What Song Is Playing In Kia's Emotional Super Bowl Commercial?

Electric cars are one major advertising focus during the 2024 Super Bowl. For example, a BMW Super Bowl commercial starring Christopher Walken spotlights an electric sedan. Kia's Super Bowl LVIII commercial is also advertising an electric car through the story of a young figure skater bringing her routine to her ailing grandfather's mountain cabin. A Kia EV9 SUV powers a set of lights and a speaker that enhances her routine in the emotional ad.

Underscoring all of this melodrama is the song "Wish I Was Here" by Cat Power and Coldplay. Originally, this was recorded for the 2014 film of the same name, which was "Scrubs" star Zach Braff's directorial follow-up to "Garden State." In an interview with Pitchfork about how the song and the pairing of artists behind it came to be, Braff shared that Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin was the first to suggest bringing in a woman to sing the movie's title track. "When Chris and I were talking, we both kind of simultaneously said, 'Cat Power.' I reached out to Chan Marshall (a.k.a. Cat Power) and she and I met and really clicked," Braff said.

While the "Wish I Was Here" song is divorced from its original movie context in Kia's Super Bowl commercial, its distinct mood of melancholy colored by an undercurrent of hope is befitting for the ad's brief story nevertheless.

As has become relatively standard for brands airing commercials during the big game, Kia premiered its Super Bowl ad online a few days before kickoff. Around the same time the commercial dropped, Ad Age published a piece about its creation.

"Our goal is to inspire the world's biggest audience with a Super Bowl experience that evokes that emotion felt when creating something incredible from power; with the hope it motivates them to bring their own power to life," said David Angelo, founder of the advertising agency David&Goliath. Incorporating Cat Power and Coldplay's song "Wish I Was Here," then, is part of how Angelo and his team at David&Goliath aimed to achieve this goal, pairing a heartstring-tugging story with emotional music.

The Ad Age piece also revealed that the commercial's young figure skating star is not a trained actor but a student at a performing arts school in Toronto who landed the part in an audition that spanned 26 cities. Choreographing her routine was Toronto-born professional figure skater Elizabeth Putnam.

Even though the spot is only just about a minute in length, from an extensive search for its star to its use of a popular licensed song, the team behind the commercial seems to have made a genuine effort to create something more substantial than a typical advertisement.