Jonah Hill keeps Martin Scorsese hanging in Coke’s Super Bowl ad

Coke, which normally gets emotional with its Super Bowl ads, is taking a lighthearted approach this year with an ad starring Jonah Hill and Martin Scorsese. The 60-second spot by Wieden & Kennedy Portland plugs the new Coke Energy drink, in which the company is investing heavily as it takes on Monster and Red Bull. The ad begins by showing the legendary movie director alone at a costume party, anxiously awaiting Hill and texting him his whereabouts. Hill is home, sleepy, and has forgotten about the party. Scorsese is left hanging, staring at his phone as three dots appear to show that Hill is responding. But the circles then transform in absurd ways—they become a Pac-Man eating three pellets and bodiless heads of rapper YBN Cordae—illustrating the director's mounting anxiety. Hill summons the strength to head to the party, but only after downing a Coke Energy, which contains roughly three times the caffeine as a regular Coke. The spot ends with the tagline, “Energy you want, taste you love.” The drink, which looks and tastes like regular Coke, is meant to lure people who don’t like the way other energy drinks taste. Jaideep Kibe, VP of the Coca-Cola brand in North America, described it as the “democratization of the energy category with an iconic brand like Coca Cola.” After securing Hill for the ad, Coke shared the script with him and asked for suggestions on who should play his friend in the spot. “He and his team came back immediately and said we should work with my buddy, Martin Scorsese,” says Geoff Cottrill, Coca-Cola’s senior VP of strategic marketing for creative. “It was very clear to us that they are friends, they do have a relationship, and it came together.”

Jonah Hill keeps Martin Scorsese hanging in Coke’s Super Bowl ad

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