Advertising Thingys

Super Bowl 57 Grins and Groans

Nader Ashway3 Comments

Congratulations (choke!) to the (cough!) Kansas City Chiefs on another (gag!) well-earned Super Bowl victory. Sorry, but when you’re a fan of another team, it hurts to give props to anyone else. #GoBills.

Aside from the football, there was, of course, the advertising. And it was anything BUT super this year. Really just a strange mix of blah ideas, very few risks taken, heavy on celebrities, light on diversity and originality. So here goes.

GRINS

While there was not much to celebrate, there were a few ads that stood out this year. Like the game, it was pretty slow going in the first half, and then revved up after the halftime show. While we’re at halftime, I don’t know enough about Rihanna’s music to say if it was good or bad, but I was pretty impressed with the floating stages, the drone shots, and the visual intrigue that was created. Also, she basically put on a 15-minute commercial for her fashion and beauty brands Fenty and Savage X Fenty, while announcing her pregnancy to the world. Good on her. At least SOMEBODY got the idea about marketing during the Super Bowl.

I’ll give it up to Ben Affleck, shilling for Dunkin’ at the drive thru. JLo ordering him to “bring me a glazed” was pretty funny. ETrade brings the babies back again this year, but at least it was funny, with a few killer lines and lots of cute kids being AI’d into silly dialogue.

In a meta spot for T-Mobile, Bradley Cooper and his mom couldn’t finish the commercial, but still managed to get some important feature points across about the Price Lock guarantee. And Michelob Ultra revived Caddyshack (twice, actually) with Brian Cox, Serena Williams and Tony Romo standing in for Ted Knight, Chevy Chase and Bill Murray. Probably completely lost on anyone born after 1975, but still, beer and golf play well together.

Adam Driver was tongue-in-cheek enough to deliver a pretty solid message for Squarespace, repeating the core premise “a website that makes websites.” And Super Bowl 57 was heavy on 90’s nostalgia with Diddy doing a sort of it’s-not-a-jingle commercial for Uber Eats. Oh, and Jennifer Coolidge is just plain funny. Her over-the-top antics for E.L.F. cosmetics, using the “sticky” gag was delicious!

And while we’re talking about celebrities being a little self-effacing, props to Sarah McLachlan for spoofing herself in a beer ad for Busch Light, where she – almost – launches into one of her “save the pets” PSAs, only to find out it’s the “wrong shelter, Sarah…also, that’s a wolf.” Funny. And I have to say, John Travolta reviving “Summer Nights” with Zach Braff and Donald Faison for T-Mobile in-home wifi was well-executed and had some really funny lines, (and a nice three-part harmony!) including feature points like “it’s just fifty bucks.” Mr. Peanut also allowed himself to get “roasted” by Jeff Ross and others in a smart turn of phrase. And Dave Grohl (who is a great comedic pitchman) celebrated all the exports of Canada in a cheeky spot (and a nice not-so-serious approach) for Crown Royal. A refreshing detour from typical spirits ads.

Three honorable mentions:

Nick Jonas for Dexcom, a diabetes monitoring device and corresponding app, was remarkably well-done and should be an indication that they’re targeting a younger demographic. After all, that target is more likely to embrace lifesaving tech without a second thought, and more likely to know who this kid is. And having a JoBro deliver the message actually makes it seem fairly cool. Smart!

The Pop Corners spot, which was executed wonderfully by Aaron Paul, Bryan Cranston and Raymond Cruz (known colloquially as Jesse, Mr. White and Tuco,) of Breaking Bad fame, was hilarious and well-played, especially by Cruz doing his over-the-top hyper-excited drug dealer shouting “SEVEN!” for the amount of flavors he wants. Be careful; the joke is a little lost if you don’t get the references, but if you do, it’s gold.

Tubi used a few sneaky tactics to get our attention. The best was the eerie spot of giant rabbits kidnapping humans and tossing them into “rabbit holes” of content. Pretty out there, and pretty good. We all use the term “I went down a rabbit hole” when we talk about binging, and this was a smart callback to that vernacular. But their “and now back to the game” cutoff, where we thought we were going back to Super Bowl coverage (with Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen) and then got duped into another spot was masterful. It helps that Tubi is a Fox-owned streaming service. They would win the under-the-radar advertiser of the year for sure.

THREE CLEAR WINNERS:

KIA – “Binky Dad”

Kia goes big on a situation that virtually every dad can relate to. They turn it into a determination story, with a hero, a challenge, (not to mention the Bill Conti “Rocky” theme song in the background,) and lots of excitement along the way. This is good advertising: just slightly over the top, but with enough truth and substance at the heart of it that it’s totally believable, even if exaggerated. The SUV has all the capability it needs to turn off road, jump through a concrete water main pipe, and generally haul ass in the service of “getting the baby’s binky.” Cue the poor-dad-you-got-it-wrong-anyway joke at the end, and you have a very satisfying, super entertaining and moderately informative Super Bowl commercial.

DORITOS – “Triangle”

Pop/rap star Jack Harlow seeks something “different” in this spot for Doritos. He ditches rap, and instead takes up playing the triangle, which sets off a national phenomenon. People go crazy for triangles, Harlow starts giving triangle lessons, and he hopes to win triangle player of the year, until he’s usurped by Elton John. Over the top, funny, and sneaky on point: Doritos are, of course, triangle-shaped snack chips. Although the brand is widely known, it’s a return to a simple “what makes you different” focus. That’s good strategy, and it turned out to be very good advertising.

WORKDAY – “Rock Stars”

Corporate types like to call each other “rock stars.” In this spot, some actual rock stars take offense, and provide background to remind Workday, the corporate Finance and HR software platform, that just using it to your advantage does NOT make you an actual rock star. Joan Jett, Billy Idol, Gary Clark Jr, and a hilarious turn by Ozzy Osbourne (“Hi, I’m Oswald,”) make this a glitzy, big, funny, and SUPER memorable spot. I often talk about performance, and how important an element that is in good commercial-making. Paul Stanley plays it perfectly – a little miffed faux-seriousness and a well-delivered comedic performance by him in particular. Best spot of the night, and it wasn’t even close.

GROANS

Sorry to say it, but this Super Bowl was full of groans. Most of it was just boring, or unremarkable, including all the movie promos. Anna Faris in a tired Garden of Eden trope for Avocados from Mexico…hard to follow, which just didn’t make you want to buy or investigate the product in any way. Some gaming company (LimitBreak) did another QR code trick in the first pod, which is the definition of “too soon” after last year’s semi-groundbreaking approach from Coinbase (which crashed their servers, btw.)

Generally, most of the spots just relied too heavily on celebrity to (hopefully) make an impression. Most were misses, like Hellmann’s (Jon Hamm, Brie Larson and a creepy Pete Davidson,) Skechers (Snoop Dogg, Martha Stewart and a funny Tony Romo,) and Paul Rudd as Ant-Man for a non-alcoholic Heineken beer.

The most egregious celebrity-filled spot was the DraftKings “name” spot, where Kevin Hart and others work through a script that was written JUST for the celebrities in the spot. This is a celebrity ad for celebrity ad’s sake kind of approach. Hart says “I’m not an under-taker” just as WWE star Undertaker appears. Or “that’s ludicrous,” when rapper Ludacris appears. Or worse yet, “I’m watching you like a hawk” as skateboarder Tony Hawk tries to get into the party. Just not great advertising, and expensive too!

BIGGEST GROANS

GM and Netflix teamed up in one of two co-branded spots Netflix did on the night. (The other was a decent pitch for their upcoming “Full Swing” reality show about professional golfers with Michelob Ultra that reprised the Caddyshack theme.) In this spot, Will Ferrell (whose comic genius was utterly wasted in this spot) drives around in an all-electric truck through various scenes of popular Netflix shows. Each line of the script is crafted around popular Netflix shows, but if you a.) don’t have Netflix or b.) don’t watch those particular shows, you’re out of the jokes completely. It’s confusing at best, and self-congratulatory at worst.

WeatherTech continues their participation in the Super Bowl, although most of us wish they wouldn’t. The ad starts out with promise, with various people telling WeatherTech “you can’t do that” when they want to build a factory in the US, and hire bright talent in the US. But it veers off into more patting of their own backs. The ad says “ha! See? We did it, and we’re successful, so there!” There’s nothing of value there for the consumer to hear. Nothing about translating those higher costs and more expensive employees into great quality products, or shorter shipping times, or that you can find the products at stores where you live. Nah, just “we’re awesome. Go America.” Sadly, some people will say it was a great commercial for that exact reason. Ugh.

Pepsi Zero Sugar wins the ignominious award for worst spots of the Super Bowl. There were two of them, actually, which makes it doubly disappointing. Here’s the setup: Ben Stiller and Steve Martin do some acting in various comic and dramatic situations, and talk about the “craft” of acting, and how you never know what’s real and what’s acting. Okay, we’re listening. But then, they take a sip of Pepsi Zero Sugar and exclaim “wow – that’s delicious!” (And this is where it goes awry.) Then they turn to the camera and ask, “or was I acting?” Now, in their defense, the setup is built to deliver the next line “only way to find out is to try it for yourself.” So you could argue there’s a strong call to action to go out and try the product. That’s fair. But let’s remember that the mind is the marketplace when it comes to advertising, and even the mere suggestion that an actor is faking it creates too much doubt. We are all willing to suspend our disbelief when we see commercials, but you never want the consumer wondering if the actor was indeed acting. If you think the pitchman was bullshitting you, and then he admits he might be, I don’t know…that just doesn’t seem like a strong selling idea to me. The better angle would have been to go over the top, and try and plead for the audience’s understanding by saying “no, really…I’m NOT acting right now…this stuff is GREAT!” They got too cute, and I think it cost them.

Until next year…yay advertising!

Here’s mud in your A.I.

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If you’ve been paying attention to the industry news, there’s been a LOT of chatter about AI, (artificial intelligence,) and its various applications. And some of them are really intriguing and useful. With the ability to run predictive diagnostics, artificial intelligence (better described as data-driven machine learning,) is ideal for applications that can benefit from robust and speedy automation.

As is our way, it doesn’t take long for something useful and intriguing to be repurposed into something base and silly. Case in point: AI is also being used now for some fairly sophisticated parlour tricks, like recreating the Mona Lisa.

(Moves soapbox to the foreground.)

But the application of AI in marketing, and most specifically in the creative process, is really (in this sentient blogger’s opinion,) an overreach.

There’s no data set for creativity. In fact, there are no rules. What makes something “creative” is that it is indeed CREATED. By a human being. Part of why we buy paintings, and music and novels and sculpture is because we know there’s a backstory of someone who sweat it out in a studio or at the typewriter. Someone whose fingers bled. Someone who made mistakes, and tried variations, and threw whole passages in a trash can. We celebrate that humanity and that pain and the entire process when we consume anything creative. Not just the end result.

The same is true in marketing. Writing anything – an ad, a blog post, a commercial script – is hard. It’s taking business rules and mandatories into consideration and asking a creative person to then do intellectual gymnastics, linking sometimes disparate ideas in unexpected ways, without a net. Can you write an algorithm for that? Sure, but the results are likely to be shit – the kind of shit a hack would conjure.

For instance, you’ve probably seen these kinds of promotions for having AI write your next blog post.

What’s really happening there? I don’t claim to have knowledge of any of their algorithms, but I’d bet my last dollar that these are search bots that crawl the web for every piece of content written in the last 10 years about a particular subject. They ingest this huge data set, pick out bits and pieces using sorting criteria that prioritize those with the most clicks, comments and instances, and then rearrange and reconstruct a new version for you.

That’s not creating. That’s recreating at best. And theft at worst.

ChatGPT, the latest and supposedly greatest iteration of AI language prowess, has added a sexy wrinkle into their algorithm. Instead of just swiping content and repurposing it, it adds a level of dialogue formatting to make it sound more conversational, and thus more natural and believable. It claims to “answer follow-up questions” and “admits its mistakes.” And given that it is machine-based learning, it gets “better” the more often it’s used. (It’s driving educators crazy, as students who use it can be deemed to be cheating, not researching.)

What a paradox: a machine learning model that improves the more often it’s used, but also degrades the craft proportionately in the process. [Some disclosures: OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT is funded in part by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and just got a billion dollar injection of capital from Microsoft.]

In a recent viral kerfuffle on social media, recording artist Nick Cave (throaty lead singer with The Bad Seeds) reacted to a song that was “written” by ChatGPT “in the style of Nick Cave.” He could not have put it any better:

“Songs arise out of suffering, by which I mean they are predicated upon the complex, internal human struggle of creation and, well, as far as I know, algorithms don’t feel. Data doesn’t suffer. ChatGPT has no inner being, it has been nowhere, it has endured nothing, it has not had the audacity to reach beyond its limitations, and hence it doesn’t have the capacity for a shared transcendent experience, as it has no limitations from which to transcend. ChatGPT’s melancholy role is that it is destined to imitate and can never have an authentic human experience, no matter how devalued and inconsequential the human experience may in time become.”

Okay, back to marketing, and particularly the art of writing good advertising. Part of the craft is developing a sense of counterintuitive thought and embracing lateral thinking. Another big part is the symbiotic relationship of the headline and the image. But so much of modern advertising is about contextualizing the brand into the cultural moment from which it arises.

Think of how many great headlines and taglines would never – could never – be written by AI, by virtue of this necessity for divergence and a sense of the cultural periphery.

“Think Small” from DDB was a radical notion at the dawn of the 1960s. As Americans – less than two decades removed from World War II – were upwardly mobile, one of the most pervasive (and comical) trends in automobile-dom was an oblique obsession with size. Bigger was better, and American cars looked like ocean liners. The nation was also wildly nationalistic at the time, and DDB’s assignment was to sell a small, quirky German car to this audience.

To get to the heart of these cultural undertones and suggest an opposite notion was a radical idea. And paired with the spare art direction (bless you Helmut Krone) and that sea of white space, it became a touchstone for our industry. Could AI ever reach that level of insight? Of rebelliousness? Of sheer chutzpah?

“Think Different.” When this campaign (from TBWA/Chiat/Day) was released in the 1990s, it was paired with images of pioneering artists, thinkers and doers, like Einstein, Picasso and Miles Davis. It also featured zero body copy. What’s so interesting about the head/tagline is that it’s not even good English. But it was a fine encapsulation of the Apple brand in that moment and what it stood for. Would AI dare to break grammar rules to create an emotional response?

I suppose it’s mildly ironic, or at least cheeky, that I chose two classic advertising examples that use the word “think” in the headlines. And perhaps that’s exactly what I’m driving at, and what Nick Cave was fuming at.

Maybe I’m an old fart, but I prefer the consternation. The suffering. The pacing and the waiting and the wondering if this “idea” has legs. Give me time to think about what’s going on in the world. Give me the sudden burst of insight when the neurons start to fire. Give me the end of the sentence that starts with “wouldn’t it be cool if…” Give me a person, thinking about another person, and getting them to actually think different.

There’s nothing artificial about that.

Super Bowl 56 Grins and Groans

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Super Bowl 56, the second super bowl to feature a team winning in their home stadium (total coincidence) is in the books, and so are the 70 or so ads. There was a lot of pre-game hype, with the game being in Los Angeles, at a brand new stadium, with the “mega” halftime show (that wasn’t that mega,) and of course, all the leaked ads.

Ultimately, it turned out to be about a six – and this has been a trend over the last several years…there are no ads that are flat out terrible, and no ads that are tear-your-hair-out great. Super Bowl has become an expensive arena for fairly vanilla ad executions. Maybe it’s our ticklish cancel culture that lurks around every corner. They could have been better. But there were some highlights.

Crypto had its coming out party this year, with five spots for various coins, platforms and exchanges making themselves known to a broader audience. So did electric vehicles. Snack foods and sodas were noticeably absent. And while celebrities are always a staple of Super Bowl ads, this year went extra heavy on the celebs, with a side of celebs, and then had celebs for dessert. (Perhaps big ideas are delayed due to supply chain issues?)

SOME HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Hologic – Mary J. Blige gets major props for a.) embracing her age as an asset and b.) for encouraging others to get regular mammogram screenings. This is an issue that many celebrities might politely duck out on, but Ms. Blige got to shine in an important public service announcement-meets-healthcare-ad.

Expedia.com tapped Ewan McGregor for a solid spot that poked fun at previous Super Bowl ads (including a couple nice little jabs at Budweiser and Bud Light,) while choosing “experiences” over “stuff.”  This was a solid idea, elegantly executed in the meta style, for a brand that is about to get super busy when people start traveling again. Well done!

BMW’s all-electric iX got a nice, um, jolt from Zeus and Hera (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Selma Hayak) in a cute spot, where Zeus retires to Palm Springs, only to find it leaves him flat. BMW reinvigorates his godliness, with some nice turns, including a pet Pegasus and a closing frame with Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue” to keep this one fresh. Overall, a well-made, well-executed ad from a brand that has learned to take itself less seriously over the last couple of years.

Chevrolet hawked its new, all-electric Silverado with a perfectly executed nod to the legend of the Sopranos television show. Actors  Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Robert Iler reprise their roles as Meadow and AJ, in what looks like a rebooted back story to the final Sopranos episode. Fans of the show will notice she had no problem parking this time!

FTX recruited Larry David to do his “Larry David” thing, saying “no” to epic discoveries and inventions throughout history like the wheel, the fork, the toilet, and the light bulb.  So when he says no to FTX, “a safe and easy way to get into Crypto,” the joke works great. As far as Crypto ads went this Super Bowl, this was the second best execution.

GRINS

Coinbase took 60 seconds of airtime to flash a QR code across the screen.  (For those of you scoring at home, that’s an open rate of about $14 million.)  Tens of millions of people snapped it to reveal one of two things: an opportunity to learn more about Coinbase, or for most of them, a crashed app. Big idea, big gamble, and big props for doing something really different.  Unfortunately, also a big fail since the tech couldn’t keep up, and Coinbase ends up making a poor first impression.

Uber Eats poked fun at themselves and their own name when people try to eat the various deliveries they receive using the service. People end up eating diapers, (with a disclaimer that reads “Prop food. Do not eat diapers” that adds to the joke,) cat litter, dish detergent, and my favorite, Gwyneth Paltrow taking a bite of her own “anatomy” candle (nice easter egg there.) Great ending super: “Now delivering eats.  And don’t eats.” Great example of how to take a simple idea, stretch it out with humor, and deliver your core brand message in a memorable way.  Very nice.

Planters makes a big splash in a really interesting and special way to promote their mixed nuts. Ken Jeong and Joel McHale ask the Internet about whether or not you should eat mixed nuts all together, or one at a time. Chaos (and hilarity) ensues, neatly wrapped with the line “who knew America would tear itself apart over a relatively minor difference of opinion?” Enough said. And very well done.

WINNER:

Rocket Mortgage taps Barbie, Skeletor and a cast of characters to sell mortgage-related financial services and technology in the easiest way possible:  so kids can understand. Great use of house-hunting archetypes, like “better offer Betty,” and “cash offer Carl,” to underscore today’s market challenges. And Anna Kendrick has the perfect off-beat delivery to hold the entire thing together. This was a big win, and considering they owned the Super Bowl last year with the Tracy Morgan “pretty sure isn’t sure enough” spot, I’d say they’re on a roll.

GROANS

Listen, when you have 70+ ads in a four-hour window, there are bound to be some clunkers. Even Morgan Freeman and his delicious voiceover couldn’t make an ad for Turkish Airlines work. E-Trade tries to bring the talking baby out of retirement to no avail. And Cheetos (in one of the few “animal” spots of the night,) kind of fell flat, and apparently got the ire of animal activists up over human processed snacks finding their way into natural habitats. Oooof. Speaking of animals, Disney+ tapped Awkwafina to do a “goats” spot. And Gillette, who have been on a roll embracing social issues, went bland this year. But here are the ones I thought really missed:

Salesforce – Matthew McConaughey in a big-budget sprawl of a commercial, floating around in a hot air balloon, waxing poetic in that McConaughey you’re-cute-but-I-don’t-get-it kind of way about space, trees, trust and the new frontier. A 60-second miss, and for a brand that could have gotten way more mileage by NOT being in the Super Bowl.

Avocados from Mexico took a cheap shot at Bills Mafia, and therefore they’re dead to me. In separate news, they were banned from imports just this morning after an inspector was threatened.  Not kidding.  Karma, kids. Karma.

Hellmann’s wins the it’s-a-bad-spot-because-that-was-done-already award with Jerod Mayo tackling anyone who is not thinking about food waste. Now, I get “reprising” an idea if it’s timely and makes sense.  But then Terry Tate should have been in this commercial. Maybe they thought no one would notice? Or perhaps they banked on the idea that most people watching wouldn’t have even seen those old Reebok spots? Either way, it’s a bad look for Hellmann’s with anyone who follows advertising.

LOSER:

It pains me to say this, but Dolly Parton shares the worst-of-the-night award along with Miley Cyrus in these loosely-linked and poorly-thinked commercials for T-Mobile. First, Ms. Parton, who is basically a national treasure, has to stoop to a bad boob joke to “get something off her chest.” Ugh.  Then Miley Cyrus comes in during a follow-up spot and does a “We Are the World”-style number to “do it for the phones.”  I know it’s a joke.  I know it’s tongue in cheek. But it’s in poor taste nonetheless. Had they tagged this spot to say they were ACTUALLY doing something good, (like recycling phones and donating to those in need, or using the lithium ion batteries to power a high school football field’s lights, I’m just spitballing here,) this spot might have won the evening. But they didn’t, and the joke didn’t land.

Many thanks to all of you who were live tweeting with me last night.  Would love to know your thoughts on the Super Bowl ads from this year – please leave your comments here!

A clash of cultures: Twitter cancels Burger King.

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A lot has been made of Burger King’s recent ad titled “Women Belong in the Kitchen.” If you’ve heard about it, you’ve likely already taken sides and are either itching to rage-tweet me, or are eager to hear someone else who supports your point of view.  Instead of taking sides, let’s be objective and unpack this thing one step at a time.

For anyone who doesn’t know, or didn’t read past the headline, Burger King was announcing the establishment of a new scholarship called H.E.R. (Helping Equalize Restaurants) to aid aspiring female employees who want to pursue careers as Chefs. The timing of its release coincided with International Women’s Day. 

Here’s the ad that ran as a full page in The New York Times:

First, let’s clarify what the ad was meant to do.  And we can do so by remembering what ALL ads are meant to do: get your attention. And this headline, while controversial if it stood alone, does that very well, because it’s dangerous. Because it’s a trope. Advertising leverages drama because it leads the reader to a destination that’s equal parts entertaining and attention-getting. And because a headline that reads “Burger King launches new scholarship to aid female representation in restaurant kitchens” is neither.  That sort of thing is for a press release, not an advert.

From a craft point of view, this is a strong headline, in that it serves to do at least one job that all good headlines should perform: it summarizes the content that follows. If we’re being objective, (and we agreed that we would be,) this is a very good all-copy ad-nouncement.

Now, let’s look at where it went wrong: in a word, Twitter. When the brand (and the agency behind it,) wanted to extend this exciting conversation online, it took to Twitter and Burger King’s 1.9 million followers with the initial tweet. Which, sadly, was just the headline. It then tweeted a summary of the content that follows in the ad. [Important note: the tweets were initially “debated” on @BurgerKingUK.] While Burger King did clarify the headline tweet in subsequent posts, it was apparently the string of ugly comments in the conversation thread that got out of control. The entire thread has since been deleted, and an apology was issued by global CMO Fernando Machado.

Ad culture meets Twitter culture and fails.  Cancel culture meets Burger King and shuts it down. This whole thing has gotten off the rails, and I think it’s mostly because people are not taking anything beyond face value. I would argue that we need a context culture more than anything else these days.  An army of fact checkers and industry experts who could act as docents for a whole generation of people who seem to crave being offended, and who magically find a fix on social media at roughly the rate of every news cycle.

The ad, the subsequent Twitterstorm, and the media kerfuffle that followed it have become new facets in the cultural touchstone that is today’s cancel-happy culture. The sad part is, it’s a pretty good ad. And Burger King, as a restaurant chain, (whether we should call them a “restaurant” or not is a different subject altogether,) is trying in earnest to do a darn good thing in the face of an inequality on which they are wholly qualified to comment. It’s a shame that we’re dealing with this level of bullshit from a minority of wokesters when a brand decides to put its money into something that might actually help in a concrete way what is, in this case, a marginalized segment of the population.

Now let’s look at what’s REALLY wrong with this ad: the typesetting is insulting, and should be cancelled immediately! The face is what it is – Burger King’s going for the retro-hip thing with the old bubble letters logo. Fine. I’ll concede that for the sake of the old-is-new branding mission.

But lord, where is the copyfitting? When the creative director was reviewing this, didn’t he or she think, “hmmm…that’s a weird place for a hyphen?” In the middle of the name of your new scholarship, in the middle of what’s arguably the most important word (Equalize,) you couldn’t break the line differently? And then again, in the last line of the ad, in another important word (kitchen) we couldn’t hard kern a little bit?

After a week of debating the merits of this approach, I haven’t heard any ad geeks talking about this.  Why? If we’re being objective, there’s probably a conspiracy afoot.

Super Bowl 55 Grins and Groans

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Well, Super Bowl 55 is in the rear view mirror, and for those of us who root for other teams, we’re counting down the 212 days until the 2021 season kicks off and hope springs once again. But for those of us who love advertising, last night was a pretty good night.

Overall, the ads were solid.  That’s saying a lot, considering we’ve had years in the recent past where there were lots of stinkers and head-scratchers. No, this year, the advertising gave us some good laughs, some fun little surprises, and even some smart marketing.

Diversity was certainly a theme this year, and that’s always a good thing. So was optimism.  We saw very little mention of COVID-19, and only one or two of the roughly 75 national spots that ran even referenced what has happened over the last 10 months. It’s as if advertisers are simply looking forward to what’s next, and that’s a very good thing.

We also (thankfully) heard very little in the way of political viewpoints or messaging, which grew over the past three or four years more than at any other time. Finally, we did have some nostalgia this year, with ads dropping pop culture references from decades past with cameos from Edward Scissorhands, That 70’s Show, Sesame Street, Wayne’s World, and a surprise appearance by Beavis & Butthead.

Here are the ads from Super Bowl 55 that made us grin, and yes, a few that made us groan.

First, some honorable mentions:

Doritos 3D – the “flat Matthew McConaughey” was cute, and is mentioned here because it did a good job working the basic claim that “life is dull when things are flat.”  The problem, of course, is that Doritos still sells a LOT of flat chips.  No mind. Marketing a new 3D snack chip (remember Bugles?) requires marginalizing all the 2D snack chips. Got it.

M&M’s – a good use of the product as currency to make amends. The spot used funny vignettes of typical douchebaggery and turned it into an uplifting little message that M&M’s can help us all get along again. They’ve been really good at working the “Disney of candy brands” angle.

GM – one of the very few automotive spots in this year’s Super Bowl, (only three,) where Will Ferrell does his thing and fixes his faux anger on Norway.  Light, funny, and did not take itself too seriously while telling the world that GM is focused on going all electric over the next decade and a half. Note to all big brands:  doing a Super Bowl spot?  Start with a really funny improv comedian – that’s half the battle.

Dexcom – I thought this was a weird category for Super Bowl (Dexcom is a continuous glucose monitoring system for people with Diabetes,) but it was well done, and the use of Nick Jonas (resurrecting the “I’m also a client” approach,) was effective. Simple, smart advertising for the people who need to hear it.  What a concept!

Klarna – I had never heard of this brand before, but after watching the commercial (silliness to the power of four tiny Maya Rudolphs,) I understood the basic premise:  Klarna lets you turn any purchase into four tiny payments. Hey, that works.

State Farm – they took their Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers schtick and raised it a Paul Rudd and a Drake.  Very good performance from “Drake from State Farm” in this one.

BIG GRINS:

SAM ADAMS WICKED HAZY IPA – “Horses”
A team of Clydesdale horses is inadvertently let loose through Quincy Market by “yaw cahzin fram Bahh-stin.”  It’s funny, and entertaining, and a classic shot across the bow from a challenger brand, especially when the leader (Budweiser proper) decided to sit this one out.

BUD LIGHT SELTZER LEMONADE – “Lemons”
One of the few brands to even reference the previous year, the ad starts out by saying “2020 was a lemon of a year.”  Then we cut to various scenes of normal and even celebratory gatherings getting interrupted by thousands of lemons falling from the sky.  Hat tip to Paul Thomas Anderson who hat tipped to the book of Exodus.  For an ad that’s trying to get you to remember one thing (LEMONS) this one was a winner.


AMAZON – “Alexa’s Body”
This could certainly have been the ad of the night for me.  First, the ad does the basic duty of explaining that “Alexa has a new body.”  It’s dramatized in the form of Michael B. Jordan, and the ad imagines various scenarios of him as Alexa.  Beyond that, the ad is diverse, well-acted (the husband and wife performances are really strong, and Jordan plays the submissive and willing AI deliciously,) and also flips the gender roles very well.  A device with a female name is now embodied by a very male body indeed. A little sneak-in of an upcoming feature film as an “ad within an ad” is also a sweet little trick.  This ad was like a complex gourmet dish, where subtle flavors kept showing up with every bite.  Well done, Amazon.

WINNER(S):

ROCKET MORTGAGE – “Pretty Sure”
In two of the best spots of the night, Tracy Morgan (one of at least a half dozen SNL alums to appear in the commercials this year,) steals the show with his brand of pay-attention-to-me-while-I-melt-your-face comedy.  In each execution, a family is interested in purchasing a home, and is “pretty sure” they have everything in order to purchase it.  Tracy steps in to clarify that with Rocket Mortgage, “you could be certain.” Then we go through several zany clips where “I’m pretty sure” is simply a terrible idea.  Snakes. Murder hornets.  Jumping out of planes. Running from bears. Angry aliens. Wrestling WWE superstars. You laugh out loud, you gasp, you cringe, and then you realize the man is right:  pretty sure isn’t sure enough. Point well made, brand well represented. Super Bowl advertising honors won.

Now, not all the spots were that good.

GROANS: While this year’s crop of Super Bowl ads was pretty strong, there were still some brands that maybe didn’t hit the mark with their messages. I call them “groans.”  That doesn’t necessarily mean they were bad, it just implies that maybe their money (roughly $183,000 per SECOND,) wasn’t well spent around these concepts.

MOUNTAIN DEW – “Bottle Count”
It was cute. And trippy.  And it was kinda cool to turn it into something interactive.  (Guess how many bottles of Mountain Dew in this commercial and you could win a million dollars.) But maybe too cute? Too trippy? It looks as though it’s targeted to nine-year-olds, and maybe that’s why I didn’t get it.

HELLMANN’S – “Fairy Godmayo”
This would be a good ad (and a lot more affordable) if it were run during an episode of the Rachael Ray show.  42 times. And there would still be almost four million dollars left in the budget. On the surface, it’s not terrible:  Hellmann’s shows up to dazzle every day leftovers into something sparkly!  That’s exciting.  But when the character asks the Amy Schumer-as-fairy-godmayo “what else can you do?” Hellmann’s responds “Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.” And that’s where I groaned.  This could have gone into “making salads shine!” “Making grilled cheese grillicious!”  “Making burgers bippity-boppity-yummity!” But nope. The brand is happy to say it can do nothing else but some fake magic on bad artichokes. An opportunity missed here, I think.

TIDE – “Jason Alexander Hoodie”
After two years of absolutely crushing it on Super Bowl (seriously, “It’s a Tide ad” from 2019 is already in the lofty company of all-time greats,) this one just falls flat on a.) some tired jokes and b.) some graphic tricks and c.) Jason Alexander doing a pseudo-Costanza as the climax. Sorry, but it made me groan.

VERIZON – “Fortnite”
Look, I get it.  Everybody wants Samuel L. Jackson in their commercial.  And everybody wants a fast network.  But turning him into a Fortnite avatar and having him give a sermon on the mount about “ultra low lag” and then doubling down with JuJu Smith-Schuster is all sorts of confusing. Like, who’s the target? And isn’t Fortnite kinda over if you’re not under 16? Asking for a friend.

FIVERR – “Four Seasons”
Remember when I said there were almost no political statements being made? Well, Fiverr had to futz with that and make a reference to a bizarre moment in our recent political history.  The problem is that this reference is divisive at best, and not that funny at worst. Just a real miss on an obscure talking point in a sorry attempt to be, what, cute? Kitschy? In this moment, when millions of highly qualified professionals are out of work or struggling to find it, Fiverr could have made a brilliant and timely statement about the need for  – and availability of – freelancers on its platform in an ever-increasing side-hustle economy.  (Squarespace came closer with its “5 to 9” spot.) Instead, they sunk five and a half million bucks into making Four Seasons landscaping in Philly even more famous. Ooof.

So…what did YOU think of Super Bowl 55 ads? Would love to hear your comments.

Until next year!