Kamaaina company rolls out first Super Bowl ad

This year’s high-priced lineup of Super Bowl commercials will feature a brand familiar to many longtime locals as King’s Hawaiian r olls out what’s believed to be the game’s first national spot for a company with strong Hawaii ties.

The 30-second spot, dubbed “False Cabinet,” is slated to run during the fourth quarter, said King’s Hawaiian Vice President of Marketing Erick Dickens. “We’re looking for a close game,” he quipped Tuesday. Such spots are slated to cost an average of $5 million this year, according to a recent New York Times report.

The family- owned company based in Torrance, Calif., is mainly known for its Hawaii- style sweet bread. It started as a Hilo bakery in the 1950s and expanded the next decade to King’s Bakery on King Street, which operated there until the 1990s, according to Dickens. It currently operates a restaurant-bakery and a separate cafe in Torrance, as well as a baking operation north of Atlanta, he said.

The company has been advertising nationally since 2014, Dickens said. The spot for the Super Bowl, which draws the nation’s largest audience for commercials, aims to target more male viewers and introduce the brand’s barbecue sauce, he added.

“False Cabinet” features a man hiding a package of rolls in a hole in the wall where he thinks his family won’t find them — but his son and a friend take them through the other side. It took the company nearly a year to develop and complete the spot even though it’s part of an advertising campaign that launched about two years ago, Dickens said.

Dickens said the company couldn’t share any of its sales information, but he added that King’s expects to earn back what it paid for the Super Bowl ad as it looks to expand its brand recognition across the mainland.