Oikos, the official yogurt of the National Football League, has a new product to promote, but anyone looking for Oikos Pro during the Super Bowl will have to be watching the livestream.

That’s because the Danone brand saw such success with a livestream ad during last year’s Super Bowl that it is once again skipping the pricier in-game TV ad.

In 2020, Oikos ran “YoGlutes,” a spot showing clips of football players’ behinds to the tune of “Bubble Butt,” during the Super Bowl livestream. The campaign drove a 7-point sales lift, according to Surbhi Martin, VP of marketing, Danone North America.

“We were pretty astounded by the results,” she says, especially since it was a digital-only buy. “It exceeded all of our expectations.”

This year’s spot showcases the “Ugly Face” that athletes—and SpongeBob SquarePants—make while training. Oikos is calling the grunting grimace "ProFace" to promote the Pro product.

The Danone brand ran in-game spots starring John Stamos in 2012 and 2014.

Oikos aims to reach a target audience of younger millennials who are fitness-oriented, many of whom use streaming. Running the ad on the livestream is “a very cost-effective method to reach our core audience, which is online,” says Martin.

Grants for fitness professionals

Along with its ad buy, Oikos plans to spend at least $100,000 distributing grants to 100 fitness professionals who lost work during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Oikos again worked with Lightning Orchard on its newest spot.

The song for the spot is “Ugly Face” by Mizta CEO. Athletes featured include NFL players Saquon Barkley, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Jalen Hurts, Darius Polk and A.J. Brown, as well as New York-based fitness trainers Angela Gargano and Nina Saunders.

Danone plans to run “Ugly Face” during the Super Bowl LV pregame show, and right after the halftime show on the livestream. Danone is spending “a little bit more behind it given the success of ‘YoGlutes’ last year,” Martin says, without sharing specific figures. It’s significantly less expensive than shelling out roughly $5.5 million for a 30-second spot during the TV broadcast. In-game advertisers also pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to reach the livestream audience. The livestream-only ads run while regional ads are airing on TV.

Other brands also buy regional spots on TV to get their messages out with a smaller price tag. Chobani, for example, plans to run an existing 15-second spot for its oat milk in 11 markets including Tampa, where the game is being played.

Danone’s Oiko Pro ad is a montage of existing footage, keeping with the formula that was used in “YoGlutes” and later in “Flex Your Cryceps,” a spot created for the 2020 NFL Draft.

The brand opted to rely on existing footage again rather than doing an ad shoot during the pandemic. With its broader lineup of athletes, plus SpongeBob, “ProFace” is positioned to run well after the Super Bowl. 

And while Martin is not a cord-cutter, she says she plans to watch the Super Bowl on her laptop to view the livestream.

To keep track of all the advertisers running national spots in the game, bookmark Ad Age’s regularly updated Super Bowl ad chart.

Join Ad Age on Feb. 2 for a look at how brands are navigating the pandemic and addressing diversity in their ads for the 2021 game.