A thirty second commercial during the Super Bowl costs an average of 5 million dollars. Who knew there would be a show that you did not want to whiz through the commercials on to find out who the murderer is, or who got kicked off the Bachelor. No one wants to waste their time watching commercials, but the Super Bowl is the exception to this rule.
Commercials are supposed to impact you in some way with their message, to make you feel something that you did not before. If done correctly, commercials have the power to radically change the viewers’ opinion of their company in less than a minute. The possible power of good advertising is amazing; the companies just have to succeed in making you feel as passionate as they do.
Some commercials resort to shock value, while others try to tug on your childhood heartstrings. You would think advertising companies would make sure that their million dollar Super Bowl commercial was on point, but some of these ads left me somewhat stupefied, rather than feeling significantly impacted from their message.
Cringe Worthy: Mountain Dew Commercial
For food commercials, it seems to be that companies are in a competition to see who can make talking animals parade their product in the most ridiculous way. Mountain Dew won this battle with its Puppy Monkey Baby commercial.
I think I could see this Frankenstein-esque creature in my nightmares.
Still Cringing: Bai, Horse Whisperer
Staying true to their advertising campaign, “None of this makes sense”, the Bai drinks commercial did not make any sense at all. The man in this commercial aggressively addresses the viewers, while yelling at his white pony, fulfilling his “horse whisperer” job. This commercial left me feeling uncomfortable, and it was not even funny. While Bai was trying to advertise the wonderful dual qualities of healthiness and great taste in their drink, this idea was mostly overshadowed by the weirdness of this commercial.
I know my first thought after viewing was not, “Wow, I want to go try that!” as I was more concerned with figuring out what the hell I just watched. To make the situation worse for Bai, Twitter users
also argued over possible cultural appropriation of hip hop culture by the horse whispering man.
Shocked: Doritos Ultrasound
This commercial was possibly the most controversial commercial of the Super Bowl, but also the most shared. Basically, Dad puts expecting wife in pain as he teases his unborn baby with a Doritos chip. For me, this was actually bad branding for Doritos, as they characterized their own patron as crude and insensitive.
Once I thought it could not get any worse, it did:
And I was like:
Still Confused: Heinz “Meet the Ketchups”
A herd of running Dachshunds dressed up as hot dogs! This situation should be automatically cute, right?
The 20 seconds of dogs prancing through a meadow was quite cute, until they ran into the arms of humans’ dressed up in various Heinz bottles. I know they are advertising their “Heinz family”, but did we have to dress humans up as ketchup?
Do the humans eat the hot dogs now? Does someone else eat them once they’ve covered in ketchup? Either way, this does not end well for anyone.
Slightly Uncomfortable, Slightly Perplexed: Football is Family
While on the surface this commercial presents itself as innocent, once you think about it a little more, you’re kind of like “Wait, what?"
As Anthony Anderson from the show, Black-ish, would say, “Parents...they’re how we got here. But no one wants to think about what they had to do to get us here”.
The commercial notes that winning Super Bowl cities see a rise in baby births nine months after a win. This commercial is discretely, if unintentionally, reminding us of all the celebratory sex that occurs after winning the Super Bowl. While set with persuasive rhetoric and heartfelt music, this commercial left me feeling a bit like LC over here:
Quite Good: Colgate Commercial, Save Water
This was arguably one of the most impactful commercials of the Super Bowl, tied with the Domestic Violence Awareness series. Colgate tastefully places their product in the background, while directing our attention to the foreground that reminds us of the overwhelming fact that “Brushing with the faucet running wastes up to four gallons of water”. Cue little girl drinking from her cupped palms, as well as my tears. Colgate has made us think, and even better yet, possibly called us to action. Ah, the power of good advertising.
For those arguing that Colgate simply could have used the 5 million dollars to buy water for those in need, I refute that that would not solve the issue of millions of gallons of clean water being completely wasted as we ignorantly keep our faucets running unnecessarily.
Chill Inducing: Jeep Portraits
I applaud you, Jeep. In my opinion, the most well made commercial of the Super Bowl. It was concise, emotional, heartfelt, attention gripping; all in a little over one minute. I did not want to look away. The combination of beautiful portraits, wonderful rhetoric, melodic music, and a heartfelt message gave me chills. This celebrates 75 years of Jeep, and they argue that “We don’t make Jeep, you do”.
I never knew a car commercial could be so pleasant. This advertising mastery left me like:
