Ferrero North America is planning to spend greater than $100 million on advertising and marketing campaigns tied to the Super Bowl and World Cup subsequent 12 months.
The sports activities push comes because the confectioner’s mother or father firm drives additional into the United States by means of acquisitions and investments in home manufacturing. Ferrero, which was based in Italy however is now primarily based in Luxembourg, entered North America almost a half century in the past, however the firm solely actually began investing out there over the previous decade.
In July, Ferrero bought cereal maker WK Kellogg for $3.1 billion, the most recent in a deal spree that included snapping up Nestle’s U.S. sweet enterprise and Halo Top proprietor Wells Enterprises.
The Nutella proprietor, which simply began its fiscal 2026 in September, is getting ready itself for its largest 12 months but within the U.S., the place it’s the third-largest sweet firm, trailing solely Hershey and Mars. Its privately held mother or father firm noticed an 8.9% enhance in turnover — or income — within the fiscal 12 months ended Aug. 31, 2024, Ferrero disclosed in its most up-to-date monetary knowledge. In the previous 12 months, Ferrero USA has seen greenback gross sales develop 4.5%, outpacing the broader confectionery and cookie classes, in line with the corporate.
“We want to do something big to kind of reintroduce ourselves to North America,” stated Michael Lindsey, chief enterprise officer of Ferrero North America.
Ferrero North America’s guess on sports activities will kick off in February with the corporate’s first-ever Super Bowl advert, which can star Kinder Bueno. Its sister firm Ferrera has beforehand aired spots in the course of the massive sport, together with final 12 months’s Nerds Gummy Clusters advert.
Then, beginning in June, Ferrero North America is planning a slate of promotions across the World Cup. Ads for its merchandise will play earlier than or after the video games and the corporate plans to push promotions tied to roughly two dozen of its manufacturers.
“Why sports? It’s still the largest audience, especially if you want to reach live consumers with something that they’re actually going to sit down in front of a TV and watch,” Lindsey stated. “Especially the Super Bowl, they watch TV with an intent to watch the commercials, which is a very unique situation today when you’re trying to reach consumers who are skipping past your ads or getting up to make a sandwich.”
Earlier this 12 months, greater than 127.7 million viewers tuned in to observe the NFL’s championship sport, setting a report, in line with Nielsen Media Research. All of these eyeballs could make it interesting for firms to pay the hefty price ticket for airing a business in the course of the sport. Advertisers are reportedly paying as a lot as $8 million to Comcast‘s NBCUniversal for a 30-second spot throughout February’s match. In early September, NBCUniversal stated it had already bought all of its Super Bowl advert spots.
And whereas soccer nonetheless reigns as the highest sport for viewers within the U.S., soccer has been gaining floor. A reported 26 million U.S. viewers watched the 2022 World Cup last.
For the Super Bowl, all focus shall be on Kinder Bueno, which has been bought stateside since 2019.
Ferrero selected to spotlight the sweet as a result of it sees Kinder as “its most under-leveraged brand in the portfolio relative to its global success,” Lindsey stated. Few Americans would guess that Kinder is the best-selling chocolate model on the planet, not Hershey or Nestle, in line with Lindsey. Still, in a number of years, Kinder has grown to develop into a greater than $500 million model within the U.S. for Ferrero, in accordance the corporate.
Plus, final 12 months, Ferrero opened its first-ever North American chocolate manufacturing facility in Bloomington, Illinois, to fabricate Kinder merchandise.
While the Super Bowl spot hasn’t been filmed but, Lindsey stated the business will spotlight a brand new dark-chocolate model of Kinder Bueno and a white chocolate iteration.
“[The Super Bowl] is just the perfect vehicle to drive a lot of trial all at once,” he stated.
When the Super Bowl advert spot airs, the corporate stated will probably be the most important advertising and marketing push by Ferrero ever, in any world market. But two months later, Ferrero plans to prime that report with its World Cup promotions, which can kick off in April in North America. Almost each product throughout its portfolio will see its packaging shift as a part of the marketing campaign.
“We’re going all in: We’ll have one promotion and one set of packaging,” Lindsey stated.
Customers should purchase a number of merchandise from throughout the portfolio to learn from the promotion. The intention is to assist shoppers perceive that Ferrero makes the breadth of merchandise that they are shopping for, from Nutella to Ferrero Rocher to Blue Bunny ice cream.
“It’s all very intentionally focused to drive trial from people who love one brand in the portfolio to become people who love the whole portfolio,” Lindsey stated.
Disclosure: Comcast is the mother or father firm of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would develop into the brand new mother or father firm of CNBC upon Comcast’s deliberate spinoff of Versant.