Planters Confirms the Death of Mr. Peanut

While Twitter is always a pretty strange place to be, Wednesday has brought a new level of strange thanks to a new marketing campaign from Planters. The company released a teaser for its Super Bowl ad on Wednesday morning that saw Mr. Peanut, the company’s iconic mascot, sacrifice his own life in order to save actors Matt Walsh and Wesley Snipes. In the teaser, the three friends are involved in a car accident and wind up hanging on a tree branch over the edge of a cliff. With the branch about to break, Mr. Peanut lets go and falls to his death, the car they were in exploding upon his landing.

This is easily one of the strangest ad campaigns in quite a while, but it has certainly worked for Planters. The death of Mr. Peanut has been trending throughout the day, dominating conversation on social media. The Mr. Peanut account has gone all-in on the campaign as well, changing its name to The Estate of Mr. Peanut in effort to drive home the point. In two subsequent tweets the account has confirmed Mr. Peanut’s death.

“It is with heavy hearts that we confirm that Mr. Peanut has died at 104,” reads the tweet. “In the ultimate selfless act, he sacrificed himself to save his friends when they needed him most. Please pay your respects with #RIPeanut.”

This first tweet contains a graphic that says “In memory of Mr. Peanut” along with the years of his birth and death, which confused all of Twitter when it was first shared on Wednesday morning. Things were cleared up shortly after when a second tweet shared the teaser for the Super Bowl ad.

“We’re devastated to confirm that Mr. Peanut is gone,” the account wrote in the second message. “He died doing what he did best – having people’s backs when they needed him most.”

In addition to the changing of its name from Mr. Peanut to The Estate of Mr. Peanut, the Twitter account also updated its bio and profile picture to fit with the storyline. The new picture is a black and white picture of Mr. Peanut’s monocle with a teardrop falling from it. The bio reads, “The official Twitter of the Estate of Mr. Peanut (1916-2020)”.

The second half of the Planters ad will play during the Super Bowl on February 2nd, so we’ll see if Mr. Peanut miraculously finds a way back to life.