Mr Sandman, send me a dream. That’s the premise behind one of Kia’s most epic Superbowl commercials, during its most epic time in the early 2010s.
Produced for the 2012 Superbowl, and to promote the swoopy and sleek (well, it was back then!) 2012 Kia Optima, the ad opens with Mr Sandman creeping into a room to the soft tones of the original 1954 song by The Cordettes.
Sneaking into a married couple’s bedroom does sound a little suspect, but stick with us here and avoid the mental turns for the worse: he dutifully sprinkles some dream dust over his wife, but he’s a bit clumsy, and as he approaches the husband, trips and dumps his bucket of gold dust over him.
What ensues is a trippy, mega dream-fuelled cacophony of awesomeness: Motley Crue’s Kickstart My Heart starts belting out, Victoria’s Secret supermodel Adriama Lima appears and our protagonist races around a speedway in his dream car, a... er, Kia Optima. Well, it looked pretty cool and futuristic when it was new, back then.
With Motley Crue’s Vince Neil, Tommy Lee in his 360 degree rotating drum-kit, and the whole Crue rocking out, our hero experiences an overload of his dreams, including rhino-riding, lumberjacks, mega-sub sandwiches, and even MMA champion fighter Chuck Liddell. And, like every good 90 second story, there’s a big twist at the end.
Kia Optima: a dream car for real life. Maybe a little less convincing 11 years on, but a mega car ad at the time from a car company and ad agency producing some of the best classic car-vid ads of the time.