Kinder Bueno has revealed its first-ever Super Bowl spot—and it’s a trip to space.
The Ferraro-owned brand will air a 30-second ad during Super Bowl 60 on Feb. 8, featuring a spacecraft called the KNDR. The vehicle spirals out of control through an asteroid field as the copilot exclaims “No bueno!”
The pilot—a Kinder Bueno chocolate bar in hand—counters, “Kinder Bueno!”
Thus does the spot, titled “Kinder Bueno,” the stage set for “buenos” good and bad, with viewers hopefully picking up the brand name along the voyage.
Ferrero North America’s CMO Chad Stubbs said that the brand saw an opportunity to riff on a ubiquitous American colloquialism.
“People are already using the playful, informal expression ‘no bueno’—a mix of English and Spanish literally meaning ‘no good.’ Whether someone’s car breaks down or a quarterback throws an interception, they might say [it],” Stubbs told ADWEEK. “Kinder Bueno appeals to multiple demographics and we’re confident that playing off this ‘no bueno’ insight will be a crowd pleaser.”
Founded by Italian confectioner Michele Ferrero in 1968, Kinder is sold in 170 countries and is already among the world’s bestselling chocolate brands. But Kinder Bueno, a chocolate-hazelnut bar launched in 1990, hasn’t been so visible in a country more accustomed to Snickers bars and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
With a Super Bowl ad and supporting marketing campaign at the ready, Stubbs is determined to change that.
“This year represents an inflection point for Ferrero in North America,” he said, with the company having “invested billions” in product innovation and manufacturing plants. “We chose Kinder Bueno specifically because Kinder is one of the most under-developed brands in the U.S. in our portfolio.”
The candy bar is also apparently an off-world favorite, too, since the bigwigs at the command center (played by actor William Fichtner and reality TV star Paige DeSorbo) are busy munching on them in the spot. So are a pair of extraterrestrials holding off on plans to destroy Earth, because that’s where Kinder Bueno bars are made.
With the space-themed ad, Kinder Bueno leans into a popular Super Bowl trope. FedEx showed fans a moon office in 2007’s game. In a legendary spot four years later, a kid playing Darth Vader used what he believed was the Force to start his father’s Volkswagen Passat. And in 2014, GoPro repurposed Felix Baumgartner’s Red Bull jump from the edge of actual space in its Big Game ad.
