If 2015 was the year of Super Bowl ad poignan­cy, 2016 is shap­ing up to be the year of Super Bowl laughs. Many brands have already teased spots with big-time come­di­ans as they also use the Super Bowl as spring­boards for new cam­paigns and/or taglines.

It’s a rel­a­tive­ly dra­mat­ic shift, one insid­ers say is dri­ven by a desire to har­ness influ­encers to real­ly wow audi­ences, a one-time off-the-field Super Bowl sta­ple that has been sore­ly miss­ing in recent years. Brands them­selves, how­ev­er, say comedic tal­ent helps them com­mu­ni­cate their val­ues and stay true to their ideals as they embrace spir­its of inclu­sion and unite view­ers over laughs.

Super Bowl XLIX: The Year of Poignancy

The emo­tion­al Class of 2015, of course, was led by Nation­wide’s dead kid spot, which gen­er­at­ed mixed reac­tions, but also includ­ed: Toy­ota and Nis­san with duel­ing homages to father­hood, Bud­weis­er’s infa­mous Lost Dog, Always’ Like a Girl, Microsoft­’s Bray­lon, Coke’s Make it Hap­py, McDon­ald’s Pay with Lovin’ and Dove Men+Care’s Real Strength. What’s more, six of these ads ranked among the top 10 of 2015 and they cumu­la­tive­ly gen­er­at­ed mil­lions of views. (Bud­weis­er has since pulled its Lost Dog spot from YouTube, mak­ing a pre­cise tal­ly impos­si­ble.) This year, how­ev­er, only a hand­ful of brands have announced ads that car­ry on this theme: Colgate’s #Every­Drop­Counts, Mini’s #Defy­La­bels and WeatherTech’s salute to Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tur­ing.

The Comedic Touch

Instead, many brands have opt­ed to make Amer­i­ca laugh this year. And many brands have enlist­ed big-name come­di­ans to do it. That includes Amy Schumer for Bud Light, T.J. Miller for Shock Top, Kee­gan-Michael Key and Jor­dan Peele for Square­space, Bil­ly Eich­n­er for But­terfin­ger and Kevin Hart for Hyundai. When you include the humor­ous com­mer­cials with celebri­ties that don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly focus specif­i­cal­ly on com­e­dy, like Alec Bald­win for Ama­zon, Christo­pher Walken for Kia, Lil Wayne for Apartments.com and Drake for T‑Mobile, addi­tion­al exam­ples abound and a trend emerges. What’s more, this light­heart­ed approach to 2016 Super Bowl mes­sag­ing seems to res­onate with con­sumers so far: Schumer and her #Bud­Light­Par­ty coun­ter­part Seth Rogen have dri­ven 1.7 mil­lion views for the beer brand and Miller’s repar­tee with Shock Top’s orange slice mas­cot Wedge­head has 1.4 mil­lion views. And in three teasers, Lil Wayne and George Wash­ing­ton have racked up 4 mil­lion views in their homage to the Jef­fer­sons. One could argue the about-face is a reac­tion to Nation­wide, which chose not to return in 2016 after it per­haps took the emo­tion­al theme too far last year and the response among adver­tis­ers is to there­fore shoot for laughs over mean­ing in Super Bowl 50. Gary J. Nix, chief strat­e­gy offi­cer at brand­ing agency bdot, said the shift reflects adver­tis­ers sim­ply try­ing to make noise with influ­en­tial celebri­ties. “Late­ly, few spots have made that real­ly big splash and the past few Super Bowls have col­lec­tive­ly received grades of ‘Ehh,’ and ‘So?’ from the ad indus­try,” he said. “Thus, because laugh­ter is a pow­er­ful tool to evoke good feel­ings and emo­tion, I think com­pa­nies are try­ing that par­tic­u­lar method this go around.” Here’s a look at what these brands have in store – and why they say com­e­dy is the right fit this year.

Bud Light

In a press release, Bud Light calls itself “America’s most inclu­sive beer brand” and says its cam­paign is meant to embrace a new tagline – “Raise One to Right Now” – and pro­vide a “unique and light-heart­ed Bud Light per­spec­tive on time­ly cul­tur­al moments,” includ­ing Super Bowl 50. The brand also says its humor­ous cam­paign is part of a larg­er effort to “evolve the way Bud Light looks, acts and con­nects with mod­ern con­sumers.” It will con­tin­ue through­out the year with Schumer and Rogen ral­ly­ing “beer drinkers to put their dif­fer­ences aside and agree to agree on Bud Light.” In a pre­pared state­ment, Bud Light vice pres­i­dent Alexan­der Lam­brecht said, “This is more than just a Super Bowl ad. It’s a com­plete­ly new com­mu­ni­ca­tion of what Bud Light stands for – inclu­siv­i­ty, pos­i­tiv­i­ty and fun.”

Shock Top

Accord­ing to Shock Top, it part­nered with Miller “to deliv­er unfil­tered expe­ri­ences to beer lovers” in its first Super Bowl spot, which also marks the begin­ning of a year-long rela­tion­ship with the come­di­an. “Shock Top embraces an unfil­tered lifestyle and the Super Bowl will help launch our 2016 ‘Live Life Unfil­tered’ cam­paign, estab­lish­ing who we are with peo­ple around the coun­ty,” says Jake Kirsch, vice pres­i­dent of Shock Top. “We hope our ad strikes a chord and evokes a laugh among our drinkers and encour­ages them to con­sid­er us the next time they’re at the gro­cery store or bar.” Fur­ther, Kirsch says humor “is in our Shock Top DNA” and notes it’s also a great way to break down bar­ri­ers. In addi­tion, Kirsch says the brand opt­ed to work with Miller because he embod­ies the brand’s unfil­tered per­sona and, “We fig­ured if we are going to do this, we bet­ter go big or go home. And so to stay true to our brand and mantra of liv­ing life unfil­tered, we engaged [Miller] to say it like it is…to deliv­er a fresh, unex­pect­ed expe­ri­ence that promis­es to enter­tain, sur­prise and dri­ve a few laughs on Super Bowl Sun­day.”

Squarespace

Accord­ing to reports, Square­space is going for some­thing dif­fer­ent in its third Super Bowl com­mer­cial with comedic duo Key and Peele play­ing “two ridicu­lous char­ac­ters.” Indeed, Chris Paul, vice pres­i­dent of media and acqui­si­tions at Square­space, says the choice to work with Key and Peele was nat­ur­al because in part they are smart, cre­ative, and enter­tain­ing col­lab­o­ra­tors. “We’re high­ly con­scious of the fact that for most Amer­i­cans, the Super Bowl is an occa­sion to come togeth­er and cel­e­brate with friends and fam­i­ly,” Paul says. “We want­ed to make sure our ad was light and enter­tain­ing, while being aligned with our brand val­ues.” In a teas­er, Key and Peele – as aspir­ing sports­cast­ers Lee and Mor­ris – announced they will under­take the daunt­ing task of pro­vid­ing live com­men­tary through­out Sunday’s game.

Butterfinger

But­terfin­ger announced its Super Bowl spot in Decem­ber with help from Periscope and a pro­fes­sion­al sky­div­er. And But­terfin­ger, too, is kick­ing off a new brand mes­sage — Bold­er Than Bold — with its 2016 Super Bowl play. In addi­tion, But­terfin­ger is anoth­er brand that says humor is in its DNA. And, per brand man­ag­er Kris­ten Man­del, “We always aim to make you laugh in the bold­er than bold approach we take in every­thing we do.” Fur­ther, Man­del says But­terfin­ger engaged Eich­n­er because he “embod­ies Butterfinger’s Bold­er Than Bold per­son­al­i­ty, and was the per­fect fit to help bring this fun and unique cam­paign to life for fans.”

Hyundai

The auto man­u­fac­tur­er is also launch­ing a new brand­ing cam­paign with its Super Bowl buy, which it says reflects its “mis­sion to make its vehi­cles and the entire con­sumer expe­ri­ence bet­ter.” In addi­tion, actors Kevin Hart and Ryan Reynolds will make cameos as the brand high­lights its 2017 Elantra and 2016 Gen­e­sis mod­els. “We want­ed to use a unique sto­ry­telling approach and A‑list tal­ent to delight and enter­tain the fans while show­cas­ing the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy avail­able in our vehi­cles,” said Dean Evans, chief mar­ket­ing offi­cer of Hyundai Motor Amer­i­ca, in a state­ment. In addi­tion, Eric Springer, chief cre­ative offi­cer of ad agency Inno­cean, said of come­di­an Hart’s spot, “Part stunt­man, part over­pro­tec­tive dad, alto­geth­er hys­ter­i­cal­ly fun­ny. There will be plen­ty of beer com­ing out of people’s noses this Super Bowl, thanks to [Hart] being in this spot.”