The Super Bowl was two weeks ago, which makes now a perfect time to revisit what has to have been almost everyone’s favorite part. The memes about the low scoring, “boring,” game are fading, and our attention has turned to the long off-season. In this downtime, there’s a chance for reflection on what might have been the best part of our Sunday experience.
I’m in the minority in that I actually enjoyed the game quite a bit; I like defensive games. But even for me, there were moments of annoyance, either with the refereeing, or the general slow pace. Watching with friends helped, but the commercials helped more. As is my annual tradition, I sat down with a notebook and tracked every commercial from just before the national anthem through the block following 0:00 left in the game. This year I recorded 114 commercials, compared to 116 in each of the two previous years. The difference could just be the network, as the Super Bowl rotates among the networks, so 2017 was FOX and 2018 was NBC. CBS was on the task this year. It also could just be the mix of the length of commercials. Two fewer shorter commercials getting wrapped into some slightly longer ones. Since I’m tracking the commercials, not the length, I can’t say for certain.
Every year I start with a breakdown of the types of ads we saw. Of those 114, how many were for cars, or beer–the two most common products advertised throughout a season. How many are for other television shows that the host station is getting to promote, or upcoming movies. Often there’s a big blockbuster sci-fi movie being advertised during the Super Bowl. I still remember the 1999 Matrix Super Bowl commercial making a huge splash. This year saw two Marvel movies and Alita: Battle Angel, among others.
CBS dominated the air waves with advertising for it’s own products, taking time slot after time slot to remind us that they were the most watched network, while simultaneously showing us what they thought were their best programming options for various market segments. Nearly a quarter of all advertisements (though not total advertising time, since these are mostly 15 and 30 second slots vs. the minute or even two minute slots that get used occasionally for other products) were for their own network, including a stunning five spots for the Grammys. The advertising may have been effective as nearly 20 million people watched the Grammys, a slight increase from the 2018 results. However, the award program has seen a decline over the past few years and historically was getting 30-35 million viewers. So these five slots may have been out of desperation to keep the award relevant in an era where most of us get our music from non-traditional sources.
This desperation seems to be more palpable when I note that two of the “Television (non-CBS)” ads were the same ad run twice for the Showtime network. That’s a pretty poor showing from Showtime. The advertisement was itself uninteresting, and it repeated, rather than using the repeat opportunity to build on a story, as many repeat buyers within a single game do. But the real telling item here is that Showtime is wholly owned by CBS. So it really is just another pair of CBS ads.
This increase in host-advertising and decrease in “client” advertising was noted by other sources as well, though they didn’t track the same number of ads that I did.
None of the host-programming ads have ever been close to making my list of “best” or “most significant” ads from any Super Bowl, so this decline in options indicates that Super Bowl LIII might have been a weak one overall. But even with fewer to choose from, several vaulted their way into the water cooler talk. The quality of these advertisements overall was much higher than 2018’s impressively bad year. They also avoided unnecessary political controversy better than 2017’s, so we actually have some quality commercials to talk about for 2019.
The Elevator by Hyundai.
The earliest of the big winners, this spot garnered significant chatter. I captioned it in my notebook as “Elevator of Horrors” as the customers are exposed to many awful experiences, but not the Hyundai shoppers. This ad has humor, star power, and a strong message. It doesn’t display the product as well as might be hoped for, but because the product is a sense of assurance, perhaps that’s OK.
The Pet Comfort Feeding System by WeatherTech
While not a winner by any stretch, this next ad is significant because of just how awful it was. It had everything. Music. Animals. An appeal to the laziness of the average American consumer. An excess of plastic. Fantastic job, guys.
More than OK by Pepsi
I thought this was a particularly strong advertisement, using the star power of Lil’ John for great humorous value, and taking the cultural element of weakness that Pepsi has in certain markets and turning it on its head. In the area of the country where I live, “Coke” is used synonymously with “dark carbonated beverage.” So, even a person with a preference for Pepsi might sit down at a restaurant and ask for a “Coke.” In other markets, without this idiosyncrasy, this ad might not have been as strong, but it also served as a solid prelude to their halftime show promotion, which is always underwhelming, but tied together well.
Change Up the Usual by Stella Artois
An appeal to nostalgia works particularly well when you’re going after an older audience, as you must be if you’re selling an alcoholic beverage. This advertisement is well positioned, and while it likely won’t appeal to a younger and hip crowd, it doesn’t have to.
The 100-Year Game by NFL
Generally being called the best commercial in the Super Bowl, this one is clearly significant as a water cooler moment, and yet it’s hard to point to why. The ad is for the game of football itself, and the general commentary was that this commercial, which showed near halftime, was substantially more full of action than the actual game was. As always, Hollywood glamour is better than the real thing.1
Food Porn by Devour
I didn’t expect a frozen food manufacturer to try to tackle an issue like this. There are some significant concerns here, but in terms of presentation, this struck a powerful chord. While played up for laughs, this could be a turning point for cultural discussion.
Special Delivery by Bud Light
This ad early in the game was called back to repeatedly by later Bud Light commercials. It pounded home the message powerfully and I think it was a huge win. While it may not make anyone want to drink the slightly flavored yellow water of Bud Light, it likely does impact a person’s decision to drink the similarly slightly flavored yellow water of Bud Light’s prime competitors. All-in-all, this ad was a win for the craft brewers.
We All Win by Microsoft
Microsoft had already won a significant amount of good press for creating their adaptive controller, but this Super Bowl ad pushed the item forward in a new way. They managed to find some impressively charismatic young gamers who could take advantage of this device and present them well. As an aside, one of the young gamers shown in this video has a streaming and review channel that has garnered significant attention since the advertisement. Check him out too.
Text Messages by T-Mobile
Lastly, the T-Mobile text message series of advertisements, one example below, did a really good job of pushing the #3 mobile carrier forward.
Over the course of four different spots, T-Mobile showed off some of the benefits and drawbacks of text based communication. These ads are likely very cheap to produce but show off the power of communication, while allowing T-Mobile to highlight their product’s value to consumers, while sticking that message into memory with humor.
Bonus coverage for a local market ad. In previous years I’ve highlighted a Cyprus Air ad. This year they had one, but it was beaten out by another local company, Michael and Sons, a large handyman firm which ran a pair of local ads during the Super Bowl. The second was the winner here.
Unfortunately, they win for absurdity, not for overall quality. The level of “WTF?!” reaction from the folks I was watching with was impressive. I’ll give them a B for effort and an A for unintended humor.
Those were the most influential ads from Super Bowl LIII that I saw. Share your thoughts in the comments about any I might have missed.
