Reese's 'It's Lava Time, Baby!' Super Bowl LIX spot by Erich & Kallman delivered 600M+ paid media impressions and a Gold Drum Award for The Hershey Company.
ARCHIVEReese's Lava Time Baby Turns a New Flavor Into a Super Bowl Moment
Reese's "It's Lava Time, Baby!" is a 30-second Super Bowl commercial created by Erich & Kallman for The Hershey Company, aired during Super Bowl LIX on February 9, 2025, in the United States, introducing the Reese's Chocolate Lava Big Cup through a comedic park-ranger scenario set at an active volcano.
The campaign centres on a deceptively simple consumer truth: Reese's fans are willing to go to absurd lengths for the brand's products. The spot depicts a concerned park ranger reporting live from a volcanic eruption site where Reese's devotees have mistaken actual lava for the ooey-gooey chocolate filling at the heart of the new Reese's Chocolate Lava Big Cup. A squad of rangers scrambles to contain the chaos — most memorably rescuing a grandmother who is scootering directly toward the lava flow — before delivering the campaign's clarifying message: Don't eat lava. Eat Reese's Chocolate Lava Big Cup instead. The premise is absurdist, the execution is precise, and the brand voice is unmistakably Reese's.
The Hershey Company positioned the Super Bowl as the ideal launch platform for the new product extension, returning to the Big Game for what was only the brand's third-ever Super Bowl appearance, following its 2020 spot and the 2024 "Yes!" campaign, as documented by Erich & Kallman's own agency records. The 30-second hero spot was supported by 15-second and six-second cutdowns, extending reach across multiple media environments throughout the week leading up to game day in the United States. Ryan Riess, Vice President of Brand Strategy and Creative Development at The Hershey Company, stated that the Big Game is "the perfect stage to showcase our fan's energy — whether that be from the top of a volcano or on the couch during football Sunday." The campaign earned a Clapboard Score of 76 out of 100, reflecting strong creative cohesion and measurable cultural impact.
ARCHIVEReese's holds the position of the number-one candy franchise in the United States, a fact the brand itself cited in campaign materials. That market leadership does not eliminate competitive pressure. Mars Wrigley, whose portfolio includes M&M's and Snickers, and Mondelez International, the parent of Cadbury and Toblerone, consistently compete for Super Bowl advertising real estate and year-round confectionery shelf space across the US market. Against that backdrop, Reese's strategic choice to anchor its 2025 Super Bowl investment to a specific product innovation — rather than a brand-equity-only message — reflects a sharper commercial intent than many confectionery Super Bowl appearances.
The strategic rationale rests on a well-established insight: Reese's consumers do not merely enjoy the product; they exhibit demonstrable enthusiasm that borders on the theatrical. Erich & Kallman channelled that behavioural reality into the volcanic conceit, allowing the creative to feel earned rather than manufactured. The humor is not generic confectionery whimsy — it is a direct dramatisation of the fan energy that Reese's social channels had already documented organically since the Chocolate Lava Big Cup hit stores nationwide in the United States.
The Super Bowl placement itself was a calculated media decision. Super Bowl LIX drew an audience that, according to System1 Group's post-game analysis, gave the Reese's spot a 4.1-Star rating — placing it tenth in System1's overall Super Bowl advertising rankings. System1 Group also found that 72 percent of consumers who viewed the ad reported feelings of happiness or surprise, two emotional states consistently linked to brand memorability and purchase intent in System1's testing methodology. In a competitive confectionery category where both Mars Wrigley and Mondelez invest heavily in premium media, Reese's ability to generate measurable emotional response at scale represents a meaningful strategic outcome for The Hershey Company in the United States.
Erich & Kallman directed the creative execution of "It's Lava Time, Baby!" with a commitment to physical comedy and practical escalation that distinguishes the spot from the digitally saturated aesthetic of much contemporary confectionery advertising. The 30-second film was directed by the duo known professionally as Matias & Mathias and produced by Epoch Films, with editing handled by Dave Anderson at Arcade Edit — credits documented across production records cited by baconproduction.com and thedrum.com.
The filmmaking approach leans into the inherent comedy of bureaucratic authority confronting irrational fan behavior. The park ranger characters are played straight, which is precisely what makes the absurdity land. When a ranger physically intercepts a grandmother on a mobility scooter who is barreling toward an active lava flow, the gag works because the performance is earnest, not winking. Matias & Mathias favour this kind of deadpan escalation — a style that suits Reese's established brand voice without overpowering the product message.
The spot was engineered for multiple formats from the outset. The 30-second hero film was accompanied by 15-second and six-second cutdowns, as reported by System1 Group, ensuring the campaign could operate across pre-roll, social, and broadcast environments without losing its comedic core. The six-second unit in particular required precise editing discipline: the punchline had to survive radical compression. Dave Anderson's editorial work at Arcade Edit was instrumental in preserving the joke structure across all three lengths. The production also supported a broader "Lava Time, Baby — All Week Long" activation strategy that extended fan engagement beyond the single game-day broadcast, deepening the campaign's footprint across the United States in the days surrounding Super Bowl LIX.
The campaign delivered results across audience scale, earned media, and creative recognition. The Super Bowl LIX placement reached 138 million viewers immediately before halftime — a figure reported as five percent above the game's average audience, per campaign performance data cited by The Drum. That positioning represents one of the highest-value media windows in United States advertising, and Reese's maximised it by scheduling the spot in the pre-halftime slot rather than distributing it across the full broadcast.
Paid media impressions exceeded 600 million, according to The Drum's reporting on the campaign. The Drum also documented more than 500,000 landing-page views generated by the campaign, alongside 96 percent positive or neutral media sentiment across 892 media placements — a volume of earned coverage that reflects the story's natural newsworthiness rather than artificial amplification. Barstool Sports was among the media partners that extended the campaign's reach in the United States, contributing to the broader cultural conversation around the Chocolate Lava Big Cup launch.
On the awards circuit, "It's Lava Time, Baby!" won Gold in Creative at The Drum Awards for Marketing Americas 2025 and Gold in Creative at The Drum Awards for Marketing 2025, as reported by thedrum.com. System1 Group awarded the spot 4.1 Stars in its Super Bowl advertising rankings — placing it tenth overall — and found that 72 percent of viewers reported happiness or surprise, per System1's published methodology. According to Admeter Usatoday, the campaign also registered in USA Today's Ad Meter rankings, reflecting broad consumer approval in the United States. These results validate the structural logic of Erich & Kallman's creative approach: a single, sharply defined comedic premise, executed with craft, and deployed at maximum reach, produces measurable emotional and commercial returns for Reese's in the United States confectionery market.
Reese's "It's Lava Time, Baby!" is a 30-second Super Bowl LIX commercial created by Erich & Kallman. It depicts park rangers stopping fans from eating actual lava, redirecting them to the new Reese's Chocolate Lava Big Cup. The spot aired February 9, 2025, in the United States and reached 138 million viewers, per The Drum.
Erich & Kallman created the Reese's "It's Lava Time, Baby!" campaign for The Hershey Company. The 30-second spot was directed by Matias & Mathias, produced by Epoch Films, and edited by Dave Anderson at Arcade Edit, as documented by baconproduction.com and thedrum.com.
The campaign delivered more than 600 million paid media impressions and 892 media placements, according to The Drum. System1 Group awarded it 4.1 Stars, ranking it tenth among Super Bowl ads. The spot reached 138 million viewers before halftime — five percent above the game's average audience, per The Drum.
The campaign won Gold in Creative at The Drum Awards for Marketing Americas 2025 and Gold in Creative at The Drum Awards for Marketing 2025, as reported by thedrum.com. It also received a 4.1-Star rating from System1 Group, placing it tenth in System1's Super Bowl advertising rankings for the United States.
Reese's Chocolate Lava Big Cup is a product extension of the classic Reese's peanut butter cup featuring a chocolate lava filling. The Hershey Company chose Super Bowl LIX as its launch platform because Reese's holds the position of the number-one candy franchise in the United States, making the Big Game the highest-reach vehicle for a new product introduction.
Reese's "It's Lava Time, Baby!" received a Clapboard Score of 76 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative cohesion between the comedic volcanic premise and the Chocolate Lava Big Cup product name, effective use of the Super Bowl platform in the United States, and measurable emotional response validated by System1 Group's 4.1-Star rating.
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