Nerds Brings Addison Rae to the Big Game for Gummy Clusters
Nerds' 2024 Big Game commercial is a 30-second film created by Digitas, featuring social media personality Addison Rae and introducing NERDS Gummy, a new anthropomorphic character built around the brand's Gummy Clusters product, marking the confectionery brand's first Super Bowl appearance in its approximately 40-year history.
The campaign launched in the United States in February 2024, entering one of advertising's most scrutinised stages with a clear commercial ambition: accelerate household penetration for Gummy Clusters while repositioning Nerds as a sensory-led lifestyle brand rather than a legacy candy label. The brief, as executed by Digitas, centred on the idea of unleashing the senses — framing the product's signature combination of fruity sweet gummy centres and tangy crunchy Nerds coating as an experience rather than a simple confection. As noted in campaign documentation cited by digitas.com, the spot carried three explicit KPIs: brand awareness, household penetration, and sales growth.
Nerds Gummy Clusters had already demonstrated commercial momentum before the campaign aired. As reported by Modern Retail, the product represented more than 80% of total Nerds brand sales by the time of the Super Bowl activation, making it the strategic core around which the entire Big Game investment was built. The campaign comprised two media assets and ran under the official title NERDS Big Game Commercial ft. Addison Rae, with the 30-second film serving as the primary deliverable. Addison Rae's involvement extended beyond the broadcast spot itself: she participated in pre-game teaser activity that, according to TubeFilter, generated more than 320,000 views, positioning her as part of a wider trend of digital creators functioning as Super Bowl hype machines. The campaign's Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100 reflects solid structural execution and measurable commercial return, weighted against creative ambition that leaned heavily on talent recognition over conceptual originality.
Nerds entered its first Super Bowl campaign from a position of genuine category strength. According to online-queso.com, Nerds brand retail sales reached approximately 869 million US dollars for the 52 weeks ending December 29, 2024, representing a growth trajectory that online-queso.com further traces from roughly 40 to 50 million dollars in 2018 and 2019 to 500 million dollars within five years. That scale of expansion required a commensurate investment in mass-reach media, and no single US advertising moment delivers audience size comparable to the Super Bowl.
The strategic logic behind casting Addison Rae is rooted in demographic precision. Nerds Gummy Clusters had already demonstrated organic traction with younger consumers: as noted in campaign documentation cited by digitas.com, Kylie Jenner exposed the product to approximately 200 million Instagram followers in 2021 in an unsolicited post that accelerated viral awareness without a formal endorsement arrangement. Addison Rae, whose audience skews toward the same digitally native, trend-responsive cohort, provided a credible and culturally fluent bridge between the brand's existing social momentum and a broadcast-scale activation. The strategic pairing signals that Digitas and Nerds read their consumer as someone who moves fluidly between platform content and mainstream media, and who regards celebrity endorsement through the lens of lifestyle relevance rather than traditional authority.
In the United States, Nerds competes in a confectionery segment that includes established gummy formats from brands such as Trolli and Haribo, both of which have built sustained equity in the chewy candy aisle. Nerds Gummy Clusters occupies a differentiated position by combining contrasting textures — soft gummy interior, crunchy candy shell — in a single piece, a format that neither Trolli nor Haribo replicates directly. According to indexbox.io, the global candy, sweets, and non-chocolate confectionery market was valued at approximately 73.7 billion dollars with a forecasted compound annual growth rate of 2.2% through 2035, underscoring the competitive stakes within which Nerds made its Super Bowl investment. The decision to introduce NERDS Gummy as a full character, rather than simply featuring the product in isolation, signals an ambition to build long-term brand architecture rather than secure a single-cycle sales spike.
Digitas Chicago produced the 30-second commercial, with creative direction led by Justin Via, who served as VP and Creative Director on the campaign. Rob Tripas held the role of Head of Production and Executive Producer, with James Walter serving as Senior Producer, as documented by digitas.com. Rey Perez, Director at Golin, was listed among campaign personnel, though his specific role on the finished commercial is not publicly established.
The creative execution makes two deliberate cultural choices. The first is the introduction of NERDS Gummy — described by Ad Age as the first major evolution of Nerds characters since the brand's original 1983 introduction — as a fully realised animated protagonist within the spot. This character performs choreography drawn directly from the 1983 film Flashdance, a reference that operates on two levels simultaneously: it reaches an older audience with nostalgic recognition while remaining visually kinetic and shareable for the younger viewers Nerds is actively courting. The year alignment between the brand's founding and the film is a coherent creative detail, though whether that coincidence was intentional or incidental is not publicly documented.
The second choice is the deployment of Addison Rae as a brief live-action presence at the spot's conclusion rather than as its primary narrative engine. This structural decision is strategically sound. By anchoring the story in the animated character and leaning on choreography for visual energy, the creative team avoids the risk of a talent-led execution that could age poorly or feel disconnected from the product. Addison Rae functions as a cultural validator — a signal to a specific audience that this brand occupies their world — without the commercial's core identity depending on her alone. The sensory language threaded through the spot, fruity, crunchy, tangy, and sweet, translates product attributes into emotional texture, reinforcing the brand proposition of an awakened sensory experience rather than a simple taste claim.
The Nerds 2024 Big Game commercial produced documented and substantial results across multiple performance dimensions. According to digitas.com, the campaign generated more than 840 million impressions and more than 700 earned-media mentions in the United States. In-store impact was equally significant: digitas.com reports more than 260,000 in-store displays activated in connection with the campaign, alongside a 200% increase in Nerds store displays. E-commerce performance was the sharpest single metric, with digitas.com recording a 400% increase in Nerds e-commerce sales following the Super Bowl airing. Unit sales followed: digitas.com documents more than 2 million Gummy Clusters units sold in the campaign window.
Earned media performance exceeded pre-set targets. According to shortyawards.com, the campaign generated 318 original earned placements, exceeding its KPI by 169%. Shortyawards.com further reports that 68% of total placements appeared in top-tier outlets, a distribution that confirms the campaign achieved quality reach rather than volume alone. On the platform where the official 30-second film was published, the spot recorded 483,330 views, 939 likes, and 94 comments, as documented by Clapboard. According to iSpot, the commercial ranked in the top ten most-liked Super Bowl commercials of 2024, providing third-party audience sentiment validation independent of brand-reported metrics.
Taken together, these figures describe a campaign that converted a significant media investment into measurable commercial outcomes across brand, retail, and digital channels. The Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100 acknowledges that performance, while also reflecting that the creative approach prioritised reliable talent-driven execution over conceptual risk-taking — a rational trade-off for a brand making its first Super Bowl appearance and prioritising provable return over creative distinction.
Nerds' 2024 Big Game commercial was the brand's first Super Bowl appearance in its approximately 40-year history. Created by Digitas and produced by Digitas Chicago, the 30-second film featured social media personality Addison Rae and introduced NERDS Gummy, an animated character performing Flashdance-inspired choreography to promote Gummy Clusters in the United States.
Nerds selected Addison Rae to reach a younger, digitally native audience already engaged with Gummy Clusters. As reported by TubeFilter, creators like Addison Rae were functioning as Super Bowl hype machines in 2024. Her pre-game teaser activity generated more than 320,000 views, extending the campaign's reach beyond the broadcast window.
Performance was strong across multiple measures. According to digitas.com, the campaign produced a 400% increase in Nerds e-commerce sales, more than 840 million impressions, over 2 million Gummy Clusters units sold, and 260,000-plus in-store displays activated. Shortyawards.com reports earned placements exceeded the campaign's KPI by 169% across the United States.
Digitas created the campaign for Nerds, with Digitas Chicago producing the 30-second commercial. Justin Via served as VP and Creative Director, Rob Tripas as Head of Production and Executive Producer, and James Walter as Senior Producer, all as documented by digitas.com. Addison Rae appeared as the featured talent in the finished spot.
NERDS Gummy performs choreography drawn from the 1983 film Flashdance. As noted by Ad Age, 2024 also marked Nerds' introduction of its first new character since the brand's 1983 founding, making the film reference a creative parallel between the brand's origin year and a culturally recognised moment in popular entertainment history.
The Nerds 2024 Big Game commercial featuring Addison Rae holds a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100. The score reflects solid commercial results and structural execution, including top-ten iSpot rankings and verified sales uplifts, balanced against a creative approach that prioritised talent-driven familiarity over conceptual originality for the brand's Super Bowl debut.
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