Kia

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!

Super Bowl 50 Grins and Groans

Nader Ashway1 Comment

SB50_logo

Well, the Super Bowl had its “golden” anniversary last night, and, by all accounts, the anniversary was about the ONLY golden thing of the evening.  The game was a bit of a mess, dominated by Denver’s defense, with a lot of fits, starts, sacks and turnovers.

But the advertising that showed up was a little dull, too.  Which is sad, because last year’s big game didn’t live up to 2014.  Alas, we’re on a downward trend.

A couple of notable items:

Scantily clad women were kindly asked to stay OUT of the advertising this year. Weird.

There were very few surprises, but the ones that were held back were certainly worth the wait.

A couple of newcomers likely won’t be back. They’ll be lucky if they’re in business.

It was basically the “Celebrity Bowl” of advertising this year. A few of the standouts (read more below) were Christopher Walken, Helen Mirren, Drake, Ryan Reynolds.

And say farewell to the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” party.  This was the 10th and final year of that enormously successful campaign.

The ads that made me grin:

Snickers – “Seven Year Itch” with Willem Dafoe
They continue to nail this campaign with the “you’re not you when you’re hungry” meme year in and year out.  And this year’s offering, a takeoff on the Seven Year Itch scene with Marilyn Monroe, was so well done and so well executed and so well performed, it made me grin twice.  (I still think it may be slightly off target, unless Snickers is now being marketed to Boomers??  But still, this spot kills.)

Mtn Dew Kickstart – “PuppyMonkeyBaby”
While a lot of people just scratched their heads at this, it’s actually very funny, and simplistic enough to be strategically on point.  “Three awesome things combined,” says the ad, referring to Mountain Dew, juice and caffeine.  So they combined three awesome things into one triple-cute mascot:  puppy, monkey, baby.  Makes perfect sense!

Quicken Loans’ Rocket Mortgage – “What Were We Thinking?”
This was most certainly a reach, and some may argue an over-reach.  But it was also so helplessly optimistic, it was hard not to like.  Plus, when introducing a new product, what better way to get people to remember it than by comparing it to, say, the Internet?  Well done.

 

Double Grins:

Bai Antioxidant – “Horse Whisperer”
This was a spot that wasn’t leaked earlier, and it’s super funny, super on target, and super performed, and so super unexpected!  What a great risk to take – I think they pulled it off!

Doritos – “Ultrasound”
The “ultrasound” commercial was funny.  In a gross, male, immature way, but funny.  And that’s EXACTLY what Doritos advertising is about.  It’s not supposed to be haughty, it’s supposed to position the chips as so insanely delicious that people will do anything to get them…including jettisoning from the womb.  Also remember that this ad was submitted by an “amateur” into the “Crash the Super Bowl” sweepstakes.

Hyundai – “Ryanville”
How far can you go to promote one tiny little (optional) feature on a car?  Well, in this spot, they went all the way to Ryanville, and nailed it.  Not only do they make a good case for the auto-braking-pedestrian-detection feature, they do it with a nice flip-of-the-gender-script, and have the gals ogling the guys.  Well, it’s one guy, but apparently, this one guy is all girls need.

Audi – “Starman”
Audi has basically been killing it for the last three years with their sweepingly cinematic spots.  But this one manages to do something that the last couple haven’t done:  connect (finally) more completely to their target audience.  It’s a piece of fiction, and a momentary suspension of disbelief, but we are more than willing to go on the journey to the past and back to present within a span of seconds.  Really well done.  And wow – they had Bowie.

But my biggest grin came when I saw this spot from Kia called “Walken Closet”
Could anyone else have delivered such a compelling performance?  “It’s like the world’s most exciting pair of socks….BUT – it’s a midsize sedan!” Funny, and drives home a core point about standing out of the “beige-ness” of midsize sedans.  (I know what you’re thinking.  “But Kia IS a midsize sedan!”  True, but the average car buyer in that category doesn’t consider Kia as a car with any excitement, or performance, or as Walken so eloquently puts it:  “pizzazzzzzzah.”  The mere fact of CONSIDERING Kia, as opposed to the “safe” choices in this category, like Honda, Nissan or Toyota, is what makes this a leap out of the “beige.”  Good stuff.)

 

Honorable mentions:
Prius’ “The Chase”
Two brand (and beautiful) spots from Jeep
Texting PSA for domestic abuse
Drake for T-Mobile

As usual, there were some groans this year.

Groans:

Persil Pro Clean – It’s always risky to come into the Super Bowl as a first-time advertiser, and Persil didn’t really do enough of a job of distinguishing themselves.  It was a clean and well-produced spot, but there wasn’t much there to grab onto.

OIC-  this spot, entitled “envy,” shows a man wishing he could go to the bathroom, and envying all these others that can.  Again, a well-produced, well-executed spot, but because it wasn’t for one particular brand, but rather, more of a PSA to get you to a doctor to talk about OIC, it just lost any connective tissue.  The spot is “made on behalf of those living with chronic pain and struggling with OIC.”  Which is everybody, sorta.  And nobody.  Sorta.  Just think what they could have done with the roughly 8 or 9 million bucks this spot cost to get this message to the right people in the right places at the right time.  Smells like a consortium buy to me.

My least favorite:  SoFi. 
Listen, no matter what anyone tells you, you never, EVER, EVER say mean things to your consumer.  Not even anything that can be misunderstood as mean.  Well, there’s nothing misunderstood in this spot, except why it was made in the first place.

This commercial starts its first eight seconds of life like this:  “Jim is great.  Sara is not great at all.  This guy – NEVER been great.  (then the camera pans down to a cute baby in a stroller…) No.”  So inside of eight seconds, we’ve identified that three out of four random people, including a baby in a stroller, are not great.  And since they’ve set up the construct that there are basically two kinds of people in the world (great and not great,) we’re all nervously wondering if we’re great.  I probably don’t need to tell you this is NOT what you want your consumer doing when you’re trying to get them to like you.

The ad goes on to say that SoFi gives great loans to great people.  (And leaves the rest out in the cold, I might add.)  And then…are you sitting down?…the ad invites you to visit SoFi TO FIND OUT IF YOU’RE GREAT!  (I bet a zillion people did that.) I know you can’t believe this, but it actually. Gets. Worse.  The final line of the voiceover, after saying “find out if you’re great at SoFi.com,” says “you’re probably not.”

Hey, here’s an idea.  Fuck you, SoFi.

Until next year, keep grinning!

Super Bowl 49 – Grins and Groans

Nader Ashway4 Comments

If you’re a football fan, you liked this game. A slow burn, with twists and turns, and a dramatic finish. Good stuff. (Unless you’re a Seahawks fan, then, not so much.)

If you’re an advertising fan, you got pretty much a reflection of the game: a kind of slow and steady stream of ads, none of which made you say “wow,” and a few headscratchers late.

Mostly, we were left with questions:
Where were the really big ideas?

Where was Chrysler? (there was only the one Fiat spot and it was pretty funny) – but after Dylan, Eastwood and Eminem, they had set the bar pretty high, and not seeing them in the game was weird.

And seriously: what was Nationwide thinking???

A few themes this year that were notable:

Dads – three advertisers embraced dads this year: Dove, Nissan and Toyota. (And we’re not sure why, exactly.)

Puppies – Bud’s follow-up to “Puppy Love” from last year, and GoDaddy’s “controveersial” spot that never made it to the air (and it should have, since their “replacement” spot was meh.)

Celebrities poking fun at themselves:

Kardashian for T-Mobile was really good and funny and actually made good advertising.

Brosnan for Kia was very well done and a big grinner for me.

Pete Rose for Skechers was actually cute, and he was a good sport to take on that sensitive subject matter with such air.

The Esurance spots with Lindsay Lohan and Bryan Cranston proving that “sorta” is not good enough were pretty good.

And Liam Neeson absolutely KILLED IT in his I’m- a-badass-and-I’m-coming-for-you brogue for Clash of Clans.

The ads that made me grin:

Fiat and the little blue pill:

Mercedes Benz fable

Coke

Double Grins:

BMW i3 with Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel

This spot was funny, had great performances, and made an excellent point: big ideas take a little getting used to.  Smart, and very non-typical auto advertising.

Snickers Brady Bunch

Snickers took their “you’re not you when you’re hungry” to a great new place, by going to a great old place.  Well done!

Doritos – When Pigs Fly

This wasn’t my favorite of the Doritos “crash the Super Bowl” ads, but it was still entertaining, light-hearted, and well-executed.

But my biggest grin came early in the game when I saw this spot from Turbo Tax:

Man this was just flat out good. High cinematic value in the production of the spot, and high concept in rewriting history around a simple (and relatively benign) benefit of “free filing.”

Of course, we all know it’s free to file your federal return. But you still have to pay for the software of course, and for state taxes, you’ll still shell out that pesky little 29.95 or so. Bah, details. They made a great ad!

As usual, there were some groans this year.  And one flat headscratcher.

Groans:

Cure.com insurance (pair of 15’s) – bad jokes, worse production.

Jumlia – credit to coming into the game as a first time advertiser, but it was forgettable – an animatic for toenail fungus. They could have made like a billion or so targeted impressions online, and still had a couple million bucks left over to buy a whole bunch of spots during the professional bowling championships later in the year, when toenail fungus really flairs up. (Duh.)

Squarespace with Jeff Bridges – just weird. Any ad that’s going to make you go to a URL to figure out what it’s all about is just a waste of the airtime. Who’s going to leave the game for that? And for Jeff Bridges acting creepy? No thank you.

But the biggest WTF this year was Nationwide Insurance’s “make safe happen.” I can’t even believe they chose THIS strategy, and chose THIS buy. Didn’t anybody over there THINK about what the typical super bowl viewing environment is? You’re talking beer, wings, chips, salsa. You’re trash-talking about your team. And wait, now we’re thinking about our potentially dead children? No, no, no. NO! Kids and puppies in advertising are great…but you don’t KILL them in your spots. Jeez! You’d think somebody over there knew the basic rules.

Outside of the Turbo Tax spot, there was no real altitude attained this year in terms of high concept approaches. A few bright spots, and a few duds. Oh, and Nationwide killing our children to make a very serious point at a really shitty time. And that’s STILL not as bad as that one really bad decision to pass at the 1-yard line by the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator late in the game.

Until next year, keep grinning!