Death Wish Coffee’s Super Bowl Ad Puts Coffee Startup On The Map

With a name like Death Wish Coffee it’s no wonder your fans include heavy metal rockers and sleep-deprived truckers.

The New York startup coffee house is expecting to see a major spike in coffee sales this week after airing their first 30 second commercial during Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast.

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The 11-employee company from Saratoga Springs, which sells 1000 pounds of coffee a day, is getting international recognition for its ad called “Storm’s a-Brewin”. True to its extreme roots, the commercial features a ship full of Vikings rowing during a storm, presumably hyped up on the overly-caffeinated coffee brew.

Check it out:

What’s most interesting about the commercial, aside from its surprisingly polished look for a company that’s only three and half years old, is how the ad came into existence.

Death Wish Coffee is the smallest company to have an ad featured during Sunday’s big game. And that’s no easy feat. Considering the exorbitant cost of buying a Super Bowl ad spot – upwards of $5 million — the question that should be on everyone’s mind is, how on earth did they afford to get a spot?!

The answer lies in a small business contest by Intuit QuickBooks — an accounting software company for small businesses.

The coffee house won the coveted 30 second ad for free through a competition which encouraged companies with fewer than 50 employees to apply for a chance to win a Super Bowl ad.

Death Wish Coffee beat out more than 15000 other small businesses from pizza shops to jewelry makers to graphic designers by popular vote. Their ad was developed and produced by RPA, an agency also known for creating Honda’s Super Bowl ad this year.

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Death Wish Coffee’s spotlight at the Super Bowl this year is a powerful lesson to small business owners about how a contest can skyrocket your company to the next level. The first year QuickBooks held this competition in 2013 the winning toy company Goldieblox grew their business five-fold within a year. Death Wish Coffee founder Michael Brown is hoping for similar results.

For business owners looking to capitalize off of contest offerings, below is a list of three small business competitions that have similarly given major financial boosts to winning companies. The contests are funded by U.S. universities and mostly offer cash prizes: