for flagship soda brand Coca-Cola.
Creative: TBD. Coca-Cola ran two 60-second spots in the 2014 game, one shot in Green Bay and showing an underdog high school football player scoring a touchdown, and the other featuring people singing “America the Beautiful” in a variety of languages.
Agency: TBD. Wieden & Kenney made both of Coca-Cola’s 2014 Super Bowl ads.

Doritos (PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay)
Buy: Two 30-second commercials
Creative: Doritos is bringing its “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, which asks consumers to come up with its ads for the big game, back for the ninth year in a row.
Agency: Omnicom Group’s Goodby, Silverstein & Partners has long assisted the contest.

Dove Men+Care (Unilever)
Buy: Undisclosed
Creative: The brand is coming back to the Super Bowl for the first time since its U.S. introduction in 2010 with a new campaign aimed at supporting the brand’s commitment to “celebrating modern men,” the company said.
Agency: Undisclosed. Omnicom Group’s Davie Brown Entertainment has handled Dove Men+Care creative in recent years.

GoDaddy
Buy: The web-hosting company is back in the Super Bowl for an 11th consecutive year, but this time has only purchased one spot, down from its usual two.
Creative: The 30-second spot will be called “Journey Home” and feature Nascar star Danica Patrick and a puppy in telling the story of a business owner. (The company solicited names for the puppy via social media in December.) There will be a plot twist, according to GoDaddy CMO Barb Rechterman. The company has moved away from its earlier, sexually-suggestive Super Bowl strategy, and last year ran two commercials about real women who own small businesses.
Agency: Barton F. Graf 9000

Kia
Buy: One 60-second spot. Kia is making its sixth Super Bowl appearance in a row in 2015.
Creative: Former “Remington Steele” and James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan will appear to promote the 2016 Kia Sorento.
Agency: David & Goliath, which created last year’s Super Bowl ad starring Laurence Fishburne in his “Matrix” role.

Lexus (Toyota)
Buy: One 30-second ad, titled “Make Some Noise”
Creative: Lexus released the commercial, its second Super Bowl ad, on Jan. 14, more than two weeks before the game, making it the first marketer to pre-release its spot. The ad shows the Lexus NX roaring elegantly around a neon-lit parking garage.
Agency: Walton Isaacson

Loctite
Buy: Loctite, the make of Super Glue, is spending the equivalent of nearly its usual annual ad budget to buy a Super Bowl slot at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
Creative: The ad will be the the latest installment of Loctite’s less-than-a-year-old #WinAtGlue campaign.
Agency: Fallon, Minneapolis

McDonald’s
Buy: McDonald’s is prepping a Super Bowl spot in the 2015 game, executives familiar with the business said, after years of opting out of the game and advertising instead in the pre-game slot just before kickoff.
Creative: The effort is likely to “evolve” the “I’m lovin’ it” theme but retain the tagline.
Agency: Publicis Groupe’s Leo Burnett won the Super Bowl assignment, executives familiar with the matter said.

Mercedes-Benz
Buy: The marketer’s buy is likely to continue its Super Bowl habit of a 60-second spot. This will be Mercedes’ third time advertising in the Super Bowl, having last appeared in the game in 2013 and sitting out 2014.
Creative: TBD. Mercedes’ 2013 Super Bowl commercial, “Soul,” featured Willem Dafoe, Usher and Kate Upton.
Agency: Merkley & Partners

Mophie
Buy: One 30-second ad
Creative: TBD. One of many first-time advertisers in the Super Bowl, the marketer of charging accessories and cases for smartphones is aiming to significantly increase its name recognition.
Agency: Deutsch, Los Angeles

Nationwide
Buy: Undisclosed
Creative: To be determined. Nationwide hasn’t advertised in the Super Bowl since 2007, long enough ago for Kevin Federline to have starred. The company became the official insurance sponsor of the NFL in August.
Agency: Undisclosed. Chiel Worldwide’s McKinney is Nationwide’s lead creative agency. Ogilvy & Mather handled this year’s new campaign with Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning.

Nissan
Buy: One 60-second spot in an undisclosed quarter. Nissan is coming back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1997, the company said on Dec. 2, as part of its recent strategy to emphasize “fewer yet bigger moments.”
Creative: Not disclosed.
Agency: TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles.

Pepsi (PepsiCola) [HALFTIME AD]
Buy: One 30-second commercial leading into the halftime show, which Pepsi is again sponsoring
Creative: TBD. Katy Perry is performing during the halftime show. For the 2014 game, Pepsi also ran a 30-second ad during halftime as a lead-in to its halftime show. Pepsi does not plan to release its commercial before it airs.
Agency: Mekanism will again handle the halftime show lead-in.

Skittles (Mars Inc.)
Buy: One 30-second ad in the first half
Creative: Skittles will appear in a commercial during the Super Bowl this February for the first time, according to people familiar with the matter, but it isn’t clear what form the ad will take. Skittles was a big winner in last season’s Super Bowl even without an ad because Seattle Seahawks star Marshawn Lynch is a notorious fan, but there are no signs yet that he would star in the anticipated Super Bowl ad. Skittles began promoting its commercial in early January with a video showing former NFL great Kurt Warner already tailgating outside the stadium where the Super Bowl will be played.
Agency: DDB Chicago

Snickers (Mars Inc.)
Buy: One 30-second ad, Snickers’ first since 2011. Snickers declined to specify the quarter in which the spot would run.
Creative: The commercial will continue Snickers’ “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign, introduced by BBDO, New York, with an ad starring Betty White in the 2010 Super Bowl. Ms. White will not appear in the 2015 Super Bowl ad.
Agency: BBDO, New York

Squarespace
Buy: One 30-second commercial
Creative: Not disclosed. Squarespace is making its second Super Bowl appearance, following a debut in 2014. It joins another web development platform, Wix.com, which will air its first spot during the 2015 game, as well as web-hosting company and chronic Super Bowl advertiser GoDaddy.
Agency: Wieden & Kennedy, New York, in a departure from the 2014 approach, when Squarespace developed its ad internally.

Toyota
Buy: One spot seems likely. Toyota declined to detail its buy, but said it will be similar to prior years.
Creative: Toyota is back for its third consecutive Super Bowl with a commercial starring Team Toyota athlete Amy Purdy, a U.S. Paralympic Team snowboarder, and celebrating “great, bold dads” to promote the new Toyota Camry, said Jack Hollis, VP-marketing, Toyota. Toyota’s 60-second 2014 Super Bowl ad featured Terry Crews and The Muppets, while the 2013 commercial starred “The Big Bang Theory” actress Kaley Cuoco.
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Los Angeles

TurboTax (Intuit)
Buy: One 60-second commercial during the first quarter, a return to the game after last year’s debut
Creative: In a repeat of last year’s decision to avoid the deluge of pre-released Super Bowl ads, the brand is keeping the creative for its return under wraps until game day.
Agency: Wieden & Kennedy

Wix.com
Buy: A 30-second spot in the fourth quarter
Creative: The web development platform’s first Super Bowl commercial will highlight Wix’s mission to simplify website creation, specifically for small business owners, part of a campaign featuring former NFL players such as Brett Favre, Terrell Owens and Emmitt Smith as they move on to life after football. Wix is following the lead of web development platform Squarespace, which gained household name status with its debut Super Bowl ad in 2014 and is returning in 2015. For the past two years, Wix.com has been running direct response TV ad campaigns in the U.S., Europe and Latin America.
Agency: The company said it worked directly with Frank Samuel, Jeff Reed and Lauren Bayer of Committee LA, in collaboration with San Francisco creative team Jeff Huggins and Andrea Janetos.