Axe, Hyundai, And Audi Reveal Details On Their Returns To The Super Bowl

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As Super Bowl XLVIII's Feb. 2 date approaches, news on advertising's biggest night is coming at a faster clip. In the past few days, Unilever's Axe brand and automakers Hyundai and Audi have all released details on their Super Bowl campaigns.

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Here's what we've learned:

Axe

axe thumb astronaut

YouTube/Axe

Last year's Axe campaign portrayed an astronaut as the masculine ideal.

Unilever's U.S. headquarters are in Englewood, New Jersey, which is not far from MetLife Stadium, site of the upcoming Super Bowl.

"With the Big Game in our backyard, we want to be there," Matthew McCarthy, senior marketing director of Axe and men's grooming at Unilever, told AdAge.

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The 30-second spot will be produced by BBH London. Unilever has kept quiet regarding creative details.

Last year, Axe used the Super Bowl to launch their Apollo line and announce a contest in which an Axe promo code could earn them a seat aboard a Lynx spacecraft when it goes live, probably in 2015. The 100 finalists have been competing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the 25 final slots.

Hyundai

This will be Hyundai Motor America's seventh straight year of Super Bowl advertising, and this year's offering will include two 30-second commercials from California agency Innocean. AdAge got details from Hyundai marketing exec Steve Shannon.

For the first one, Hyundai is making an appeal to parents by advertising its Genesis luxury sedan's "360 degree halo of safety."

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Vignettes of a father saving his son from accidents on the playground will be connected to an instance where the Genesis' radar-based emergency brake saves the now 16-year-old son from colliding with a truck. "Remember when only Dad had eyes in the back of his head?" begins the punchline.

The second one is for the Elantra and targets a younger crowd. Two hot, young Hollywood celebrities will be flirting in that one, but Hyundai's keeping their identities a surprise.

Audi

Volkswagen's luxury brand Audi has posted record sales for 34 months in a row as of November, due to an incredibly successful rebranding that largely targets young adults buying their first nice car.

This year, Audi has secured the 60-second spot directly after the halftime show, which typically hosts one of the Super Bowl's most-watched commercials. The spot will showcase the 2015 A3 sedan, according to Adweek.

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San Francisco agency Venables Bell & Partners is returning to produce its seventh straight Super Bowl ad for Audi. The commercial will be posted online sometime before the game in an attempt to make it viral, a strategy that worked perfectly for last year's "Prom" ad, which got almost 5 million views before it even premiered on television:

This is the most expensive Super Bowl ever, with 30 second blocks going for $4 million.