Craig Robinson Bets Big on Dietz Nuts in a Bold Super Bowl Play
Dietz & Watson's "Craig Robinson Likes Dietz Nuts" is a 2019 digital and social film campaign created by Philadelphia agency Red Tettemer O'Connell + Partners, starring actor Craig Robinson and his real-life brother Chris Robinson, designed to launch Dietz Nuts — a protein-packed savory sausage bite snack — to consumers across the United States during the Super Bowl LIII period.
Dietz Nuts is positioned as the first "meat nuts" product of its kind. The snack's name is the campaign's entire engine: it directly riffs on the "Deez Nuts" meme, a piece of internet vernacular broadly recognised across the United States, to generate immediate curiosity and social conversation around what is, at its core, a new protein-packed food and drink product. As reported by The Drum, the campaign was RTO+P's fourth execution under the "It's a Family Thing" brand platform established for Dietz & Watson in 2018, and its most ambitious to date.
The campaign launched in January 2019, timed to coincide with the Super Bowl LIII cultural window — one of the most competitive advertising periods in the United States calendar. Rather than purchasing a conventional broadcast spot, Dietz & Watson and RTO+P chose a digital-first distribution strategy, releasing the approximately 30-second film across digital and social media channels with supporting retail and influencer activity, according to thedrum.com. The casting of Craig Robinson, a comedian and actor with strong mainstream recognition in the United States, gave the campaign immediate credibility as a humour-forward piece, while the inclusion of his brother Chris Robinson added an authentically familial dimension that reinforced the brand's existing "It's a Family Thing" platform. The Clapboard Score for this campaign stands at 76 out of 100, reflecting strong creative cohesion and measurable commercial impact.
Dietz & Watson identified a specific gap in the United States snack market. The brand recognised that the emerging protein-snack category was growing rapidly but remained dominated by jerky formats and conventional deli positioning, leaving an opening for a product that could cross over from the deli counter into impulse-driven snack occasions. By launching Dietz Nuts as the first "meat nuts" sausage bite, according to marketingdive.com, the brand was not competing on the terms set by its existing deli rivals — it was creating a new frame of reference entirely.
In the United States, the competitive deli-meat landscape is substantial. Boar's Head held approximately 25 to 30 percent of the U.S. deli-meat market, according to perishablepundit.com, making it the dominant incumbent against which Dietz & Watson consistently positioned itself. Hillshire Brands also operates as a significant competitive force in the broader processed-meat and snack segment across the US market. Against these entrenched players, Dietz & Watson needed a campaign that could punch above its media budget, particularly during the Super Bowl LIII period when broadcast advertising costs make conventional television placement prohibitive for mid-tier brands.
The strategic rationale for choosing humour rooted in meme culture was precise. As noted by thedrum.com, RTO+P leveraged the existing cultural currency of the "Deez Nuts" meme — already familiar to a broad demographic across the United States — to eliminate the need for extensive product explanation. The name itself communicates novelty and generates earned attention. By pairing that wordplay with Craig Robinson, an actor whose comedic persona carries warm, mainstream appeal in the United States, the campaign achieved a tone that was irreverent without being alienating. Supporting retail and influencer activity, as reported by thedrum.com, ensured that the social conversation the film was designed to ignite could translate into actual purchase behaviour at the shelf level.
Red Tettemer O'Connell + Partners built the campaign around a single, disciplined creative idea. The approximately 30-second film places Craig Robinson in the position of enthusiastically endorsing Dietz Nuts while his brother Chris Robinson is present — a construction that allows the product's suggestive name to do repeated comic work within a short runtime, while the family dynamic keeps the tone grounded in the brand's "It's a Family Thing" platform. The creative premise, as reported by adsoftheworld.com, never loses sight of the product: every laugh generated by the wordplay simultaneously reinforces the name "Dietz Nuts" as a memory device.
The agency team assembled for this campaign was senior and experienced. Steve Red served as President and Chief Creative Officer of RTO+P, with Steve O'Connell as Executive Creative Director and Partner, according to globenewswire.com. Creative direction was handled by Todd Taylor as VP and Creative Director, alongside Creative Director Chris Plehal, per globenewswire.com. Senior Art Director Justin Rentzel and Copywriter David Valento executed the spot's visual and verbal craft. Production was led by Joe Mosca as Lead Producer. On the account side, Managing Partner Carla Mote, VP of Client Services Susan Baraczek, and Senior Account Manager Lauren Cole managed the Dietz & Watson relationship, with VP of Strategy Adam Leaventon and VP Media Director Kelly Goldenberg shaping the campaign's planning and distribution approach, all as credited by globenewswire.com.
The decision to cast Craig Robinson's actual brother Chris Robinson rather than a hired actor was a deliberate craft choice. It introduced a layer of genuine chemistry that scripted sibling dynamics rarely replicate, and it deepened the authenticity of the family narrative without requiring exposition. The film's distribution across digital and social channels in the United States, rather than a paid Super Bowl broadcast slot, also shaped its creative construction — the spot was engineered to travel organically, relying on the inherent shareability of its comedic premise rather than on the reach bought by a broadcast placement.
The "Craig Robinson Likes Dietz Nuts" campaign produced verified, substantial performance data across multiple dimensions. According to studocu.com, the campaign generated 281 million impressions and more than one million video views across its digital and social distribution. More than 200,000 website visits were recorded, alongside approximately 1,200 direct orders, as reported by studocu.com. Nearly 6,500 tweets referencing the campaign were generated, per studocu.com, demonstrating that the wordplay premise translated into genuine organic conversation across the United States at scale.
The brand health metrics are equally notable. A 57 percent increase in ad recall was recorded, according to studocu.com — a figure that reflects how distinctively the campaign's name-based creative device lodged in memory. The same source reports a 96 percent increase in purchase intent, which is a structurally unusual result for a humour-led campaign and suggests the comedic framing actively reduced purchase resistance rather than simply generating awareness. A 12 percent increase in perceived uniqueness was also documented by studocu.com, validating the strategic choice to position Dietz Nuts as a category-creating product rather than a line extension.
According to billypenn.com, the campaign attracted wide coverage during the Super Bowl LIII media cycle, amplifying its digital footprint without the cost of a broadcast placement. These results collectively demonstrate that a precisely targeted humour campaign, built around an inherently shareable creative premise, can deliver brand-building and commercial outcomes simultaneously — a proof point that is particularly instructive for food and drink brands operating in the competitive United States snack and deli-meat landscape with finite media budgets.
Dietz & Watson's "Craig Robinson Likes Dietz Nuts" is a January 2019 digital and social film campaign created by agency RTO+P. It stars Craig Robinson and his brother Chris Robinson to introduce Dietz Nuts, a protein-packed savory sausage bite, using wordplay on the "Deez Nuts" meme to drive awareness across the United States.
The campaign generated 281 million impressions and a 96 percent increase in purchase intent, according to studocu.com. It also recorded more than one million video views, over 200,000 website visits, a 57 percent increase in ad recall, and a 12 percent increase in perceived uniqueness among consumers in the United States.
Red Tettemer O'Connell + Partners, known as RTO+P, created the campaign. The Philadelphia agency became Dietz & Watson's agency of record in 2018, as reported by marketingdive.com, and the Dietz Nuts spot was their fourth execution under the brand's "It's a Family Thing" platform.
Craig Robinson's mainstream comedic persona in the United States made him a natural fit for a humour-led campaign. His real-life brother Chris Robinson also starred in the spot, reinforcing Dietz & Watson's existing "It's a Family Thing" brand platform while giving the wordplay-driven creative premise an authentic familial dynamic.
Dietz Nuts is a protein-packed savory sausage bite positioned by Dietz & Watson as the first "meat nuts" snack product, according to marketingdive.com. It extends the brand beyond traditional deli-meat formats into impulse-driven snack occasions, targeting consumers across the United States who seek convenient, protein-forward food and drink options.
The campaign launched in January 2019, timed to the Super Bowl LIII cultural window in the United States. Rather than buying a broadcast television slot, RTO+P distributed the approximately 30-second film across digital and social channels, supported by retail and influencer activity, as reported by thedrum.com, to maximise earned reach.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
