Photo Credit: Ferrara Candy Co.
Shaboozey secures a Super Bowl ad spot with Nerds Gummy Clusters candy, following Addison Rae the previous year.
Shaboozey, the musician behind the hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” has secured a Super Bowl ad spot with Ferrara Candy’s Nerds Gummy Clusters. Like influencer Addison Rae in a Super Bowl ad featuring the 1983 song “Flashdance (What a Feeling),” last year, Shaboozey will snack on (and with) Nerds during a commercial break on February 9’s Super Bowl broadcast.
In a teaser, Shaboozey is seen snacking on a bag of Nerds Gummy Clusters while playing his guitar. But then a Nerds character appears and shares the stage with him. Shaboozey also contributed some of the ad’s music.
“As a kid, you know, obviously, we can’t keep our hands off the candy,” said Shaboozey. “You were always in the candy aisle, whether [your] parents wanted us to be there or not.”
Shaboozey says he used to spend Halloween “super excited to open up my bag” and see how many boxes of Nerds candy were inside. Now, with his Super Bowl ad, he may feel as if he’s returned to a childhood favorite.
Last year’s Super Bowl spot helped Nerds gain 4.3 percentage points in market share, says Greg Guidotti, Ferrara’s chief marketing officer. But the company believes this year it can win even more fans. The brand only has 25.1% penetration among households, according to Guidotti, so there’s a lot of work to be done.
Nerds will be competing against other well-known snacks at this year’s Super Bowl, with PepsiCo’s Doritos and Kellanova’s Pringles among the products with ads during this year’s game. The game will be broadcast on Fox on February 9, and the network has been seeking over $7 million for a 30-second ad.
Nerds hit the scene in 1983 — the same year as the song used in last year’s ad — as part of a line of candies marketed under the Wonka name. Ferrara acquired Nerds, as well as Laffy Taffy, SweeTarts, and Bottle Caps. The company also acquired Jelly Belly in 2023.