Just when we could’ve used a laugh to lighten the mood here in Seattle, we, along with the other 154,000,000 Super Bowl viewers, were treated to a pummeling of socially conscious ads aimed at the heart. (Okay, there were a few jokes thrown in there, but only fraction of the usual.)
Of course, we can’t talk about the Super Bowl as an advertising event; it’s an advertising season. Just like Christmas advertising keeps creeping closer to Halloween, brands are launching teasers and their actual Super Bowl spots earlier and earlier online. By the time the game came on, I was actually bored of the Budweiser puppy. And I saw the ending of Mercedes’ Tortoise and the Hare race before I started seeing the teasers, which aired during the game. Hmm.
This year leaned to the serious and feel-good. Dads were on trend with not one, but two, car companies (Nissan and Toyota) telling the story of a dad’s relationship with his child through the teens. Both ended with dad crying in his car. Nice sentiment, but I couldn’t help but feel like everyone was working off of the same marketing strategy and desperately trying to link it to their brand. Dove also told the story of how caring for his family makes dad strong. Again, a very nice spot, but the link between the concept and the brand was forced.
McDonalds and Coca Cola took the positivity high road respectively with their “Lovin’” and “Make it happy” campaigns. Both had spots that were just fine. The ideas took off when they started marketing real-time on social to engage some of the 85% of people who watch TV while also looking at their phones (or in my case, my computer and my phone). McD’s gave away items from everyone else’s TV spots in sweepstakes people could enter just be retweeting. They even gave away free pedicures during the toe fungus medication commercial. They ended up getting 1,000,000 retweets by the night’s end. Sure, that’s not even 1% of Super Bowl viewers, but those are people actively engaging with the brand.
The party foul of the night goes to Nationwide Insurance, who went way over the top in trying to start a conversation about preventable deaths by airing an ad with a kid who talks to us about how he is missing out on things his life, like riding a bike and getting married, because he’s…dead. People called BS in a big way because Nationwide is not in the business of death-prevention but insurance. And because, well, it made their kids cry during a happy, family event.
On the flipside, No More, the domestic violence support organization funded by the NFL, aired a powerful spot depicting a real 911 call in which a woman pretended she was calling for pizza so her abuser wouldn’t know. This spot was highly relevant in the context of the Super Bowl given the NFL’s share of domestic violence scandals over the past year. Perhaps that’s why people tolerated depressing interruption better than Nationwide’s spot.
I have to say, I was getting a bit wistful for the big funny spots with celebrities and surprise endings that we have come to know and love on the Super Bowl. There were a few, just not enough, in my view. I loved the incredibly funny Snickers spot set in the Brady Bunch home with Danny Trejo playing Marsha and Steve Buschemi playing Jan in the newest iteration of the long-running “You’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign.
But the most genius use of a celebrity goes to Clash of Clans for featuring Liam Neeson’s acting as his character from the Taken movies. It was hysterical to see Neeson spew his angry vow of revenge at the characters on his phone while picking up a pastry at a coffee shop. This was my favorite spot of the night.
Also, to my pleasant surprise, there were funny spots starring women as dimensional characters instead of just sex objects—Mindy Kaling for Nationwide (they should have just run that spot twice) and Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman for T-Mobile (again, they should have run that spot twice instead of running the fake PSA starring Kim Kardashian—ick!).
All in all, a pretty good advertising and football season. Minus the last 30 seconds. Next year, Hawks!
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