General Mills’ first Super Bowl ad in 10 years features Minnesota brand Totino’s pizza rolls

Chazmo the alien declares Totino’s pizza rolls “the most snackable pizza in the universe” in the first General Mills Super Bowl ad in more than a decade.

Never mind the universe, General Mills is just hoping the message reaches the coasts.

“Totino’s is a national brand, a billion-dollar brand, but it is dramatically more developed in the middle of the country than it is on the coasts,” said Chief Marketing Officer Doug Martin. “So this is an opportunity for us to really step up and increase that awareness and consideration all across the country.”

The Golden Valley-based food giant is back in the Super Bowl for the first time since 2014 with the latest in a series of ads featuring Totino’s, a Minneapolis-founded frozen food line. The ads starring comedians Tim Robinson and Sam Richardson and the fuzzy, big-eyed alien Chazmo, sort of a hairier version of E.T.

No spoilers, but the spot appears to close the door on the ad campaign that launched in October.

Brands are reportedly paying $8 million or more for a 30-second commercial during this year’s Super Bowl, which kicks off at 5:30 p.m. Sunday on Fox.

It’s an easy check to write for companies confident in what they’re selling: 123 million people tuned in to last year’s Super Bowl.

“Totino’s has been one of our best-growing brands,” Martin said, “and when people get into the Totino’s brand they become repeat customers.”

It could take months to measure the return on investment, however.

“The ideal scenario is the ad gets people talking about Totino’s, and then Totino’s stays a little more top of mind, and gets a little bit more consideration,” Martin said. “Then as we look at our advertising through the back half of the year, we see all that advertising is more effective because of priming the pump with this spot.

“It’s not about selling X number of pizza rolls the day of the game; it’s about bringing in new households who are going to be our consumers for the long term,” he added.

The last General Mills Super Bowl ad was a Cheerios commercial featuring the return of an interracial couple and their child, which gained notoriety for the deluge of racist comments the original spot attracted online in 2014.

This time around, the lasting impression hopefully comes from memes and shares among fans of comedy shows “I Think You Should Leave” and “Detroiters.”

“These are guys who really speak to our core audience,” Martin said. “They wrote concepts we wouldn’t have come up with ourselves.”

With the same absurd humor the pair bring to their comedy, Robinson and Richardson came up with Chazmo and the two suburban dads looking for compensation for their pizza rolls the alien ate.

The initial reaction to the ads was strong enough to land the rising stars, who don’t often partner with brands, in the Super Bowl.

“It’s a big investment, but it’s a campaign we’ve really liked,” Martin said. “Our audience immediately enjoyed it; we get great engagement online. Someone told us they named their cat Chazmo.”