Super Bowl commercials: Pop-Tarts pretzel & Jonathan Van Ness

There are a number of memorable ads this Super Bowl Sunday, and over the course of the big game, consider CarterMatt your source for some of the best! We’re going to be presenting you with ways to watch/re-watch the ads, plus also our verdict on whether or not some of them are effective at their intended goal. Sure, they want to be funny and buzzworthy, but shouldn’t they also sell the product?

For this article, we’ve got an ad for Pop-Tarts that does probably what the company wanted to a T — they have a popular star in Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness, working to promote their new pretzel-themed product. It’s a bright, colorful ad that seems to be a perfect combination of what Jonathan and Pop-Tarts bring to the table.

The pitch – This feels a little bit like Queer Eye meets an infomercial, one that features Jonathan pitching the product as the perfect combination of sweet and salty. There’s not some crazy amount of content here, but there doesn’t really need to be.

What Works – First things first, Jonathan Van Ness! The entire ad is pretty tongue-and-cheek, and it’s clear that Pop-Tarts doesn’t take anything too seriously. They are more just trying to have a little bit of fun with their brand and the latest product. We even love the random guy in a football jersey just to make it feel more like a Super Bowl ad.

What Doesn’t – Maybe there are a lot of viewers for the big game who aren’t Jonathan Van Ness fans and they won’t quite understand why he’s the perfect pitchman for this. Also, are pretzel-based Pop-Tarts really something that people were clamoring for? We like Pop-Tarts and we’ve probably had upwards of a few hundred of them in our lives; yet, we’ve never thought about this as an idea.

Overall Verdict – It’s a humorous, perfectly-planned ad for Pop-Tarts. while it doesn’t leave the superb highs that you see with other great Super Bowl commercials, it does a great job of doing precisely what it sets out to do. It’s not hilarious, but it’s cheeky, meta fun in the middle of the game.

Want more Super Bowl commercials?

Then head over to the link here! Meanwhile, be sure to share what you think about this ad in the comments! (Photo via Pop-Tarts.)