Viewers of this past weekend’s Super Bowl LVIII tuned in for the commercials as much as they did the game. And for one viewer, Beverly Farms resident and chef Rosalie Harrington, the game marked the upcoming 40th anniversary of the award-winning Super Bowl XIX VISA ad that centered on her Marblehead restaurant, Rosalie’s.
“I was used to getting calls from Boston or around the North Shore, but after the Super Bowl we started getting calls from places like New Zealand. My regular customers started to complain,” laughed Harrington, adding that even regulars loved the restaurant’s sudden international notoriety.
The “Everywhere You Want To Be” campaign lasted more than two decades, and it was Rosalie’s that launched it all. And it worked. Within 10 years of the ad’s debut, customer spending with Visa increased from $25 million to about $92 million per year.
Even before the ad, Rosalie’s was a cult favorite of noteworthy customers like best-selling crime author Robert Parker or chicken king Frank Purdue. But the ad changed her life. “I still get asked about it to this day,” she said with a smile.
