Dive Brief:
- Kraft Heinz's Devour brand ran advertisements on the website Pornhub on Monday, as spotted by The Wall Street Journal. The frozen foods maker confirmed to the Journal that the media buy was intentional and a continuation of its Super Bowl campaign centered around "food porn."
- The ads, which only ran for a day, read "See hot food porn now." The Pornhub logo was additionally shown with a fork through it.
- Devour, a product of Kraft Heinz's Springboard incubator, is a first-time Super Bowl advertiser, having only launched in 2016. Last week, it released a longer, "uncensored" cut of its Super Bowl ad, which depicts a woman struggling with her boyfriend's "insatiable addiction to frozen food porn." Super Bowl host network CBS will air an edited version of the spot on Sunday.
Dive Insight:
Devour centering its campaign around a "food porn" motif is relatively tame — the #foodporn hashtag has been featured in more than 185 million Instagram posts to date, per the company — but intentionally running ads on Pornhub is bound to raise a few eyebrows, which might be exactly what the brand wants before its big game debut. Devour has baked an edge into its marketing strategy since its launch three years ago, including by tying up with the R-rated "Deadpool" film franchise and Barstool Sports, the latter of which is running activations and a sweepstakes for the marketer for Super Bowl LIII. As noted by the Journal, however, porn site advertisements show the frozen foods label flying in the face of brand safety, a growing issue in an industry increasingly concerned over where ads appear online.
It could also be a potentially unprecedented play coming from a brand owned by a family-friendly company like Kraft Heinz. Other marketers in the packaged goods and food categories, including Procter & Gamble and Unilever, have run ads on porn sites in the past, but through the fault of sketchy ad networks and technical hiccups versus intentionally purchasing media there. Beyond courting controversy, Devour could have been angling to get in front of a lot of eyeballs: Pornhub commanded 81 million daily visits, on average, in 2017, according to a report the website released last year.
The bold media move by Devour shows another marketer turning to an attention-grabbing stunt to capitalize on the wave of consumer hype heading into the showdown between the Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots on Feb. 3. While Devour is clearly trying to drive interest to its pricey in-game TV spot — and CBS is reportedly charging more than $5 million for 30 seconds of airtime this year — other brands are eschewing commercials altogether. Skittles, for example, is putting on a Broadway musical starring Michael C. Hall that appears to poke fun at the intrusiveness of advertising.
If Devour can create online buzz with its Pornhub play, it would be a standout effort in what's been a tame Super Bowl season for marketers so far. The firm Talkwaker recently found that Bud Light and Mercedes-Benz are the only brands that have seen more than 5,000 mentions on social media after revealing their big game ads.
