Ferrero North America plans to spend more than $100 million on marketing campaigns related to the Super Bowl and World Cup next year.
The sporting push comes as the confectioner’s parent company expands its presence in the United States through acquisitions and investments in domestic production. Ferrero, founded in Italy but now based in Luxembourg, entered North America nearly half a century ago, but the company only really began investing in the market in the last decade.
In July, Ferrero bought cereal maker WK Kellogg for $3.1 billion, the latest in a series of deals that included buying Nestlé’s U.S. confectionery business and Halo Top owner Wells Enterprises.
The Nutella owner, which just started its 2026 fiscal year in September, is gearing up for its biggest year in the United States, where it is the third-largest candy company, behind only Hershey and Mars. Its privately held parent company saw its turnover – or revenue – increase by 8.9% in the financial year ending August 31, 2024, Ferrero revealed in its most recent financial data. Over the past year, Ferrero USA saw its dollar sales increase 4.5%, outpacing those of the broader confectionery and cookie categories, according to the company.
“We want to do something big to reintroduce ourselves to North America,” said Michael Lindsey, chief commercial officer of Ferrero North America.
Ferrero North America’s bet on sports will kick off in February with the company’s first-ever Super Bowl ad, featuring Kinder Bueno. Its sister company Ferrera has previously aired spots during the big game, including last year’s Nerds Gummy Clusters ad.
Then, starting in June, Ferrero North America is planning a series of promotions around the World Cup. Advertisements for its products will air before or after the games, and the company plans to run promotions related to about two dozen of its brands.
“Why sports? It’s always the largest audience, especially if you want to reach consumers live with something they’ll actually sit down in front of a TV and watch,” Lindsey said. “Especially during the Super Bowl, they’re watching TV with the intention of watching the commercials, which is a very unique situation today when you’re trying to reach consumers who are ignoring your commercials or getting up to make a sandwich.”
Earlier this year, more than 127.7 million viewers watched the NFL championship game, setting a record, according to Nielsen Media Research. All those stares can tempt companies to pay the premium price to run an ad during the game. Advertisers reportedly paid up to $8 million for Comcast‘s NBCUniversal for a 30-second spot during the February game. In early September, NBCUniversal said it had already sold all of its Super Bowl commercials.
And while football remains America’s favorite TV sport, soccer is gaining ground. Reportedly, 26 million American viewers watched the 2022 World Cup final.
For the Super Bowl, the focus will be on Kinder Bueno, sold in the United States since 2019.
Ferrero chose to highlight candy because it considers Kinder “the most underutilized brand in its portfolio relative to its global success,” Lindsey said. Few Americans would guess that Kinder is the world’s best-selling chocolate brand, not Hershey or Nestlé, according to Lindsey. Yet within a few years, Kinder became a $500 million-plus brand in the United States for Ferrero, according to the company.
Additionally, last year, Ferrero opened its first-ever North American chocolate factory in Bloomington, Illinois, to produce Kinder products.
Although the Super Bowl spot has not yet been filmed, Lindsey said the commercial will feature a new dark chocolate version of Kinder Bueno and a white chocolate iteration.
“(The Super Bowl) is just the perfect vehicle to do a lot of testing at once,” he said.
When the Super Bowl commercial airs, the company said it will be Ferrero’s largest marketing campaign ever, in any global market. But two months later, Ferrero plans to break that record with its World Cup promotions, which begin in April in North America. Almost all products in its portfolio will see their packaging change as part of the campaign.
“We’re going all out: We’ll have a promotion and a package package,” Lindsey said.
Customers will need to purchase multiple products from the entire portfolio to benefit from the promotion. The intention is to help consumers understand that Ferrero makes the entire range of products they buy, from Nutella to Ferrero Rocher to Blue Bunny ice cream.
“All of this is intentionally focused on making people who love one brand in the portfolio become people who love the entire portfolio,” Lindsey said.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would become the new parent company of CNBC in Comcast’s planned spinoff of Versant.
