It’s a trope of Super Bowl ads these days: Big brands laden their commercials with big stars, some in featured roles, and others in brief cameos. Anything to stand out from the crowd.
But in a world where Super Bowl ads have become somewhat predictable, Uber Eats is trying something radically different for its play this year, which stars Bradley Cooper, Matthew McConaughey and Parker Posey in a spot that continues last year’s conspiracy theme.
There will be an ad during the big game, sure, but users will be able to open up their apps to order up their own customized commercial, with a menu (literally) of celebrities to interact with the three stars.
Among the stars that will be available to select for cameos are singer and actress Addison Rae, YouTube star Amelia Dimoldenberg, Severance actor Tramell Tillman, NFL stars Sauce Gardner, Jerry Rice, and Pork Chop Womack and San Francisco 49ers mascot Sourdough Sam.
“It’s been a bit of a beast of an effort, that’s to say the least,” says Georgie Jeffreys, head of marketing for North America at Uber, in an interview. “The Super Bowl definitely is the right moment for this type of concept, where people can make their own version of the creative, because as we know, consumers are fascinated by Super Bowl ads, it’s one of it’s one of the reasons that the Super Bowl draws such a huge viewership.”
Uber Eats users will be able to “order” a customized ad, building it in the app just as they would if they were ordering delivery (options include “Amelia’s chicken,” “Addison’s Diet Coke,” ‘Tramell’s breakfast” and “Sauce & fries”). The app will then splice the cameos in with Posey, Cooper and McConaughey, with over 1,000 different possible combinations.
And like every cameo-filled Super Bowl ad, the customized spots are meant to appeal to the wide range iof viewers watching the game, whether they are football fans or not.
“We wanted to make sure we could break out of just the sporting world and bring in lots of different characters and cameos that touch different parts of America, but also different parts of the internet,” Jeffreys says. “Someone like an Addison Rae speaks to someone very different than who Jerry Rice speaks to, but they’re both icons in their respective fields, and so it was really about casting the ensemble versus just casting individuals.”
But of course you can’t forget the main spot, with the trio of stars playing up the conspiracy that McConaughey introduced in last year’s Uber Eats super Bowl ad.
Watch:
“Look, when we do our Super Bowl spot, we’re always conscious of ensuring that we have a cast that appeals to most people in the audience. Bradley and Matthew really do do that,” Jeffreys says. “They’re both icons, as you can imagine, they’re both beloved, and we felt that bringing Parker into the mix was also probably quite a strong strategic part of the campaign, because it allowed us to connect with a different type of fandom and to bring some pop culture into the spot, given the huge hit that she had with White Lotus in the in the previous year, also her persona really fits the idea of a kooky conspiracy.”
You can watch an example of a build-your-own Super Bowl ad, below.
