
Last night I watched the Super Bowl for the commercials, most of it anyway. I fell asleep for both the 49er’s scores in the first half so I may have missed some pretty impressive commercials, but I was underwhelmed by this year’s commercials. When, in my opinion, the most touching commercial was Mike Bloomberg’s political ad, the advertising kings missed the mark and chances are I will not bother to tune in next year. I have not watched the Super Bowl for the past few years because I do not love football anymore.
Last night I was feeling tired and asked my significant other, Donald, to put me in my bed before the game started, so I would not disturb him during the game. I decided to watch the commercials and asked Donald what channel was televising the game. I wore my glasses in bed in case some of the commercials required reading. I was prepared to be dazzled. The first commercial that stood out was the Secret ad, but not for good reasons. It was obvious from first glance the kicker was a girl, so the reveal when she took off her helmet was anticlimactic and made the ad feel like it was pandering toward women.
The next piece that caught my attention was the one featuring kids playing football and one runs away with the football being told “take it to the house” by people he meets along the way. I was watching the spot as it progressed featuring football player after football player, thinking somebody spent some serious money on this ad and when the young boy runs into the tunnel and is told to deliver the game ball by the woman, the “take it to the house” line made sense. I was thrilled when the ad turned into the real delivery of the game ball on the field by the boy in the commercial and several more children running from the tunnel. I should have stopped watching there, but I would have missed the Chiefs win and a few other cute commercials.
I watched the smart park commercial with mixed feelings. When the car was parked, my first thought was how are they going to get it out. The commercial answered that question by showing smart park working in reverse, but I could not get out of my head the feeling that smart park was inconsiderate to the cars parked on either side. How will those drivers access their cars when you are parked six inches from their door?
The TurboTax wiggly leg commercial was fun and so was the MC Hammer/Cheetos commercial, but they were not out of the ordinary. Many of the ads such as the Walmart out of this world pick up ad seemed to try to cram too much into them so they would come across more spectacular; however, they were too cluttered to be impressive. The older ad Walmart ran with the song Rocket Man in it was simpler and better.
I felt Ellen was not necessary in the Alexa ad. The outrageous romp through history spoke for itself and they could have saved money and went with less expensive, unknown talent for the intro and outro. If you are going to spend the money for Ellen and Portia, make them the stars of the commercial like the car commercial featuring Cobie Smulders. The Jimmy Fallon workout ad was pretty funny too, and he was the star even with celebrity help.
I did enjoy the game (I cheer for Kansas City unless they are playing the Raiders). The last six minutes were very exciting, and I was able to forget about the brutality of the sport for a while. I will spend the next year thinking, “That was a Super Bowl ad.” every time I see Cobie Smulders picking up a stranded stranger or see the bite-size clips Walmart will make from its out of this world commercial.
My piece of advice to you is keep doing what you love. I love to watch creative commercials and the Super Bowl usually delivers. Am I ever going to drink the beer in Jimmy Fallon’s commercial? No, I do not like beer, but I will probably laugh every time I watch the ad and think good thoughts about Michelob.
Until next time,
Susanne
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