Avocados From Mexico opts for AI-generated Gronk videos over Super Bowl spot

For the second year in a row, Avocados From Mexico is marketing around the Super Bowl with an AI-powered guacamole generator instead of a national in-game ad. This year’s effort hinges on a digital avatar of former football star Rob Gronkowski. A user enters their name on a microsite—accessible on mobile and desktop—to receive a pre-recorded video call from Gronk, who through the power of AI, appears to refer to the user by the name they entered. Gronk’s avatar then tells a story about his relationship with guacamole before offering up a recipe from Avocados From Mexico. Users are encouraged to share both the recipe and platform on social media. Ad Age Tech Power List 2025 We’re looking for top digital innovators from agencies, brands, platforms, ad tech companies and tech startups Enter here Recent news: Super Bowl 2025 ad demand prompts a waitlist Avocados From Mexico was historically a mainstay advertiser in the Super Bowl, having aired an ad in eight out of the nine games from 2015 to 2023. Last year, the brand opted for an AI stunt that created funky guacamole recipes from entries submitted by fans. The effort garnered nearly 1 million page views and roughly 400,000 engaged sesions, with an average of over 4 minutes per session, according to data shared by the brand. While the recipes that came out of the activation were entertaining, they were not very useful, said Alvaro Luque, president and CEO of Avocados From Mexico. This realization compelled the brand to emphasize some of its more practical recipes through the new generator, such as three-bean guac and dill pickled guac. The platform offers 10 recipes in total. “Call Gronk on the Guacline,” developed with agency 270B, is an example of how marketers are using AI to deliver personalized content to consumers. Avocados From Mexico used AI video generator HeyGen to create an avatar of Gronk and text-to-speech platform ElevenLabs to convert users’ typed-out names into audio spoken in Gronk’s voice. The Gronk avatar is also capable of hearing the user speak through their microphone, an exchange that is prompted several times during the call. Despite Gronk pausing to listen in a lifelike way, the bot is only capable of picking up sound, not computing it, according to Avocados From Mexico. Digital avatars are another avenue that brands are exploring, more so now thanks to advancements offered by generative AI. These personas can act as fictional spokespeople, or in the case of “Guacline,” realistic representations of celebrity partners. The technology is still a work in progress, as is evident by the imperfect synching of the Gronk bot’s speech and mouth movements. Also read: 5 AI marketing predictions for 2025 Users will find that some names, when submitted, will not be referred to in the video; instead, the Gronk bot will address the user as “friend.” This is because the platform was built to recognize a limited number of names to protect against brand-unsafe entries. The list of accepted names is set to grow as the brand analyzes ignored submissions. Avocados From Mexico will promote “Guacline” through paid media and digital channels. The brand will also roll out surprise activations with Gronk in the coming weeks.

Avocados From Mexico opts for AI-generated Gronk videos over Super Bowl spot

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