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Super Bowl 2019 Commercials: 10 Themes Emerge That Reflect Consumers' Fears, Desires, And Hopes

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The Super Bowl is America's favorite event of the year, with more than 110,000,000 people watching. It's a time for friends getting together, eating guac (avocados from Mexico), chips (Doritos), and dip, and enjoying largely the ads. Yes, some will watch the game, but many will watch the ads with as much interest. Below, I share themes that emerged from this year's ads. In sum, the tone was more entertaining, lighthearted, and unifying than in recent years and seemed to reflect consumers' desires, fears, and hopes.

 Themes Emerging from Super Bowl Ads
1) Extend the experience beyond Super Bowl Sunday (e.g., Teasers):  Several companies viewed the Super Bowl event as more than just one ad that they aired on Super Bowl Sunday. Instead, they created a multi-pronged approach that included airing teasers leading up to the event. This can help drive interest and engagement by building anticipation for the main event. Avocados f/ Mexico, Bubly, Olay, Burger King all aired teasers ahead of game day. These brands are becoming more sophisticated in how they use the energy and engagement leading up to the Super Bowl event to maximize game day interest.
2) Shift from athletes to actors/singers as the source of star power: Over the decades, there has been a bit of a shift from using athletes as the star power to more big name actors and singers. If you go back to the 80's and 90's, you'll recall Larry Bird and Michael Jordan in ads for brands like McDonald's and Nike and Mean Joe Green for Coca-Cola. In 1990, the highest rated ad (based on USA Today's Ad Meter tracking) was Nike's "Announcers and Athletes".  This year, nearly 60% of the ads (that had been released by 2/2/2019) had celebrities, with most including actors (e.g., Jason Bateman, Luke Wilson, Steve Carell, Harrison Ford, Sarah Michelle Geller, Forrest Whitaker, etc.) or singers (e.g., Cardi B, Backstreet Boys, Chance the Rapper, etc.). The actors aren't just any actors--they are culturally relevant, popular, and in many cases, "A-list" actors.
3) Leveraging Nostalgic Characters/Celebrities to Drive Engagement among the Target: There are a few ads that connect to previous eras. Stella Artois includes Carrie from Sex in the City and "the Dude" from The Big Lebowski. Olay leverages Sarah Michelle Geller with a nod to the Scream movies. Budweiser's "Wind Never Felt Better" uses music from Bob Dylan and Doritos is including the Backstreet Boys. For members of the target that recall these characters, there is a sense of "being in the know" while (hopefully) bringing up fond memories that are then associated with the ad.
4) The Robots/Devices vs. Humans Battle: A few ads played up the robot/machine versus humans theme. Michelob Ultra's "Robots" highlights that "it's only worth it if you can enjoy it" and Pringles "Sad Device" indicates that it will never know the joy of tasting Pringles. Simplisafe's "Fear is Everywhere" visualizes one man telling another than in 5 years, "all of our jobs will be replaced by robots" and in TurboTax, a robotic child is told that he will never have emotion. The ads are picking up on fear that robots and machines may displace humans and in the case of Michelob Ultra and Pringles, highlighting one area that makes humans superiors to machines--the joy of drinking beer and eating potato chips.
5) Almost no values-based/socially conscious-based ads: The Super Bowl was largely absent of controversial issues--or values-based advertising. Advertisers seemed to get the message that there are moments when consumers want pure entertainment. Perhaps they realize that America is generally exhausted from controversy and divisiveness, which is why Coca-Cola's ad promoted unity. On that, we can all agree.
6) Instead of Advertising Beliefs and Values, there was a Shift to Social Impact Advertising: I'm creating a new category of types of ads, because I want to distinguish between the vast majority of advertisers that talk about an issue and the very few that are making a difference. Budweiser's "Stand by You" ad from last year is in the latter camp--their ad was about the impact they were having in communities hit by natural disaster. They didn't talk about caring for communities..they presented an ad that shared what Budweiser employees had done to make a difference. This year, Budweiser picks up on that successful approach with another "show me what you did, don't tell me what you think" ad. Budweiser's "Wind never Felt Better" represents this more evolved approach to social impact advertising. They are sharing information on how they are making a difference. They aren't lecturing, chiding, or insulting consumers. They aren't co-opting a hot topic in the hopes it will drive sales. Hopefully, this becomes the new standard. Substance over window dressing.
7) Unity versus Division: Before the game started, there was a recording of Martin Luther King where he talked about "maintaining unity". That message seemed to be consistent across a few advertisers with Coca-Cola's "A Coke is a Coke," and Google's ad that unites consumers globally by indicating that although more than 100 billion words are translated daily, those most commonly used are "how are you," "thank you," and "I love you".
8) Education versus Entertainment: Wix.com represents a type of ad designed to primarily educate consumers. It demonstrated how easy it is to create, amend, and customize a website. While Wix.com has advertised in the past, this year's ad was specifically focused on: 1) educating consumers about what the brand is, and 2) showing how simple it is to use it. Going beyond just building awareness, this ad is attempting to drive interest and adoption. While this is more of a rare choice among Super Bowl advertisers, because it takes away from entertainment value, it may very well have a bigger business impact.
9) Humor in Service of the Product: While ads often times use humor, it is less common for the brands to use humor in a way that is truly integrated with the product. Colgate's "Close Talker" did a terrific job of communicating the benefit (fresher breath) in a humorous manner. Hyundai's ad with Jason Bateman ("Elevator") lumped the displeasure of buying a car in with life's most unenjoyable moments (e.g., colonoscopy, "the talk," root canal, jury duty, middle seat on a plane) to highlight Hyundai's Shopper Assurance process.
10) Humor and Product Superiority? It is rare to find a Super Bowl ad that highlights product superiority (e.g., the old Mac vs. PC ads that would highlight a feature where Macs had superiority over PCs). And it is even rarer to find one in a beer ad. But Bud Light's "Special Delivery" did just that. They highlight the fact that their product doesn't have corn syrup, while Miller and Coors do.
In honor of the point of Super Bowl ads, which is to drive consumer affect, interest, and purchase, I will simply add that I tried to buy a Weathertech bowl for my dog (the website wasn't working), plan on purchasing some avocados from Mexico, and am going to try and find a way to test drive the Audi car. If I weren't so loyal to Crest, I would buy Colgate because it was a great ad. It might not win a popularity contest, but I bet consumers can remember the brand and the benefit. Isn't that really what this is all supposed to be about?
Any other themes I missed? Share via @KimWhitler