Super Bowl Ad Watch: Kraft Serves BelVita Breakfast Biscuits to America

Kraft brand executives didn't believe their new BelVita Breakfast Biscuits were quite worth investing $3.5 million or more for a TV ad during the Super Bowl. The next best thing: introduce this healthful slow release breakfast concept to America during a pre-game ad — and then really hit launch marketing hard on the next day, February 6th.

Like most other Game Day spots, the commercial uses humor to make its point: that BelVita is a new breakfast brand and concept that deserves a chance.

In the "Power Up, People" spot, some small-town police are depicted eating BelVita before setting off on their energy-draining duties, which include chasing around a bunny and timing pitches at a community baseball game with a speed gun.

The CPG giant already has declared BelVita one of its biggest new product introductions of 2012. Adapting a product from its European brand pantry for the American market, Kraft promises to "provide nutritious sustained energy" throughout the morning because of how BelVita's carbohydrates are slowly released into the body, a concept more spelled out in its UK advertising.

Better known abroad, Americans will get to see what BelVita is all about in earnest on Monday, the morning after the Super Bowl, when Kraft will begin distributing 16 million free samples of BelVita at supermarkets nationwide in one of the largest giveaways in its history.

That's only after Kraft has distributed the first BelVita Breakfast samples to 128 police groups across the nation, this week. Judging by the TV ad, presumably Kraft believes not only that cops need sustained energy in the mornings but that, perhaps, BelVita might be a better carbohydrate than morning doughnuts for America's Finest. Regardless, Kraft owes America's police forces some free biscuits after the hit they take in the TV ad.

Meantime, wishing to cover the water front as they expose rank-and-file Americans to this new concept, Kraft also is pulling in people it calls "cultural tastemakers from across the company" as "Power Up Pros" who tout BelVita. They include Katie Rodgers, fashion designer and illustrator.

So next week, it'll be difficult to find an American who doesn't know what a breakfast biscuit is. The bigger question: will they be moved to buy them next time they're in the grocery aisle?