If you tuned in to the Super Bowl on Sunday – even if it was only to watch the commercials, like so many do – then you likely saw a spot during the first ad break of the third quarter for Nerds Gummy Clusters, made right here in Forest Park.
In the 30-second “Wonderful World of Nerds” commercial, Shaboozey sings a rendition of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” The singer walks down a road reminiscent of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, where this year’s Super Bowl took place, eating from a bag of Nerds Gummy Clusters.
A second line band emerges, with the red anthropomorphic blob Gummy at the helm on a trumpet. Nerds jump down the street, turning Shaboozey’s denim outfit into a colorful one as they pass by. They’re on their way to affixing themselves onto Gummy. Once the Nerds have all attached to Gummy, a whirlwind of color spreads through the streets and buildings.
“When two great things combine, it’s a wonderful world,” Shaboozey says at the end of the commercial.
Just like the sweet gummy center and tangy, crunchy outside of Nerds Gummy Clusters, Shaboozey’s multidimensional music style combines hip-hop and country. The singer’s rendition of “What a Wonderful World” – performed by Armstrong, a New Orleans native – blends his own style with that of a traditional second line band.
And Shaboozey’s growing popularity has coincided with that of Nerds Gummy Clusters.
“His rise to stardom the past year has really been meteoric,” Jenny Chen, a Nerds brand manager, told the Review. “Nerds’ business story over the past few years is on a similar trajectory.”
Shaboozey performed at the Grammys earlier this month. And last year, his track “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for 19 weeks, which tied with Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” for most weeks that a song has been at number one in a year.
When Forest Park-based Ferrara Candy Company bought Nerds in 2018, Nerds was a $50 million brand. Fast forward to last year, Nerds did $850 million in sales.
Chen said much of the company’s growth can be attributed to Nerds Gummy Clusters, which launched in 2020 and, over the last year, have seen a 50.2% year-over-year growth in retail dollar sales.
Last year’s Nerds Gummy Clusters Super Bowl commercial was the first for the Nerds brand. In it, “Flashdance…What a Feeling” plays as Gummy leans back on a chair, pulls a chain and is doused with Nerds.
And the commercial got a great response.
Since the 2024 Super Bowl, Chen said Nerds’ household penetration has increased by 4.3% to over 25%. That means about 33 million households in the United States buy Nerds.
Before Ferrara acquired the candy brand, Nerds’ marketing was mainly through social media and digital ads.
“It was when Nerds Gummy Clusters came out with such a bang that we started putting a lot more support behind it from a marketing perspective,” Chen said.
Celebrating at Ferrara
Nerds’ national success is visible inside the Ferrara plant at 7301 W. Harrison St. in Forest Park
“We definitely have seen an uptick in production,” Javier Reinoso, the senior plant director, said about Nerds, specifically Nerds Gummy Clusters, over the last year.
“Nerds by far is our number one product that we do here,” Reinoso said. Ferrara also makes candy like Sweet Tarts, Jelly Belly jellybeans and Lemonheads. But Reinoso said Nerds candy has been the plant’s fastest growing product.
As Ferrara started making more Nerds, it hired 130 employees last year to join the company’s community and expertise. Today, there are over 500 employees at the Forest Park candy factory, many of whom have been there for decades.
“We have a lot of experience, a lot of tenure and a lot of folks that really know how to make candy,” Reinoso said.
Even with years of candy knowledge, when Ferrara started making Nerds Gummy Clusters in 2020, there was a learning curve.
“It is a more complex product,” Reinoso said. “It’s not as simple as some other gummies because it requires the Nerds to fuse with the gummies.”
The process of learning how to make a new product contributed to the factory producing lower numbers of Nerds in 2020, but Chen and Reinoso largely attribute Nerds’ recent success to its Gummy Clusters.
And perhaps the Nerds brand will grow even more after this year’s Super Bowl commercial.
“We’re all so excited about this ad,” Chen said. “It’s so fun for us to see everything that we’ve worked on, and truly everyone at this company has a part to play in it.”
Reinoso said Ferrara celebrated this year’s commercial as a company with food and raffles. The event honored all its employees and their role in the Super Bowl success, whether or not they actually cared about the game.
“We also are very excited about the Super Bowl ad,” Reinoso said. At the factory, “a lot of people don’t necessarily watch football, but it intrigues them and so they are getting into it. We also celebrate that.”