• Crock-Pot is winning at the Super Bowl without spending a single dollar.
  • Crock-Pot found itself at the center of a social media maelstrom when “This is Us” revealed that the cause of the house fire that killed Jack Pearson was a faulty slow cooker.
  • But NBC extended some support to the brand, with a hilarious new ad for the show featuring Milo Ventimiglia eating some chili made in a Crock-Pot.
  • Since the slow-cooker episode of This Is Us first aired on Jan. 23, digital content engagement around Crock-Pot has increased by 154%.

Crock-Pot is winning at the Super Bowl without spending a single dollar.

The brand found itself at the center of a social media maelstrom when “This is Us” revealed that the cause of the house fire that killed Jack Pearson was a faulty slow cooker.

The company went on the defensive without even being actually named, assuring fans online that its slow cookers do not spontaneously burst open, killing people. And today, it got support from the NBC show itself, with a hilarious new ad for the show featuring Milo Ventimiglia eating some chili made in – you guessed it – a Crock-Pot.

He starts off in a somber tone, about how the country is divided. And just when you assume he’s talking about politics, he opens up a Crock-Pot full of chili and serves himself a bowl, making it clear that he was talking about forgiving the Crock-Pot. The screen then flashes the Crock-Pot logo, and the hashtag #CrockPotIsInnocent appeared on the screen.

On Feb. 3, after the "This Is Us" ad supporting the slow cooker was released, digital content engagement around Crock-Pot increased by 84%, according to data crunched by Amobee.

Further, there were nearly 2,000 tweets using the hashtag #CrockPotIsInnocent on February 3, 2018 with sentiment around that hashtag being 57% positive, and the most common sentiment being that it was hilarious and a brilliant promotion for Crock-Pot.

Overall, since the slow-cooker episode of "This Is Us" first aired on Jan. 23, digital content engagement around Crock-Pot has increased by 154% as compared to the time period between Jan. 11 -22, 2018. Since then, 57% of all Crock-Pot digital content engagement has been This Is Us-related, with 29% of all Crock-Pot digital content engagement being Super Bowl-related.

"The overwhelming positive sentiment around the #CrockPotIsInnocent hashtag reaffirms that not only are 'This Is Us' fans able to tell the difference between a fictional storyline and the reliability of the real product, but that they have a sense of humor around their favorite show as well," said Jonathan Cohen, principal brand analyst at Amobee.

"With brands paying millions of dollars to appear on NBC around the Super Bowl, not only is Crock-Pot going to be front and center for free, now they're even a #JusticeForBarb like meme for This Is Us fans to rally around."

Watch the ad here.