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Ice cream doesn’t have to be for summer, a 96-year-old brand doesn’t have to be stodgy and Drumstick and its creative agency Öpinionated don’t have to be terrified of their first Super Bowl ad.
When you’re sincerely happy just to be playing, the Big Game is yours to win.
Drumstick actually predates the Super Bowl by almost 40 years, when a group of brothers in Texas added chocolate coating and nuts to a waffle cone in 1928—well in advance of Super Bowl I in 1967. The resulting ice cream sundae cone, which apparently looked like a chicken leg to people who lacked other things to obsess over at the time, was eventually snapped up by Nestlé in the ‘90s and by multinational ice cream conglomerate Froneri in 2020.
But back in May 2022, Drumstick and the creative team at Portland, Ore.-based Öpinionated launched the “Another Day, Another Drumstick” campaign and introduced the world to perhaps the brand’s biggest fan: Dr. Umstick. A well-coiffed Thunderbirds/Team America-style marionette unencumbered by strings, Dr. Umstick professed his sometimes off-putting intimate love of Drumsticks in 15-second noir-tinged spots seemingly built for late-night viewings on Comedy Central.
“Our campaign is meant to be a reminder for consumers that Drumsticks are not just for the summer … they’re a great snack for anytime,” said Drumstick CMO Elizabell Rivera Marquez. “The Super Bowl is the ultimate snacking occasion, so for us it made 100% sense to bring Drumstick to the Super Bowl and bring Dr. Umstick to the world.”
The campaign’s eclectic tone carries into this year’s 30-second Drumstick ad in Super Bowl 58’s third quarter, which features Dr. Umstick accompanied on his journey by not only his favored treat, but comedian and longtime Comedy Central fixture Eric André. He’ll also be encouraging fans to sign a Change.org petition on Feb. 12—#DrumstickMonday—to make the day after the Super Bowl a national holiday and potentially have their #DrumstickMonday dream fulfilled by Drumstick itself as a de facto contest entry.
For Drumstick and the team at Öpinionated, it’s an opportunity to not only connect with millions of consumers they haven’t been reaching, but to introduce a brand face and personality that the market has been increasingly willing to embrace.
