Super Bowl LVIII: Silk Taps Avenger Jeremy Renner for New Plant-Based Milk Commercial

Plant-based milk brand Silk will air its first Super Bowl commercial at this year’s championship game next month, featuring MCU star Jeremy Renner on his return from a freak accident last year. But will it work?

Silk had made it to the Super Bowl. The Danone-owned alt-milk giant has been filming its Feel Planty Good commercial with actor Jeremy Renner, who is back on screens a year after he was involved in a horror snowplough accident, according to People.

It will make Silk just the third plant-based company to feature its products in a Super Bowl commercial. These spots are highly coveted and come with a hefty price tag, but given the eyeballs – over 200 million Americans are expected to tune in on February 11 – the payoff can be immense as well.

Hawkeye makes breakfast in Silk’s Super Bowl ad

On New Year’s Day 2023, Renner was crushed by a huge snowplough while helping a family member near his home in Nevada. The MCU actor broke 30 bones and spent two weeks in hospital, while also undergoing multiple surgeries.

Having spent a year in recovery, Renner’s first job back is with his daughter, and it’s for a product that helped him on his journey back to full health. The 53-year-old (who isn’t vegan) and his daughter Ava have just finished filming for Silk’s Feel Planty Good spot.

The commercial features the Avengers star making breakfast for Ava as he “dances, leaps and roundhouse kicks” his way through the kitchen, singing James Brown’s 1965 tune, I Got You (I Feel Good), in a cosy bathrobe.

Renner said partnering up with Silk was a no-brainer, given he used its products to make protein shakes during his recovery. He’s pictured sitting next to his 10-year-old with the Silk almond milk, and making a milkshake with the brand’s protein milk. “[Silk is] all about wellness, and I’ve gotten pretty into that because it’s forced upon me as a part of a lifestyle, which is great,” he told People. “I’ve become so healthy now.”

The commercial follows the launch of Silk’s Feel Planty Good campaign earlier this month, which challenges consumers to incorporate its products into their breakfast for seven days in a row. Teaming up with famous personalities like actress Vanessa Hudgens and NFL star Saquon Barkley, the company will share plant-based recipes to help customers along.

Will Super Bowl ads for vegan brands?

Silk’s Super Bowl commercial follows two other ads spotlighting vegan products in previous years. In 2018, Beyond Meat appeared in a 30-second spot to promote its collaboration with Carl’s Jr. The humorous 30-second ad featured a stereotypical Wild West cowboy attempting to adjust to modernity, doing yoga and eating plant-based meat. The aim was to normalise vegan meat as just another menu option.

And then came the infamous Oatly ad in 2021, where then-CEO Toni Petersson stood in a field of oats with a keyboard singing the ultra-catchy “Wow, no cow” song. It was one of the more polarising pieces of marketing: some found it weird and a waste of money, while others pointed out that the weirdness was the genius bit. It got people talking – Oatly really was all over social media – and that was the point.

While Silk’s ad seems to be taking a much more straightforward approach, it will hope that it pays off. Because Super Bowl commercials are lucrative and expensive – this year, a 30-second spot will reportedly cost companies $7M (and that’s before you account for the money you need to make the ad). And sure, $7M is a drop in the bucket for Danone, a company valued at $45.5B, but it’s still a significant amount to pour into half a minute of advertising.

But it’s doing so because Super Bowl spots can be influential. According to Kantar’s Creative Guardrails report, one ad on the night is 20 times more effective than a regular TV commercial. And it drives consumer demand: last year, Super Bowl ads drove a 6.4% increase in demand among viewers, especially amongst women, who accounted for a 21% rise, according to research by Veylinx.

However, there was a negative effect on Gen Zers (-1%), one of the target demographics for Silk’s ‘next-generation’ milk. And as Veylinx founder and CEO Anouar El Haj points out, “the short-term bump alone may not be enough to justify the $7M price tag”.

In the US, plant-based dairy saw a higher revenue than its conventional counterpart last year. As of mid-July, milk alternatives (7%) outpaced conventional milk (4.6%) on annual dollar sales (though unit sales for non-dairy milks declined at a higher rate than cow’s milk). And one analyst told the New York Times in 2022 that alt-milk could take up 30% of the total dairy dollar share by the end of 2026.

Silk, one of the market leaders, will hope to buck the trend among Gen Z NFL fans. All eyes on February 11.