Super Bowl LIX…Who Were the Real Winners?

30 seconds and 8 million dollars later... a brand's ad is seen by approximately 123 million people. The question is, was it worth it? It depends on a brand's ability to grab viewers' attention, evoke emotion and stand out from the crowd. Similar to the teams playing in the Super Bowl, there’s a lot of strategy behind this year's approach against the competition. Some brands took a safe approach and leveraged familiarity by including celebrities, but did these brands stand out if they all used celebrities? Some took a comedic or heartfelt approach, while others went more modern by leveraging AI and using a futuristic spin. One thing is for sure, the NFL coaches and CMOs were put to work. Let’s see if it paid off.

Humour is Always a Winner

Bud Light

No party is complete without a Bud Light and this commercial sets the scene for an experience with friends. “The beers are a metaphor for an invitation,” Shane Gillis says, as he launches beers into their neighbour's yard with a leaf blower. This ad takes a light-hearted humour approach at the Super Bowl this year. While some of the chaos of the commercial such as driving through the neighbour's fence with a lawn mower helped to draw attention, not much stood out to keep it super memorable when staking up against the other commercials.

Alien Approach

This year we saw some aliens make an appearance in Super Bowl commercials. Whether to seem like a shock factor for attention like Tubi x Poppi or just a clever play on words like Hexclad, these two ads blended futuristic with some popular celebs making an appearance.

Hexclad

Who better to star in a Hexclad frying pan commercial than Gordan Ramsy? Starting with a futuristic movie-like scene at the Area 51 test kitchen, the commercial plays on the idea of their frying pans using spacecraft technology. Gordon tasked with cooking for the alien ambassador, mentions that he has the pans at home. The commercial also leveraged CGI to include aliens. Pete Davidson also made an appearance when he joked that all celebrities are aliens. While we felt the branding of the Hexclad pans was sort of lost behind the cinematic production of the commercial, the clever link to flying saucer technology allowed the brand to mention its functional benefits in a more seamless way that kept attention.

Tubi X Poppi

She’s the It Girl of Super Bowl influencer appearances this year. Alix Earle starred in this Super Bowl ad (1 of her 4 brand ads) for Tubi x Poppi. The ad plays on the classic movie Grease, only this time from space where the aliens wear leather jackets. With her commercial co-star Tiktok influencer Noah Beck, the scene opens with the narrator saying “They are friends from a Poppi ad in a turf war with alien greasers”—an interesting way for two ads to collaborate together without actually having a joint product or service. 

While Tubi and Poppi had their own separate Super Bowl commercials as well, maybe this was a way to create more brand awareness while sharing the price tag. Alix and Jake Shane were also in the other Poppi ad which may help with brand recollection in this ad. The more memorable scene has Earle and Noah Beck levitating into the air, and the narrator jokes that if enough people like the ad, they may make it a real show on Tubi.

Clever CGI

Disney

Arguably one of this year's more memorable Super Bowl ads was by Disney for the Lilo and Stitch movie. Playing on those funny sports viral videos where animals or humans run onto the field and struggle to be caught, this ad leveraged CGI to animate Stitch running loose onto the field. This clever timing with the Super Bowl and using Stitch was executed very well and caught many viewers' attention appearing to be an actual Super Bowl broadcast at first. This ad earns a top spot as an RCM favourite.

Patriotic Payoff?

Jeep

While most ads were light-hearted and played it safe this year, the ad for the Jeep brand went the more thought-provoking and patriotic route. With Harrison Ford being this year's guest star, he reflects on what makes him happy. While most automotive ads show their vehicles driving in tricky terrain with some cool or rugged music on top, it was nice to see something with a little more substance and different. 

Jeep has a history of ads including older male celebs talking about freedom, politics and addressing divisiveness in the U.S. This year was a little lighter on that but the one-liners felt a little mish-mashed. It did include automotive puns such as “pride is a terrible driver” and “we won’t always agree on which way to go, but our differences can be our strength” which blurs the line between a manifesto and a product spot. The end was our favourite part where Harrison Ford says “This Jeep makes me happy, even though my name is...” then silently mouths “Ford.”

Celebrity Status

Haagen- Dazs

The ad “not so fast, not so furious”, shows the Fast and Furious co-stars Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriquez driving fast in a car together. Time slows down when Michelle pulls out a Haagen-Dazs ice cream insinuating time slows down and is enjoyable when eating Haagen-Dazs. We liked how this ad was thoughtful about who was cast and leveraged the popular roles of the characters rather than throwing any celebrity or influencer in the spot.

Uber Eats

Uber took the celebrity route seriously with a star-studded cast in their Super Bowl Ad this year. Mathew McConaughey joins Christain McCaffrey in this football-themed ad that plays on the season joke that football only exists to make us hungry and eat more food. The ad shows different scenes where they joke about how football terms came to be, including Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Wings, Pig Skin (the football) and Bacon, Football Sunday and ice cream sundaes etc. With a mix of periods, puns and even more celebrities including Martha Stewart, Charli XCX, Kevin Bacon, Sean Evans and Greta Gerwig, this ad kept the viewer's attention throughout. Light-hearted and jokey, the ad did make us hungry so maybe it’s not a conspiracy?

$8 Million Dollars Later

With lots of brand ads and over 123 million opinions, viewers may interpret the ads differently. Some were better than others, and each brand took a different spin on this year's concept and theme. We saw some new ideas leveraging today's technology with CGI, and some new popular faces on our TVs showing even TikTok influencers can throw their hats in the ring. With so many different strategies and brands participating, it was fun to see some light-hearted, humorous, easy-to-watch ads with some of the faces we all know and love. With time, these brands will see if the ROI, brand awareness and stickiness of each ad worked. And if not, they can try again and improve next year for another 8 million dollars (or more!). As the saying goes, there’s always next year…You too Kansas City ;) 

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