8 Great Super Bowl Ads
As I sat in my den, wearing my favorite Saints jersey (FYI, I’m still ticked off about that one), I take comfort in knowing that even if the right team wasn’t in the big game, at least the ads were pretty good this year.
A recap of my selections for the Hits and Misses of the Super Bowl ads (obviously as a Saints fan I was thrilled with the Chiefs win – no self-respecting Who Dat could support the 49ers):
Hits (Great 8 spots): The biggest winners are the NFL and Fox for selling so many ads at $6M per 30-second spot. There were also 10 really great ads this year, and I don’t remember a previous game with this many awesome ads – so in a sense, we all win.
Smaht Pahk by Hyundai: So great! So funny! Gathering 4 famous Bostonians to talk about the parking assist feature in the new Hyundai. Funny, on target, memorable, and really smart…I mean smaht.
Cheetos “Can’t Touch This”: Genius. We’ve all had Cheetos orange dust on our fingers. The spot takes this very relatable situation, couples it with MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This”, and a perfect way to get out of undesirable chores. Great way to turn that negative into such a positive.
New York Life “Agape”: Telling the story of the 4 kinds of love in life was well done and just emotional enough without being too sappy. Really well done.
Google “Loretta”: This spot reminds me of the Google spot from a few years ago with the dad writing emails to his daughter with the plan to give her access when she is 18. This year it is a husband sharing decades of love for his wife with Google and asking to be reminded of the details of their love. Beautiful!
Amazon “Before Alexa”: Ellen and Portia remember a time when we didn’t have Alexa to do things for us. Funny, full of references, and well done.
Jeep “Groundhog Day”: Definitely one of my all-time faves. Bill Murray referencing two of his most famous movies is an instant classic.
Facebook “Groups: Rock”: Great way to promote the groups feature on Facebook and excellent use of a double entendre around the word ‘rock’.
Budweiser “Typical Americans”: Taking all of the negative stereotypes about Americans and flipping them to illustrate the positive side. Patriotic and uplifting.
Misses:
NFL “100 years”: Ordinarily this is exactly the kind of spot that I would love, but I’m a Saints fan, and they aren’t in the Super Bowl, so I can’t like anything that the NFL does.
Quibi “Bank Heist”: I get the concept. Quibi shows short videos so they are trying to turn their name into a measure of time.
Snickers “Fixes the World”: Odd choice to go after an ad classic that is 50 years old.
Porsche “The Heist” & Hummer “A Quiet Revolution” & Audi “Let it Go”: All three car companies are pushing their Electric Vehicles but their stories didn’t really support their agenda and none of them are anywhere near as awesome as Tesla.
Walmart “Famous Visitors”: Good continuation of the story and some great move references, but nothing new to really capture the hearts of viewers or build their brand.
Hulu “Tom Brady”: Don’t tease me like that. If it has really been Tom Brady’s retirement announcement, that would have been one of the best ads of all time (and best kept secrets). But then it was just an ad for Hulu.
Olay “Make Space for Women”: I am pro-women. I mean, I am one, and I’m raising three of them, but I felt like this one missed the mark.
Squarespace “Welcome to Winona”: It could have been great, but it was too reliant on people wondering what it was about and going to the website to see more.
T-Mobile“5G”: I love Etta James and their use of “Tell Mama” was the highlight of this spot. Otherwise, it was just a comedian and his mom as she calls him from everywhere. Seems like we’ve seen it before.
Avocados “Mexico Shopping Network”: Don’t use Molly Ringwald like that. She is too awesome to be treated this way.
Planters “Tribute”: Maybe it would have been better if they hadn’t pulled some of the promotion after the tragic helicopter crash last week. It just didn’t seem to pull it all together.
Hard Rock “The Hype”: I like J.Lo and a good action sequence as much as the next guy, but this really seemed to miss the mark.
Quicken “Jason Mamoa”: I liked it. I laughed. But it’s a thin connection from dismantling Mamoa to using QuickBooks. Plus the visual effects were a little weird.
Michelob “Jimmy Works Out”: I liked it. It was funny. And we can all relate to hating working out, but it wasn’t special enough to be a Super Bowl ad and make the Great 8 list.
Tide “Stains Can Wait”: I was torn on this one. It was a cute carryover from their message all season, and extending it throughout the game was well done. I liked the idea of tying it all together with the P&G combo ad at the end, but it just didn’t quite land.
Procter & Gamble “When We Come Together”: I’ve always believed that P&G should cross-market their products together. So many of them have the same target audience and the potential to work together, but this just wasn’t the best way to execute. I hope they do it again, but better, in the future.
Biggest ad losers of the night were the local advertisers that had a chance with the biggest audience of the year and they just reran the same spots they’ve been using all season. Opportunity missed.
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