GRAND FORKS – To be featured in a 30-second ad that aired during the televised Super Bowl event Sunday, Feb. 9, was “definitely” a first for 3 Farm Daughters, a Grand Forks-based pasta company, said Mollie Ficocello.
The ad is part of Google’s “50 for 50” campaign, highlighting a business in each state, said Ficocello, who, with her sisters, founded 3 Farm Daughters, which sells pasta products in grocery stores nationwide.
The spot is knit together with scenes of everyday life, showing the sisters as busy moms and entrepreneurs, working on the farm, making pasta and being surrounded by their very young children.
In the voice-over, Ficocello says she and her sisters grew up in Grand Forks and the family has farmed their land for 30 years. Their pasta is not enriched, she said, and “people love that it’s nutritious straight from the farm.”
“We’re all sisters and moms,” she says in the ad. “There’s only so much time in the day,” then describing how Google software aids in marketing efforts.
She closes the ad saying, “I have the flexibility to be the mom I want to be and run a business.”
The process of creating the spot for the Super Bowl began last fall.
“In doing research with North Dakota, (Google employees) came across our company,” Ficocello said. “We use their products – such as Google Workspace – to help with our business.
“So they reached out to us as a company and asked if we wanted to be part of this campaign they were working on.”
Ficocello responded to their email inquiry; that was followed by an interview about “what (Google) products we use and how we use it,” she said, “and from there they selected us.”
Google sent a nine-member production team, which traveled throughout the Midwest to gather footage for the ads, Ficocello said.
“They spent a day with us,” she said, noting that she did a one-hour interview with the producer. “They (shot) the footage and did all the recording of the voice-overs. And from that they put the story together as to how Google works with our business.”
For this ad campaign, there was no cost to 3 Farm Daughters, Ficocello said. “We were able to be one of the companies that they highlighted as part of their campaign.”
Ficocello, the “middle daughter,” founded the company along with her sisters Grace Lunski and Annie Gorder. They operate it along with their cousin and partner Michael Sproule.
As a result of the exposure during Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast, “we’ve had a lot of outreach on social (media),” Ficocello said. “We saw a big spike on our website visits and things like that. So, definitely a lot of outreach on that side of it.”
Being part of the Google ad campaign was unique, she said.
“It was an exciting experience for my sisters and my family. … It’s kind of a fun way for those larger companies to come around small businesses and highlight them regionally,” she said. “It was just a great way to kind of get more exposure for our companies as well.”
The ad was broadcast by KVRR-TV in this region, Ficocello said. In each state, a broadcast outlet was chosen to air the ad about that state’s selected company.
“I think (Google is) going to be sharing (the ads) on its social platforms,” she said.