The hottest Super Bowl ad trend? Not running an ad.

The big game will showcase a variety of savvy — or cynical? — pandemic PR strategies

A TV and a salesman.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Alamy Stock Photo, iStock)

There's a time and place for mourning an anthropomorphized legume, but the midst of a pandemic is not it.

This is the short way of telling you that there will be no second attempt to kill off Mr. Peanut this year, after the advertising logo initially died in a pregame Super Bowl ad in 2020. Planters originally intended for Mr. Peanut's funeral to air during last year's Super Bowl — as the dramatic precursor to his Lazarus moment, when he was resurrected as "Baby Nut" — but the company's plans for the irreverent tribute were complicated by the death of Kobe Bryant. Rather than attempt a do-over funeral in 2021 by offing Mr. Peanut again, the company has decided not to run an ad at all.

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.