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Super Bowl 58 Grins and Groans

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Super Bowl 58 has come and gone, and two things are evident: Post Malone is a pretty darn good singer, and the Chiefs are apparently a very good football team. [Congratulations to them and their fans on being the first team to win back-to-back championships since the New England Patriots nearly 20 years ago.]

Speaking of back-to-back, it appears the advertising bowl was a repeat of last year as well. Nothing risky, nothing wildly interesting, nothing off the wall but really smart. You like to be WOWED with Super Bowl advertising, and – for the second year in a row – I suspect there were not a lot of “wows” being uttered in living rooms across the world.

Some themes that emerged last night:

Religion is apparently making a comeback. A total of five spots were dedicated to some form of religiosity: two spots for Jesus, a spot reminding us to stand up to Jewish hate (sad that we have to be reminded of that,) the annual pitch for Scientology, and Mark Wahlberg hawking Hallow, a new prayer app. (Sad that we need an app for that.)

Repetition was a theme last night as well. And this I like. If you’re trying to get some of the 115 million+ people (in the US) watching the game to REMEMBER you, repetition is a pretty strong tool. And if you can repeat creatively, all the better. A few brands managed to pull this off last night, some with more efficiency than others. Kate McKinnon’s cat meows over and over again, but it sounds like “mayo” for Hellmann’s; and Aubrey Plaza continually reminding us she’s having a “blast” for Mountain Dew; both were fairly effective. But Arnold Schwarzenegger using his own accent as a comic tool when he repeats the word “nay-bah” for State Farm and their “like a good neighbor” tagline was both effective AND funny. And Doordash really hit the repetition ball out of the park with their spot, continually repeating the word “dash” to great effect, while reminding viewers of the actual brand name in the process.

Meta, (the concept, not the company,) was also a theme. We saw a lot of spots using the “let’s make a commercial about making a commercial” theme. It’s a strong device, given that this is the biggest platform on the planet for commercial-making.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

BetMGM bet on Vince Vaughn doing Vince Vaughn things, and it worked. Throw in Tom Brady and Wayne Gretzky for the typical Super Bowl celebrity-stuffing and you get a pretty good spot.

Ken Jeong is just hilarious, and his turn as a recently-unfrozen-cryogenic-experiment was a laugh. When he’s told it’s Popeye’s, he asks “the sailor man?” Loved it, and sincerely hope that was ad-libbed.

Christopher Walken being hounded by people attempting Christopher Walken impersonations is always welcome. And BMW wrapped it up nicely with the line “the rest are just imitations.”

Reese’s probably gave us the most fun spot of the night with “big change.” Narrator having fun with a roomful of people having outsized reactions – classic fun, and pretty memorable.

Poppi soda made a nice, simple, smart statement about their soda being better than what we all think “soda” is. Less sugar, prebiotics, cool flavors. Nice.

PlutoTV did a nice job of growing couch potatoes in an entertaining spot for their streaming service. They had a good gag, and took it all the way to the farm.

And let’s face it. Chris Pratt kinda does look like the Pringles guy, right?

GRINS:

T-Mobile has been crushing it on Super Bowl ads the last couple of years, and they kept it up with two fun spots. They love singing in their commercials, and this year we got Jason Momoa showing off his pipes and some feats of acrobatics. And their “audition” spot, a Bradley-Cooper-and-his-mom spot, which featured cameos by Laura Dern, Patrick J. Adams and Gabriel Nacht of “Suits” fame, Common, and Jennifer Hudson was entertaining and smart to boot (the idea is no one has to “audition” to get T-Mobile’s Magenta Status VIP treatment.)

Last year, Dunkin’ went all in on the Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez thing, and they’ve continued the story this year with Ben trying to break into the pop music business with his group “The Dunkings,” which also features Tom Brady on keyboards. Probably not the best brand-building spot we’ve ever seen, (they’re going all in on the Boston thing,) but it’s cute, and the self-effacing turn from Matt Damon made it really funny.

Disney+ put in a surprisingly good turn this year with their “well said” spot. Just plain typewriter text (not quite Courier, but close,) on a white screen, scrolling through some of the more memorable phrases in Disney history, including “who’s the fairest of them all?” and “the Force will be with you…always” and “To infinity…and beyond.” Some might call this lazy. I saw it as a way to break through the clutter (and a noisy living room hosting a Super Bowl party) and deliver something powerful. Winner of the “sneaky good” category.

NFL made some important statements about bullying and mental health in two semi-PSAs/semi-self-congratulatory spots. But their full length spot, featuring Quesi, a young boy from Ghana with big NFL dreams, made a salient point: “it doesn’t matter where you’re born, as long as you’re born to play.” That line is delivered by Osi Umenyiora, a former NFL player of Nigerian descent. The NFL is committed to growing the game internationally, and this spot shed light on that initiative with warmth and fun and facts. Well done.

One of my favorites of the evening was this spot for CeraVe, another meta take on commercial-making, where quirky actor Michael Cera is pitching the dermatology board at CeraVe skin care to use him as their spokesman. The screen cuts to bold text (love that Din Pro font family,) that says “Developed with Dermatologists. Not Michael Cera.” It manages to deliver silliness, seriousness, a singular brand platform that their products are indeed developed by dermatologists, name recognition and memorability all at once. Exactly what a Super Bowl spot should do.

This spot from Verizon, featuring Beyonce trying to “break the Internet” was a masterclass in over the top advertising. First off, she’s wildly popular. Second, she pretty much HAS broken the Internet over her career. This spot features her going to outrageous lengths to TRY and break the Internet, but Verizon’s incredible coverage never wavers. A great performance by Beyonce, a hint of self-effacing humor shows she doesn’t take herself THAT seriously, and lots of smart and timely pop culture references. And that she’s using it as a platform to tease/drop new music is even cooler.

I think one of the best spots of the night was made by Bud Light. A return to form for this brand, (who has been in the news the last year or two for all the wrong reasons,) which is to be big, brash, unapologetically silly and fun. They take a simple concept, stretch it out as far as it can go, add a couple of big celebrities (Peyton Manning and Post Malone, with a cameo by Tyrannosaurus Rex,) and execute the heck out of it. The perfect recipe for really strong Super Bowl advertising.

MY WINNER:

Dove returns with another smart ad that’s tactfully and intelligently delivered. Using the “It’s a Hard Knock Life” song, we see a montage of girls flubbing it at sports from gymnastics to ice skating, basketball and softball. And even though they do, they smile and press on. The text on the ad reads “the knocks don’t stop girls playing sports…low body confidence does.” Wow. BANG. The ad gets quiet, and we get a peek at a young girl in a bathing suit looking at herself somewhat disapprovingly in a mirror. Text reads “45% of girls quit sports by age 14…together we can keep them in the game.” And we’re encouraged to “Join the Body Confident Sport program.” This brand hardly sells soap anymore – they sell esteem and female empowerment and tolerance and acceptance and…and..and…Great work as usual.

GROANS:

The Google Pixel ad was a good moment. Lovely story of a semi-blind man named Javier who is now able to capture photos on his phone with the help of the phone’s AI assistant. I liked it initially, and the final scene was touching. It’s also technically good advertising because it focuses on a singular feature. I just think that accessibility is about so much more than taking selfies, and I thought this ad undercut the mission a little bit.

The Nerds Gummy Clusters ad was just kind of confusing. It features Addison Rae, a Gen Z singer/influencer, and a blobby Nerd candy (I guess?) recreating the iconic scene from Flashdance. It just felt weirdly mistargeted, as I’m not sure how much of the Super Bowl audience under 40 would even know or remember Flashdance. Compare this with the Skechers ad using Mr.T as a conduit – at least those sneakers are targeted to an aging Gen X audience that would actually know who he is.

All of the Homes.com ads (there were three of them at least,) went too far into the gags without clearly making the points they were hoping to deliver. The ads say some really good things about the brand like “gathering up close and detailed information on neighborhoods, and hiring top experts to get you insider info on local schools…” All good stuff, but the core messaging gets blurred out in the outlandish mayhem designed to be funny. They further confused the point by introducing Jeff Goldblum into one of the ads – he’s the Apartments.com spokesman – for comedic effect. The only effect it had was an unclear value proposition, poorly delivered across several ads. The parent company, CoStar Group, reportedly spent $35 million on all their ad exposure. Yikes.

Oreo delivered a big-budget ad with big scenarios throughout history left to chance, with decision-makers deciding on which way to go by “twisting on it.” Yeah – they twist their Oreo cookies, and if the cream is on the left, homo sapiens split off from the dinosaurs and survive the asteroid hit that kicks off the ice age. If the twist reveals cream on the right, we get boy bands and the Kardashians. Ugh. I always like the let’s-show-the-product-in-action approach, so I’ll submit that as a plus. But “let’s twist on it” sounds forced, and it looked that way too.

I know it’s sacrilege, but is it okay if I didn’t like the Martin Scorsese-directed spot for Squarespace? It just seemed like more of a commentary on people’s obsession with smartphones, and made exactly ZERO mention of any brand benefits. Squarespace is a website that makes it easy to build websites, and it’s never mentioned. Not once. And the only ones who use it are aliens trying to get noticed? Then they end with the tagline “A website makes it real.” Makes WHAT real, exactly? Meh.

And probably my biggest groan of the night was Crowdstrike’s attempt at a “big” commercial for the Super Bowl. It’s set in the Wild West…in the past? Or is it a post-apocalpytic future? Hard to tell. Some people are dressed like it’s 1820. The spokeswoman is standard 2024 every-woman. What the what? And if you’re still watching, she tells the cyborg sheriff (not kidding) that she’s got it covered. Then she proceeds to digitally undress the invading virus-borgs (also not kidding) so they’re embarrassed and run away. I think I’ve got that right. What a confusing mess.

But hey, at least we didn’t have to watch any faux-patriotic spots from Weather Tech, right? What were your favorites? Let’s hear it in the comments.

Until next year!

The Law of Environment

Nader Ashway1 Comment

If you watched Super Bowl advertising this year, you saw a lot of big-budget, celebrity-filled laugh-fests during the broadcast. From Peter Dinklage and Morgan Freeman in a hip-hop lip sync battle for Doritos and Mountain Dew to Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr. hilariously re-imagining “Dirty Dancing” as a touchdown celebration, there were some big hits during the ad breaks.

And you also saw some fumbles and outright clunkers. (Not to name names, but we’re talking to you Ram Trucks.)

Take a look at this Budweiser “Stand By You” commercial.

On the surface, this was an excellent commercial. There’s a strong narrative flow, very good performances, and a cinematic feel to how it’s filmed.

But this commercial was mis-run during the Super Bowl, precisely because it failed to maximize The Law of Environment, which I state here as:

Consumers are either open or closed – indeed available or not available – to your advertising message depending largely on the environment in which they find themselves when that message is presented.

Environment, as it’s used here, includes four important ingredients, which you can remember as the T-A-M-E scale:

Timing: What time of day or night is it? How long does the message last?  Does the viewer/reader have ample time to process the message in detail, or just in broad strokes, and general images?

Atmosphere: Is the viewer alone or with company? Is it loud or quiet? Is it indoors or outdoors? Up close or far away? If there is one, what size is the screen? What else is happening while the advertising appears?

Medium: Is the message itself in motion? Is it on a screen, on a surface, or delivered via audio? Does it use words, or just images? Can you hear sound? Is it interactive?

Emotion: How much emotion – and which one(s) – is included/embedded in the message?

If we review the Budweiser commercial against these qualifiers, we see that it demands the viewer to spend some attentive, even quiet, time with the spot to take it all in. The viewer can perceive the seriousness, and the smoldering heroics of the lead character. It’s perfect for a full-size screen to get a sense of scale and distance, and there is a swell of emotion, in the “going outside of oneself” or “doing good by doing for others” sense of service.

And while that’s all very positive, you can see how it’s a mismatch for the Super Bowl environment, based on the atmosphere.

To generalize, the “average” Super Bowl environment finds the consumer in a living room with a group of friends or family, with conversations going on, and it’s largely a social event with a lively atmosphere. When this ad comes on, it may immediately be perceived as “too serious” or “too quiet” or even too much of an intellectual investment. So it fails to connect. And that’s a shame, because it happens to be very good advertising.

Understanding your consumer is of course critical to advertising success. But when you go beyond demographics and psychographics to an understanding of these critical advertising receptivity parameters, you can “TAME” the environment to maximize your message’s efficiency, no matter where or when it runs.

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!