Death Wish Coffee's history with the Big Game

Watch our 2016 Big Game Commercial that changed it all for DWC

Back in 2015, Death Wish Coffee dreamed of having a commercial in the Big Game — but we didn't have millions of dollars lying around to make that dream a reality. So instead, we decided to enter the Intuit Quickbooks Small Business Big Game Competition, with the winner getting a commercial aired during historic Super Bowl 50. Little did we know that one decision would change the trajectory of this company forever.

The odds seemed insurmountable, as we were up against 15,000 other small businesses around the country. The power of our Death Wish Coffee community was even greater than we could imagine, and thanks to all of the unending votes from our fans, we soon found out we were a top-ten company in the running for the grand prize.

Our founder, Mike Brown, was flown out to San Jose, California, where Death Wish Coffee was announced as one of the top three businesses still in the running. As the anticipating built, all we could do was wait. When we finally got a call from Intuit Quickbooks, they said they were flying out to crown us with the runner-up spot.

We were beyond excited to have made it that far — but bummed we didn't win the whole thing. But just how we like to mess with each other in the office, it turned out that Intuit Quickbooks has a similar sense of humor. Instead of presenting us with the runner-up spot, they actually wanted to be there in person to surprise Mike Brown on camera and tell us we had won!

There, on the spot, they filmed that exact moment, and you can see the genuine surprise and delight on all of our faces when they revealed their secret.

After we had a little too much fun celebrating, we had to put our heads together to create and produce the commercial. An award-winning creative team sat down with Mike Brown to come up with the perfect idea and then get to work making it a reality. 

On the day of the Big Game, we all watched the commercial as it reached millions of viewers, and Death Wish Coffee was never the same.

We couldn't have done that without people like YOU — our passionate, caring community. Some of you have been with us since the days when we were packing coffee in the basement of a coffee shop, and some of you have been with us since seeing this epic commercial on your TV during Super Bowl 50. Whenever you found us, we will never be able to express how much your ongoing support of Death Wish Coffee means to us, and how you fuel us to continue to do all the things we love.

So brew another cup and get ready for this year's Big Game, along with hopefully some cool and entertaining commercials, but maybe none as amazing as ours from a few years ago.

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