Good morning!
One summer day at my son Mat’s house in Deerfield I reached for a Coke in the ice box and was nearly blinded by boxes of tightly wrapped Lindt truffles blooming in red, gold, blue, green and orange. It meant only one thing, Jamin Hemenway was in town.
Jamin and Mat grew up together on opposite sides of Mt. Pocumtuck. After Eaglebrook and Deerfield, Jamin graduated from RPI and got his MBA at Notre Dame so that he could watch his beloved Fighting Irish play under the shadow of Touchdown Jesus.
Jamin’s hobby before fatherhood was to tour the country watching college football, discovering barbeque joints and crashing tailgate parties, all of which he chronicled on his “Pigskin Pursuit” football blog.
He’s worked for some of the world’s largest food companies including Nestle, Pepsico and Danon, and was the chief marketing officer at Lindt two years ago when he convinced the bigs in the C-suite to buy a Super Bowl ad for $7.3 million plus production costs.
“The Global CEO and other top brass came over from Switzerland,” said Hemenway who pitched them that kickoff was three days from Valentine’s Day and CBS would spy on Taylor Swift whenever her boyfriend Travis Kelce caught a pass.
“They loved it and it was green-lit. My job ranged from making wardrobe and hair style choices to deciding what kind of table would be in the middle of the room to including red touches in the background because that’s the brand color.”
He submitted a brief to Grey Advertising, one of the world’s top agencies. “Grey has been around a long, long time, it’s an old line agency whose clients include Gillette, Coca-Cola and Volvo.”
The “creative content” was delivered in six weeks, and the ad took two days to produce. Titled “Life is a Ball” an attractive young woman sits in a sunlit dining room dangling a red truffle for us to see while Perry Como sings his No. 1 Billboard hit from 1957, Round and Round.
“A typical success factor is choosing iconic pieces of music that evoke a mood or emotion,” explained Hemenway.
Find a wheel and it goes round, round, round
As it skims along with a happy sound…
She drops the truffle and it floats through a sliding glass door past tranquil scenes of a woman luxuriating in a wading pool and a couple cuddling on the hood of a car. It glides past a Master Chocolatier and returns to the woman who takes a bite. “Life is a ball with Lindt,” says the voiceover.
“Look through and you’ll see probably ten to fifteen setups for a thirty-second ad,” said Hemenway. “Every single frame is highly scrutinized, and nothing goes on the air without being rigorously audience pre-tested.”
A typical network television ad, said Hemenway, costs between $500,000 and $2 million to produce. “If there’s massive celebrity talent or famous music it can range much higher. A Dunkin ad with a handful of A-list celebrities could cost upwards of $10 million.
“You’re dealing with top rate production talent, it’s basically a motion picture crew. When I was with Pepsico, Ridley Scott’s daughter was our director and the production crew had just gotten back from filming an episode of Game of Thrones.”
Hemenway wasn’t told when the ad would drop but hoped it would be in the first half and got lucky — not only did it air near the end of the first quarter, the game was drawing a record 123.7 million viewers, including a record 58.8 million women.
The New York Times ranked “Life is a Ball” the fourth-best Super Bowl commercial — “A chocolate ball bops around the world to the tune of Round and Round. Shiny, bouncy candy.”
AdWeek ranked it fifth-best in effectiveness.
“We did pretty good for a first-time Super Bowl advertiser,” said Hemenway, who’s decided to move on from Lindt and have a ball with his newborn twins.
Credit: Contributed
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SQUIBBERS: The UMass hockey team drew 6,812 fans to the Mullins Center for Saturday night’s overtime win against Northeastern; three nights later the basketball team drew only 2,243 despite winning their fourth game in five tries and improving to 15-9. Who’s in charge of marketing over there? … The Mullins Center turned 33 on Wednesday and people still don’t know who the heck William D. Mullins is. … Circa Sports took a $1 million bet on the Pats shortly after Super Bowl betting opened. … Bills fan Dave Perlmutter caught last week’s reference to Buffalo GM Joe Schoen. “From a lifelong Bills fan, their GM is Brandon Beane. Joe Schoen went with Brian Daboll to the Giants where he’s still their GM.” … Defensive end Chris Long who played with the Patriots in 2016 told PFT’s Mike Floirio that snubbing Bill Belichick was “B.S. He’d walk around the field and coach every position better than the position coach, maybe outside of Scar,” said Long, referring to offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia. … Sam Darnold fumbled 12 times and threw 14 interceptions in the regular season. “Turnover Sam’s still seeing ghosts,” said BSJ’s Greg Bedard. … Drake Maye had 14 fumbles and eight picks. … Greenfield handicapper John Dobrydnio favors the Seahawks by two points. “Take the points and play the Pats,” he said. … Insiders say halftime performer Bad Bunny will sing a compilation of Pat Boone favorites. … Chris Russo spent an entire segment Tuesday on WFAN reminiscing about his previous trips to the Bay area. “I came for the Super Bowl against Carolina, I came for the World Series against Texas, I did the ‘Let’s play ball’ thing after Sandoval hit the four homers. Or was it three homers?” … The Bastards of Boston Baseball want the Red Sox to replace GM Craig Breslow with recently deposed Minnesota GM Derek Falvey, a Lynn native and Trinity College grad. … Francisco Lindor’s wife Katia was on Zohran Mamdani’s inaugural committee “and you know where I am politically,” griped Mets podcaster Joe Beningo. … Seventy-five thousand fans filled Beaver Stadium on Saturday and watched No. 2 Michigan State beat No. 7 Penn State in overtime, 5-4. A few hours later, Penn State’s star player Gavin McKenna reportedly punched a fan after he “began name-calling the player’s mother” according to the Centre Daily Times. According to authorities, McKenna allegedly struck a 21-year-old man in the face causing injuries that required corrective surgery. He was arrested, charged with assault and released on $20,000 bail. …
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PATRIOTS NOTES
The day after the Patriots beat Denver, Action Network co-founder Chad Millman spouted off about Pats fans on the “Sharp or Square” betting podcast he co-hosts with Todd Hunter. “Patriots fans don’t want to hear outside noise, they just want to hear local radio and how great they are. That’s what Patriots fans do. Twenty percent of all Super Bowls have had the Patriots. That’s why we hate you as a fan base. You guys are spoiled rotten and you’re loud about it.”
Yeah we’re loud about it, we took lessons from Yankees fans.
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Seattle wide receiver Jake Bobo is the grandson of former Deerfield Academy hockey coach Dave Hagerman who passed away in 2021. Hagerman’s oldest daughter Casey married Mike Bobo who played at Dartmouth, and their son Jake went to Belmont Hill and played for Duke and UCLA. He’ll be wearing No. 19 tomorrow.
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PREDICTION: The Patriots will win, 29-15, and defensive tackles Milton Williams and Christian Barmore will be the co-MVPs. It won’t be the first time. Harvey Martin and Randy White were co-MVPs of Super Bowl XII when they anchored a Dallas defense that forced eight turnovers in a 27-10 win over Denver.
Richard Dent is the only other defensive lineman to earn the award. Dent had two sacks and recovered two fumbles in Super Bowl XX. Patriots fans remember it well. The headline on the cover of SI predicted Buddy Ryan’s 46 Defense Spells Doom for the Patriots.
Quarterback Tony Eason got a stomach ache and the Bears won, 44-10.