The last victim of the pandemic? This year’s Super Bowl ad crop.
Most Super Bowl LV commercials succumbed to typical Super Sunday traps, critics said – they were either overly safe and standardized, or they were bogged down with celebrities and bad ideas. Experts blamed the production challenges as well as the tightrope that advertisers had to walk, due to the divided political climate and the increasing death toll of COVID.
“Every year in Super Bowl advertising, there’s the good, the bad and the ugly,” said Rob Schwartz, chief executive of the advertising agency TBWA Chiat Day. “This year there were not enough good things and there were more ugly things. ”
An important exposure was Scott’s Miracle-Gro ad which – despite being one of the few places to allude to the pandemic, saying that backyards have been “quite a year” – was bogged down with a strange mix of Martha Stewart celebrities, the NASCAR driver Kyle Busch and an almost unrecognizable John Travolta.
“It was a train accident,” said Schwartz. “The Super Bowl is a celebrity arms race, but the problem is the random celebrity for the backyard garden party. I was thinking, ‘What am I watching?’ It was very confusing. “
In addition to the plethora of bleak headlines and taboo from last year, advertisers this year were forced to grapple with the persistent “hype” and pressure that comes with a Super Bowl ad and the $ 5.5 million price tag for an ad 30 seconds, he said.
“Only the amount of money you pay makes people conservative,” said Schwartz. “Everyone looks at what has been successful in the past: celebrity, puppy and baby.”
This may have been a problem for the Robinhood trading app, which fumbled with an ad that was clearly designed before the recent GameStop frenzy. Using images of ordinary people doing normal things, like petting a stranger’s dog, running and doing FaceTiming with a friend, Robinhood tried to attract the common man.
“You don’t have to be an investor, you were born”, concludes the narrator.
Calling the 30-second ad a “real flop”, the executive said: “Robinhood really delivered the biggest sin of the Super Bowl ad. What they did was boring. If you’re boring, it’s over. “
In contrast, Reddit, also at the center of the recent commercial frenzy scandal, had an exclusive and disturbing five-second ad that displayed images as if it were a car commercial before posting a text:
“If you’re reading this, it means that our bets were worth it,” read the message. “One thing we learned from our communities last week is that underdogs can do just about anything when we gather around a common area.”
Another smell was Fiverr’s ad, which featured the company Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, where, in apparent confusion, Rudy Giuliani gave a press conference for Trump’s presidential campaign instead of the Four Seasons Hotel. The ad featured landscaping company president Marie Siravo driving a futuristic golf cart up the now famously gloomy driveway to reveal a lush dreamy botanical landscape filled with busy workers caring for butterflies and waterfalls.
In addition to polarizing, Fiverr’s commercial lacked clarity about who Siravo was, what Fiverr does and how his company fits together, said Bill Oberlander, co-founder and chief creative officer at the advertising agency Oberland.
“There’s a saying that says ‘it’s a long way to go to eat a ham sandwich’,” said Oberlander. “If those are the obstacles you have to face to make a point, it might not be worth a Super Bowl ad.”
M&M generally got the highest marks for their funny ad, with Dan Levy, in which an M&M package is offered as an apology.
“I’m sorry for complaining,” said one man, as he offered a bag of M&M to a younger woman.
“That’s when a man,” he said before the woman interrupted him to continue complaining. “I know what it is,” she said.
GM’s announcement encouraging Americans to buy more electric cars, which featured Will Ferrell and fellow comedians Kenan Thompson and Awkwafina, also received high marks from Oberlander for his ability to weave a message aimed at a purpose with humor.
Norway currently outperforms the US in electric car sales. “Well, I’m not going to put up with that,” Ferrell says as he punches a globe in the ad. “With GM’s new Ultium battery, we are going to crush these lugers. Smash them! Let’s go to America. “