Ice cream brand Häagen-Dazs is entering the highly competitive Super Bowl ad mix, as it has purchased national airtime during Super Bowl 59. The brand is in the game for the first time in its more than 60 years in business.
The brand is now found in 25% of U.S. households, and Häagen-Dazs decided the time had come to reach out to its audience in the year’s biggest and most watched sporting event.
“This is a momentous occasion for the brand and an iconic cultural moment that brings us together through food,” said Rachel Jaiven, head of Häagen-Dazs marketing, in a statement. “We’re proud to be a part of the Super Bowl for the first time and shine a new light on our indulgent and growing portfolio.”
The Super Bowl work will be led by a new creative agency partner, nice&frank, which will develop and produce the brand campaign activating during the Super Bowl and other key cultural moments throughout the year, including a platform for the brand. Nice&frank won the work after a competitive pitch led by the brand.
As the newly awarded lead creative for the U.S., nice&frank will assume creative and strategic marketing duties moving forward. Häagen-Dazs had named BBH its global lead creative agency earlier this year, and this work will be separate from that remit.
Details of the deal were not disclosed, but COMvergence estimates the 2023 U.S. spend for Haagen-Dazs at $32 million for both traditional and digital.
Nice&frank is an independent creative agency, launched in 2022 by ex-Goodby Silverstein & Partners execs Laura Petruccelli and Graham North. The agency has already done work for the San Francisco Giants, Kits Eyewear and Les Mills, all won without a pitch.
Won with the first pitch
Häagen-Dazs is the first pitch nice&frank has been involved with, and it won the work partly due to its founders’ heritage with previous Super Bowl work with GS&P, but also through its passion for the brand.
“We instantly fell in love with the nice&frank team. Their creativity, honesty and passion for Häagen-Dazs was evident from the start. We knew right away they were the perfect partners to help bring us to the Super Bowl, and further our legacy as a respected and loved brand,” said Jaiven.
When nice&frank started conversations with the brand, the agency thought it was just to be an agency partner for a new brand platform, but the team discovered that the Super Bowl was the launch pad for the new platform a few meetings in, and with a Super Bowl heritage, the agency was able to land the work.