Super Bowl XLIX will fea­ture ads from auto brands like BMW, Lexus, Mer­cedes-Benz, Toy­ota, Nis­san and Kia. But, notably, oth­er long­time Super Bowl adver­tis­ers from the auto indus­try have benched them­selves this year. And, in their place, the game will include its first-ever pro­duce, adhe­sive, and toe­nail fun­gus adver­tis­ers, among oth­ers.

Most of new brands adver­tis­ing in the Super Bowl point to reach, pure and sim­ple, as their moti­va­tion behind the big spend, but experts still ques­tion whether this one-time event offers the best bang for their adver­tis­ing buck.

In fact, liken­ing it to the Sher­lock Holmes sto­ry about the dog that didn’t bark, Greg Jar­boe, pres­i­dent of inter­net mar­ket­ing ser­vices firm SEO-PR, says, “The dog not bark­ing at the Super Bowl this year is that Volk­swa­gen is not adver­tis­ing even after hav­ing the top ad a few years ago, which was fol­lowed by Audi, who is not adver­tis­ing. GM pulled out. Ford pulled out. About half a dozen automak­ers who adver­tised in last year’s Super Bowl aren’t adver­tis­ing in it this year.”

This, he notes, has paved the way for new adver­tis­ers.

“The key ques­tion is: Did [all of the auto brands] go to the same webi­nar?” Jar­boe said. “What hap­pened?”

He points to experts who have ques­tioned the wis­dom of spend­ing mil­lions of dol­lars on TV time “when that bud­get would be gang­busters with an online video cam­paign instead.”

Fur­ther, he sur­mis­es that some auto brands may have sim­ply real­ized they could spend $4.5 mil­lion on region­al adver­tis­ing or play­off game adver­tis­ing that might offer a bet­ter bang for their buck or even move a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of mon­ey into dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing, includ­ing video, he said.

Nev­er­the­less, plen­ty of Super Bowl adver­tis­ers remain. Here’s a look at some of the brands step­ping onto the field for the first time this Sun­day.

Avocados from Mexico

Avo­ca­dos from Mex­i­co, the mar­ket­ing arm of Mex­i­can Hass Avo­ca­do Importers Asso­ci­a­tion, released a teas­er of its #First­DraftEv­er fea­tur­ing for­mer foot­ball play­ers Jer­ry Rice and Doug Flu­tie, and a rhi­noc­er­os.

Avo­ca­dos From Mex­i­co says it will be the first fresh pro­duce brand to broad­cast an ad dur­ing Super Bowl.

In addi­tion, the brand has part­nered with TV host Mario Lopez and his wife on a so-called com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­gram, “No Guac, No Game,” to “illus­trate how great-tast­ing gua­camole is one way to unite a divid­ed house of pas­sion­ate sports fans togeth­er dur­ing the ultra-com­pet­i­tive pro-foot­ball play­offs.” It includes recipes on the Avo­ca­dos from Mex­i­co web­site.

Carnival

In Decem­ber, cruise line Car­ni­val said it planned to unveil the first TV com­mer­cial from its new mul­ti-brand mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tive dur­ing the Super Bowl, which will be its first-ever in the game.

The com­mer­cial was cre­at­ed by BBDO Atlanta.

It will be a 60-sec­ond spot select­ed from the company’s “World’s Lead­ing Cruise Lines Mar­ket­ing Chal­lenge,” which it says gives North Amer­i­can con­sumers the chance to pro­vide Car­ni­val with input on its new cre­ative.

Host­ed by Cedric the Enter­tain­er, the inter­ac­tive crowd­sourc­ing con­test lets con­sumers “join the company’s mar­ket­ing team” and vote for their favorite cre­ative con­cept on WorldsLeadingCruiseLines.com, the brand says.

“There is no big­ger stage than the Super Bowl for telling our sto­ry, and we’re excit­ed about the oppor­tu­ni­ty to start a new dia­logue with con­sumers about cruis­ing and use their input in help­ing us pick the cre­ative con­cepts,” said Arnold Don­ald, CEO of Car­ni­val, in a state­ment. “With this phase of the mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tive, we want to cap­ture what is so spe­cial about cruis­ing and sail­ing in the open sea.”

Car­ni­val has also launched what it calls a Cruise-a-Nal­i­ty tool that helps vaca­tion­ers decide what type of cruise is right for them based on a series of per­son­al­i­ty-focused ques­tions and it is ask­ing con­sumers to tweet what they love about cruis­ing with the hash­tag #Love­Cruis­ing.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals

Spe­cial­ty phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny Valeant Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals will be adver­tis­ing its Jublia prod­uct for the first time.

Accord­ing to a rep, the brand’s goal with its first Super Bowl spot is “to reach as many con­sumers as pos­si­ble to edu­cate them about the promi­nence of toe­nail fun­gus and abil­i­ty to eas­i­ly treat with the new top­i­cal solu­tion toe­nail fun­gus treat­ment, Jublia.”

Valeant hopes to dri­ve aware­ness of this treat­ment and to encour­age con­sumers to see their der­ma­tol­o­gist or podi­a­trist. In addi­tion, the rep notes an esti­mat­ed 35 mil­lion peo­ple in the U.S., or 1 in 10, suf­fer from toe­nail fun­gus.

“With more than 111 mil­lion peo­ple like­ly watch­ing the game that means up to 12 mil­lion of them have the con­di­tion,” the rep said.

What’s more, the rep not­ed the con­di­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly com­mon with ath­letes “because it thrives in warm, moist envi­ron­ments like sneak­ers and cleats as well as in show­er floors in set­tings such as a lock­er room.”

The ad will not release ear­ly. It will debut dur­ing the third quar­ter.

Loctite

Adhe­sive and sealant brand Loc­tite says it will become the first-ever adhe­sive brand to adver­tise dur­ing the Super Bowl.

“This is a very bold move for Loc­tite, for Adhe­sive Tech­nolo­gies and for Henkel,” said Susanne Cor­nelius, cor­po­rate vice pres­i­dent for the con­sumers and crafts­men busi­ness at par­ent Henkel Adhe­sive Tech­nolo­gies, in a state­ment. “So much has been achieved by our efforts for Loctite’s dis­tri­b­u­tion, now is the right time to give con­sumers and cus­tomers a ‘big bang’ expe­ri­ence that will make our brand the top-of-mind choice and dri­ve it fur­ther ahead of com­peti­tors in North Amer­i­ca.”

The full 30-sec­ond spot won’t be released ahead of time. It will air at the begin­ning of the fourth quar­ter.

How­ev­er, the brand says “the high­ly antic­i­pat­ed com­mer­cial will draw on the huge suc­cess of the cur­rent ‘Win at Glue’ cam­paign, call­ing atten­tion that every­one can ‘win’ when using Loc­tite.”

The brand’s YouTube page includes a video with what it calls “the famous Loc­tite Dance,” which has more than 1.3 mil­lion views to date.

In a press release, Henkel says it believes it can dif­fer­en­ti­ate itself from the com­pe­ti­tion with this Super Bowl spot.

“So far, the adhe­sive cat­e­go­ry has only been adver­tised in expect­ed places with bor­ing func­tion­al mes­sages,” said Fred Chupin, vice pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing in North Amer­i­ca at Henkel. “This game is where the most excit­ing and inno­v­a­tive brands come to tell their sto­ry on the biggest stage, and we felt that Loc­tite had some­thing unique to say to Amer­i­ca. We know that no one will expect what they will see from Loc­tite on Feb­ru­ary 1.”

Mophie

Mobile device pow­er and stor­age prod­uct brand Mophie said it would air its first-ever broad­cast com­mer­cial dur­ing the 2015 Super Bowl.

Since its launch, Mophie says it has “expe­ri­enced sub­stan­tial growth and suc­cess despite most­ly organ­ic efforts in con­sumer mar­ket­ing. Now, as momen­tum con­tin­ues to build in the mobile pow­er acces­so­ry cat­e­go­ry, Mophie intends to bring its mes­sage to life in front of the mass­es on adver­tis­ing’s biggest stage.”

In a pre­pared state­ment, CEO Daniel Huang adds, “We’ve accom­plished much on the strength of our prod­ucts and integri­ty of the brand, and now we feel it’s the right time to bold­ly intro­duce our solu­tions to the largest audi­ence pos­si­ble.”

More specif­i­cal­ly, a rep notes it’s all about expand­ing not only brand, but also cat­e­go­ry aware­ness.

“It’s a very unique sit­u­a­tion. We’re the cat­e­go­ry leader and a brand that many peo­ple use, yet only 1 out of every 10 peo­ple in focus groups rec­og­nized our name. The mobile-charg­ing cat­e­go­ry has sur­pris­ing­ly low aware­ness in gen­er­al (10 per­cent),” the rep writes in an email. “Our goal in 2015 is to not only con­tin­ue to grow the Mophie brand, but gen­er­ate aware­ness for the entire cat­e­go­ry. Nation­al adver­tis­ing was the next log­i­cal step for us to cre­ate stronger cat­e­go­ry aware­ness while also increas­ing name recog­ni­tion. And in terms of reach, you don’t get much big­ger or broad­er than the Super Bowl.”

The brand released the spot, All-Pow­er­less, on Jan­u­ary 29. It fea­tures “arguably one of the most pow­er­ful and rec­og­niz­able fig­ures in the world” as well as “the likes of two don­keys, a walk­ing dog, a roost­er, hye­nas, var­i­ous types of flight­less birds, and a goat” to “impact­ful­ly express the idea that your world comes apart when your mobile phone runs out of bat­tery,” the rep says.

Skittles

The Skit­tles brand, too, will be air­ing its first-ever Super Bowl ad and, in a press release, said it will be “cel­e­brat­ing its first offi­cial inclu­sion in The Big Game in a vari­ety of unex­pect­ed ways in the weeks lead­ing up to the Feb. 1 kick­off.”

That includes “acti­vat­ing the part­ner­ship for the first time fol­low­ing a tremen­dous­ly suc­cess­ful rela­tion­ship in 2014 with [run­ning back] Mar­shawn Lynch and the Seat­tle Sea­hawks.”

Say­ing it “couldn’t wait to kick off its first-ever offi­cial Super Bowl sea­son,” the brand host­ed “the most awe­some tail­gate” in the vacant park­ing lot of the site of Super Bowl XLIX near­ly four weeks pri­or to the Super Bowl with for­mer foot­ball play­er Kurt Warn­er.

It also host­ed a faux press con­fer­ence with Lynch.

The brand will run a 30-sec­ond com­mer­cial pro­duced by DDB Chica­go.

Wix

Web devel­op­ment plat­form Wix.com is also adver­tis­ing in the Super Bowl for the first time with some help from five for­mer NFL stars: Brett Favre, Ter­rell Owens, Emmitt Smith, Lar­ry Allen and Fran­co Har­ris.

As part of the brand’s #ItsThatEasy cam­paign, these play­ers will “tran­si­tion from their foot­ball days and take a new direc­tion in their careers” and go “from NFL stars to small busi­ness own­ers” and “dis­cov­er the new chal­lenge that they’ve tak­en on is made sig­nif­i­cant­ly eas­i­er with a Wix web­site.”

“Run­ning a small busi­ness is no easy feat but it’s also incred­i­bly reward­ing. We want­ed to high­light the fun aspects and how enjoy­able your busi­ness can be when you’re not weighed down. We devel­oped a cam­paign that per­fect­ly fits what Wix is all about: pro­vid­ing small busi­ness­es with pow­er­ful and easy to use tools to design, man­age and grow their online pres­ence,” said CMO Omer Shai in a state­ment. “NFL leg­end or not, any busi­ness own­er should be able to eas­i­ly get their busi­ness online, just the way they want it.”

The brand first teased a clip with Owens and cre­at­ed web­sites for each of the play­ers’ faux busi­ness­es, which even include pur­chasable prod­ucts.

The full spot fol­lowed on Jan­u­ary 27 and has 2.5 mil­lion views to date.

All cre­ative mate­ri­als for the #ItsThatEasy cam­paign are avail­able on a des­ig­nat­ed web­site where con­sumers can “inter­act with the play­ers, their busi­ness­es and Wix in a fun and dynam­ic loca­tion.”

Wix says its Super Bowl spot “will be an instru­men­tal part of a cross-plat­form brand­ing cam­paign geared towards tak­ing the Wix brand to the next lev­el and turn­ing it into a house­hold name.”

Do you think Super Bowl ad dol­lars are still a wise invest­ment ver­sus dig­i­tal?