Danny DeVito, Quarterback? Jersey Mike’s Makes the Impossible Happen

Want to stay ahead of the latest winning innovation trends? Innovation of the Week, powered by System1’s Test Your Innovation testing, is your regular spotlight on the newest concepts hitting the market.

When Jersey Mike’s signed up Danny DeVito as their first celebrity endorser in 2023, the potential was clear. DeVito has a deserved reputation as an actor who always brings his best to ads, delighting audiences with guest spots for brands like M&Ms and Nespresso. The sandwich restaurant was hiring a proven winner.

What people might not have predicted, though, is how successful the brand would be in using DeVito in synergy with another partnership, with the NFL. That sponsorship is entering its second year and the brand alongside agency Highdive have teamed DeVito up with Eli Manning in a combination that’s delivering surreal humour and great ads.

The concept – established with the 2025 football season ads – is that DeVito and Eli Manning have an unlikely rivalry. This year’s ad, “Stacked And Jacked”, sees DeVito become an extremely unlikely football star after his years of lifting Jersey Mike’s enormous stacked subs have given him a “golden arm”. A scout spots his incredible throw and a dazzling rise to stardom follows, with poor Eli Manning having to start his own sub lifting training to catch up.

It’s a silly, surreal and delightfully enjoyable ad which uses both its celebrity guests to excellent effect. At System1 we’ve learned that the key to using celebrities well is to magnify their public persona, and at the same time give the audience the excitement of seeing them in circumstances you never normally would.

So DeVito gets to act the loveable schlub he’s been playing so well for years, and his comedy means Eli Manning just has to act as his baffled foil. We get the amusement of seeing an unlikely triumph and the schadenfreude of watching a legend of the game in second place – even if it’s all a fantasy, those are still effective emotional levers for the audience.

The result is an ad that’s very strong in our Test Your Ad measures of creative effectiveness. “Stacked And Jacked” hits a 4.5-Star Rating, which puts it in the top 13% of its category. Fast Food and Coffee Shop ads tend to be good but not exceptional, clustering in the 3-Star range, so Jersey Mike’s is leveraging its celebrities well here to easily beat the norm. The ad also scores an Exceptional rating on our short-term Spike measure which predicts immediate sales boosts.

What an individual test can’t measure is the value of creative consistency, which our reports and studies – like Compound Creativity – show becomes more valuable over time. The longer you stick with a creative idea, be it a spokesperson, a brand platform, or a continued narrative like the DeVito/Manning rivalry, the more business impact it will have. As the Jersey Mike’s/NFL partnership hits its second year, the brand is producing ads which are extremely well set to make that impact a reality.