You probably know filmmaker and actor Taika Waititi from directing work like the Marvel movie Thor: Ragnarok or the Oscar-award-winning film Jojo Rabbit. What you might not know is that he’s also the creative mind behind multiple Old Spice ads, a bout of early 2010s PSAs for his home country of New Zealand, and some of the most iconic Super Bowl commercials of all time.
From the early days of his career, between directing short films and appearing in acting gigs, Waititi has kept up a consistent cadence of ad work, ranging from spots for local names like the New Zealand Transport Agency to bigger brands like Samsung. Even as his Hollywood work has expanded, ad work remains a consistent part of his creative churn.
In 2025, Waititi directed three different spots for the Super Bowl. This year, he’s returning to America’s biggest game with a new spot for Pepsi. Waititi says he keeps coming back to the Super Bowl for the same reason he’s done ad work for decades: it keeps his creative muscles firing.
“Selfishly, I’ve used the world of making commercials as my filmmaking gym,” he says.
Inside Pepsi’s new Super Bowl spot
Waititi’s 2026 return to the Super Bowl comes via a Pepsi spot titled “The Choice,” set to Queen’s I Want to Break Free. The ad carries on Pepsi’s long tradition of lightheartedly bashing its main rival, Coca-Cola, by signaling the superiority of its cola’s taste. This time, Pepsi turned to one of Coca-Cola’s most iconic symbols as the star of its new Cola War spot: the Coca-Cola polar bear.
“I feel like I’ve been watching the [Cola Wars] all my life, and so it was pretty fun just to take part in that and because it’s an iconic relationship that they’ve got,” Waititi says. He adds that the spot’s bear-centric storyline was already established before he joined the project, and that “my main job when it comes to these things is just to help solidify the tone, carry that through, and make sure that it’s fun and watchable.”
The bear has appeared in Coca-Cola’s advertising as far back as 1922, including in some of its most beloved Christmas ads. In “The Choice,” he’s faced with the reality that he actually prefers Pepsi over Coke after conducting a blind taste-test of the two sodas. The realization drives him to his therapist (played by Waititi himself), before he ultimately “breaks free” from Coca-Cola and enjoys a Pepsi in, weirdly enough, a parody of the viral Coldplay kiss cam moment from last summer.
Why ads are Taika Waititi’s creative gym
Before Waititi ever became a household name, many of his clever, absurdist spots had already cemented themselves in the canon of advertising acclaim. Along the way, those projects were quietly shaping his creative voice and informing his larger projects.
In 2008, Waititi directed a series of ads for Pot Noodle, including one surrealist spot called “Moussaka Rap”; a loosely Eminem-inspired song about the greek casserole. In 2011, he tackled another rap video for Sour Patch Kids and an underwater ballad for Cadbury. His first big break in the ad world—and one of his most recognizable spots to this day—was NBC’s 2012 Super Bowl bash “Brotherhood of Man,” which featured talent from on-air shows at the time like The Office and Parks and Recreation (as well as a now cringe-inducing cameo from The Apprentice’s Donald Trump), and which had such a fraught production that it’s inspired entire think pieces.
“What I remember about that was just how fun it was to visit all of these different TV shows and work with all of these people,” Waititi says, adding with a laugh, “Let’s not talk about everyone that I worked on that with.”
Waititi took a hiatus from the big game to produce iconic spots like Air New Zealand’s 2014 Lord of the Rings-inspired “The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made,” featuring Elijah Wood; and a 2018 series of heavy hitters for Old Spice. By the time he returned to directing for the Super Bowl in 2025, Waititi was both an Oscar and Grammy winner. His spots last year—a heartstring-pulling ad for Lays, two shorts for Homes.com featuring Morgan Freeman, and a brain-rottingly ridiculous ad for Mountain Dew starring humanoid seals—were all met with a hearty dose of acclaim.
For Waititi, ad direction isn’t just a side gig; it’s a tool that’s shaped his career. In the periods between filming larger projects, he uses commercials to test new jokes, try out character ideas, experiment with VFX, and work on new camera and lighting techniques. If he feels like they’re “really good,” he says, he can use them in a film at some point down the road.
“It’s fun to play with the creative space, and it’s not as risky for me when I’m making commercials,” Waititi says. “It’s just kind of a play space, really—a nice big sandpit.”
