Watch above or read below.

Matthew Burns:
Uber Eats did what we said. They listened to us. They watched the podcast last year or the video last year. They were like, “Oh, we should write this as a campaign. You think it would work?” And I’m like, “Yeah, they should.” Now they didn’t call us, but they did it. They made the Uber Eats foodball campaign a campaign, not just an ad, not just a Super Bowl ad. And I want to play it. It’s a long one. It’s like a minute and 50 seconds.

I’m playing the whole damn thing because it’s a whole bunch of small ones that actually, they did a great job making it all look like it should have been together, but it was a whole bunch of small ones. And then it was like a build your own Super Bowl ad campaign that they did. Uber Eats. Uber’s doing a lot of really good things in my opinion.

But anyway, guys, watch this and then I’m going to go to Steve to tell us why his brain breaks on it. All right. Here, watch this.


That’s what football’s about. It’s about grit. It’s about passion. It’s about-
It’s about food.
Football’s not selling food, McConaughey.
When a quarterback runs, they call it a scramble. You on a morning scramble, Bradley. That sound like normal language to you.
Normal. That’s how we do it. We’re talking about normal.
Come on. Not every food reference means they’re actually trying to sell you that food.
Yeah, you’re right. Well, sometimes they’re selling you beverages. Singing the song, right?
Don’t drag me into this.
Players names. C.J. Ham, Malik Hamm, Jack Ham.
You cherry picking. Je’Rod Cherry. Deron Cherry. Don Cherry.
Come on. Dude, you sound brainwashed. Ooh. Waffles.
Coy bacon. Wayne bacon.
Is that it?
Take a closer look, Mr. Bradley. Tell me what do you see?
Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Sacred thing right.
It’s hallowed.
It’s a juicer.
What?
Ha ha. The hall of fame’s a juicer, Bradley. Take it out. It’s all food, Bradley.
Food.
No.
Food, food.
No.
Food. How’s that food? Yes. Ooh. Yes.
No.
Enough. You’re never going to convince me that football’s selling food.
All right. So what you eating, Jerry.
Rice.
Jerry’s.
Don’t say it.
Eating.
I hate you.
Rice bowls! Wings! When football makes you hungry, order Uber eats.
Coop! Coop!
What?
Just wanted to take another look at you.
That’s pretty good.

Stephen Semple:
After all, Matt, it’s the Super Bowl. It’s the Super-

Matthew Burns:
Bowl.

Stephen Semple:
Bowl.

Matthew Burns:
In one of the ads, he knocks out the center tines on a fork, and he’s like, “Remind you of anything?”

Stephen Semple:
My favorite is the juicer one for Long

Matthew Burns:
Fame. Oh, dude. The Hall of Fame is a… It’s a juicer. Yeah. So good. So good. So good. But let’s go analytical brain before I go too emotional.

Stephen Semple:
So the best comedy has an element of truth to it.

Matthew Burns:
Yes.

Stephen Semple:
Here’s what we know. There are certain food categories, like wings and pizza, where their best sales day is Super Bowl Sunday. Where their sales of certain food groups spike immensely on Super Bowl Sunday. We all know that. We all know people who have specific shopping things that they do to have the food ready for Super Bowl Sunday.

I think the only other holiday that is more food-related is American Thanksgiving. So when they go down this whole thing of it’s there to sell food, what makes it funny is it’s not completely untrue.

Matthew Burns:
Right. Listen, why did avocados from Mexico run their ads at Super Bowl time for guacamole purposes specifically?

Stephen Semple:
Right. So what I commend is that there is an element. There’s an element of truth to this.

Matthew Burns:
Correct.

Stephen Semple:
And one could even argue that if you were trying to tie into it-

Matthew Burns:
Yes, it’s played at halftime, which is why I want them to make it a campaign and not just do it at football. Then they can take it off of football and go in almost any other direction they want. But I love the fact that they’ve tied it directly to football. And you know what they didn’t do? It pisses me off that they didn’t say football again. They didn’t call it foodball in this one. I love the reference to football is foodball. Stand by that mnemonic. So no, but I argue that somebody who wasn’t planning on a Super Bowl party, but they needed to get some food, Uber Eats would’ve reminded them at halftime.

There are lots of them because it’s such an iconic day for food. Now, if you ordered food at halftime at the Super Bowl, you’re in trouble; you’re not getting it until the end of the game or later till tomorrow. At the very least, it sparks our interest, and it makes them… Listen, there are so many small vignettes in that thing that it held through to the end. Your attention was grabbed all the way through to the end.

Stephen Semple:
And it took this idea, took it to the level of ridiculous, which is why it works. I think that ad worked great.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. Well, the other thing that I thought was really good. See, the first one, it was McConaughey talking to the world, right?

Stephen Semple:
Yeah.

Matthew Burns:
This one, they brought in Bradley Cooper, and they made Cooper and McConaughey friends. They’re not friends, but they’re friends because they rib at each other, they’re poking fun. He goes, “I just want to take one last look at you.” And he goes, “Okay, that was a good one.” They’re buddies. Buddies don’t agree. And we tease each other, and they brought this camaraderie, which is what you would do when you’re watching the game together as a group, you have two fans of different teams together. They really owned what it would be like for that environment and then put the conspiracy theory of football.

And that they actually have more ads, and I’m not going to play them. I might be able to link them. We’ll see. Hopefully I can. But there’s a bunch of other ones where Bradley Cooper’s in the NFL headquarters and at the board meeting, and he’s like, “Come on, you guys have to let people off the hook that it’s not about food.” And they’re like, “Isn’t it?”

Again, it’s like owning the idea that this is really where it’s at. There are so many good commercials. And the one that I referenced at the beginning was awesome. So there’s the scene in that one where he was running, and McConaughey is driving beside him in a truck. And there’s one 10 seconds of him just going, “Food, food, food, food.” I was like, ” Oh my God, just that ad on its own and then Uber Eats for football. I could see that as a 15-second ad and being just incredible. Anyway, I’m so happy that they did this one, and I’m so glad we got to talk about it. Oh my God.

Stephen Semple:
The Super Bowl does impact a bunch of categories, food sales, which is why it is so funny, because when the executives are going, “But does it? ” It’s not far off the truth, this is why it’s such good comedy.

Matthew Burns:
To end that ad, and he looks over, and he goes, “Well, let’s ask Jerry. Jerry, what are you eating?” And it was Jerry Rice. And earlier in the ad, he literally says, “Oh, now you’re cherry picking.” And that is because of going into the names. And I was just like, oh my God.

Stephen Semple:
Oh, and here’s the other thing I thought that was really fun that they did because when you have celebrities like that, who are not necessarily known by everybody, there’s the temptation to say, “Hey, Jerry Rice, what are you eating? Rice?” It’s not as funny. And yes, you run the risk that not everybody will get the joke because not everybody will recognize it’s Jerry Rice.

Matthew Burns:
That’s right.

Stephen Semple:
Or they’ll need to watch it again to get the joke, which is… Remember, there was the Apple ad a while ago that they did, where they were showing all the people using Apple computers, and it was like-

Matthew Burns:
Oh, yes.

Stephen Semple:
And some were Lady Gaga, who everybody recognizes, and Tom Hanks. And there were others that, unless you were into that artistic scene, you wouldn’t know. And there’d be this temptation of, “Oh, we’ve got to tell everybody so that they know. ” That’s right. And I think it was really great that they didn’t, because then those who know knew, those who didn’t know might figure it out later. And I think it would’ve had too much of a feel of a commercial if there was like the, “Hey, Jerry Rice, what are you eating? Am I eating rice?”

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. What I think they did really well there, too, is that because not everybody would know them, they turned that into the audible thing of Rice Bowl. He didn’t finish the line. They turned it into Rice Bowl and then got into their close, right? So no, they handled it. Again, whoever the marketing company is, we-

Stephen Semple:
Whoever wrote that ad, it was brilliant how they wrote it.

Matthew Burns:
We doth our cap to you guys. You did a great job. We’re a little jealous. We loved what you did there. So thank you for putting that into the world, and thank you.

Stephen Semple:
At the end of the day, they also listened to us, and they did it again.

Matthew Burns:
That’s what I was going to say. Anyway, guys, listen, keep watching. We’re going to continue talking about ads. We appreciate you, Steve. Thanks, my man. Bye for now.

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