Meta spent $7 million on a 30-second Super Bowl spot.
Then they made Chris Hemsworth accidentally eat a piece of art worth $6.2 million.
The result? Coverage in Fast Company, AdWeek, Hollywood Reporter, TechEBlog, and dozens of other outlets. Chris Hemsworth's TikTok teaser alone pulled 190,000+ likes before the ad even aired.
Most Super Bowl ads disappear 48 hours after the game. This one became a case study in how to make product demos entertaining enough that people actually want to watch them.
The Ad
Chris Pratt walks through what appears to be an art gallery, wearing Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. He uses the AI feature: "Hey Meta, what is this?" The glasses identify Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian"—a banana duct-taped to a wall that sold for $6.2 million at Sotheby's in November 2024.
Chris Hemsworth enters, also wearing the glasses, casually eating a banana. Pratt does a double-take. The banana is gone from the wall—just duct tape remains.
"That's a $6.2 million banana!" Pratt yells.
They scramble through a refrigerator looking for a replacement. Reality TV icon Kris Jenner appears: "Gentlemen." The reveal—they're in her home, not a gallery. When she asks "Who eats art?", the two Chrises remind her she forgot to say "Hey Meta" first.
Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman), shot entirely with practical effects. Zero CGI.
The Results
Super Bowl placement: $7-8 million for the 30-second spot
Earned media coverage: Featured in Fast Company, AdWeek, Hollywood Reporter, WWF, TechEBlog, SlashGear, Today Show exclusive preview
Social proof: 190,100+ TikTok likes on Hemsworth's teaser post alone
Context: First-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses had poor user adoption. This campaign specifically designed to overcome that barrier and position the product for mainstream acceptance.
Broadcast reach: Super Bowl LIX (February 2025)—most-watched TV event of the year
Why This Worked
The ad did something most product demos fail at: it made you forget you were watching a product demo.
Three demonstrations of the "Hey Meta" AI feature happen in 30 seconds, but you're too busy laughing at Hemsworth's panic to notice you're being taught how the product works.
The banana wasn't random. Cattelan's "Comedian" was already internet-famous when it sold for $6.2 million three months earlier. Meta didn't create a cultural moment—they hijacked one that was already trending and put their product in the middle of it.
Here's the element that separated this from every other celebrity Super Bowl spot: casting two actors who already have on-screen chemistry. Hemsworth and Pratt weren't just famous faces reading lines. They were playing off established Marvel Universe dynamics. That relationship did more work than the $7 million media buy.
One more thing worth noticing—this ad for AI-powered glasses was shot with zero AI or CGI. Everything's practical. Real donuts, real smoke, real duct tape. In a moment when audiences are skeptical of AI-generated everything, showing physical reality becomes a trust signal.
What you're about to get:
Element-by-element breakdown (5 steal-able components)
Why each part works (psychology + data)
15 specific tactics you can use this week
How to adapt this for different budgets and team sizes
This ad cost $7M to place. Here's how to steal the strategy for $0.
