It wasn’t just the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots players feeling pressure over Super Bowl weekend. Kraft Mac & Cheese called on comedian and actor John Mulaney to create 50 reactive, real-time ads that passed judgment on the efforts of various Super Bowl advertisers.
Part of the “Best Thing Ever” creative platform—the brand’s largest media investment, which launched last year and was created by agency Rethink—the campaign included 20 new spots, each providing a suitably cheesy response to a Big Game commercial. The video content was co-created and voiced by Mulaney in real time and shared on social media during the game.
There were also 30 static ads, written with Mulaney’s team and reacting specifically to brands’ social-first ads. While the former Saturday Night Live sketch writer had a sneak preview of many of the ads before Sunday’s game, coming up with 50-odd witty ripostes to order proved quite the challenge.
A 30-second teaser ad, “Best Bowl Ever,” complete with Mulaney voiceover, aired during NBC’s Telemundo and Peacock pre-game build-up. A shorter, 15-second version appeared before game-day NFL clips on X and on the NFL Portal hub during the second quarter and halftime.
The day after the game, when fans busily searched through YouTube for footage, Kraft Mac & Cheese branding appeared on the platform’s homepage.
