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A screengrab from Mercari’s Super Bowl commercial
As Super Bowl LV kicked off between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, viewers saw some new entries in the commercial game.
Big-name brand Super Bowl regulars such as Hyundai, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola sidelined their ads for this year, while Budweiser skipped running an in-game Super Bowl commercial for the first time in 37 years to instead focus on promoting vaccine awareness and distribution efforts, according to CNBC.
That opened the door for first-timers such as Vroom, DoorDash, Mercari, and more to score the spotlight in between plays during Super Bowl LV.
Online Marketplace Mercari Launched An Entry In Its “Hello, Goodbye” Campaign For Its First-Ever Super Bowl Spot
The health pandemic spawned a wave of at-home decluttering, so SB LV seemed the perfect time for online marketplace Mercari to pounce.
The e-commerce platform’s first-ever Super Bowl ad, titled “Back in Play” and seen above, featured an unused popcorn maker finding a new “life” as a familiar-sounding song played in the background.
In the clip, a couple pulled up the Mercari app and took a quick pic of one of two identical poppers, and the 15-second spot ended with the duplicate machine being used by its new owners as they watch TV.
The ad, which was the second in the themed series, was created by Rain the Growth Agency, according to a PR Newswire press release. The ads focus on the concept of breathing new life into unused items.
Mercari Brand Marketing Director Walter Hangad said he hoped new audiences would “grasp the emotion that people have when saying ‘goodbye’ to something they love so another can say ‘hello’ to their new favorite thing.”
The Mercari Ad Features a Cover of a Classic Beatles Song With Vocals by a Los Angeles Songwriter & Session Musician
The familiar-sounding soundtrack for the ad is the 1967 Beatles hit, “Hello, Goodbye.”
“We chose ‘Hello, Goodbye’ from the Beatles for this campaign because it perfectly amplifies this concept, as well as the emotion behind it — one person says ‘goodbye’ to something they love so another can say ‘hello’ to a delightful new find,” Hangad said.
The Rain the Growth Agency told Ultimate Classic Rock that the Beatles cover was arranged by Michael Dragovic from the music collective Yessian, with vocals by Los Angeles-based session singer Boh Doran.
For those who like what they heard from the Hollywood Hills singer, in a recent Instagram post Doran revealed that she’ll be “releasing singles, every six-ish weeks, starting in February.”
The original Beatles song was released as a single in November 1967 and was included on the Fab Four’s iconic Magical Mystery Tour album.
Over the decades, the Lennon-McCartney single was covered by musicians such ass Dwight Tilley, The Cure, Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee, and even the cast of Glee.
When discussing the meaning of the song in a vintage interview with Disc magazine, Paul McCartney once said, “It’s a song about everything and nothing … If you have black you have to have white. That’s the amazing thing about life.”
WATCH All 2020 Super Bowl Commercials & Ads
