Death Wish Dream Comes True with Super Bowl Ad

Members of the Death Wish Coffee team. Founder Mike Brown pictured far left.

Upstate New York’s Death Wish Coffee Company will have a 30-second ad spot next month during the Super Bowl, the most widely viewed television event in the United States.

While the average cost for 30-second ad placement in the Super Bowl these days costs approximately $4 million, Death Wish’s placement is courtesy of Intuit QuickBooks, which named the coffee company winner of its Small Business Big Game contest. The contest was open to small businesses of all kinds beginning in August, with 10 finalists announced late last year. Fan voting pushed Death Wish into the top spot.

The Death Wish commercial, featuring a ship full of vikings charging headlong into a violent storm, is called “Storm’s a Brewin.'”

The tempest-blown sea is a metaphor for Death Wish coffee itself, which the company boasts of being “the world’s strongest coffee” in terms of caffeine content — an attribute owner Mike Brown says results from a unique but undisclosed sourcing and roasting combination involving a Loring S35 roaster.

Brown founded Death Wish in 2012, and the company has since grown to nine employees, with offerings including wholesale coffee, packaged whole bean coffee and Keurig-compatible K-cups.