‘Groundhog Day,’ Murray sees shadow once again
NEW YORK — During advertising’s biggest night, Super Bowl Sunday, marketers competed to bolster their brands and promote new products. Advertisers paid up to $5.6 million for 30 seconds, and almost 100 million people tune in to the telecast.
This year, Hyundai and Jeep scored with whimsical humor by poking fun at Boston accents and reuniting the “Groundhog Day” cast, Punxsutawney Phil included. Google struck heartstrings with a quiet message about aging and remembrance. Cheetos and Doritos both played off exaggerated dancing to good effect.
But PopTarts and a Hard Rock actionmovie commercial failed to connect with viewers.
Best
Hyundai: The automaker released its ad early, but it still drew fans during the game. Bostonaffiliated celebrities including actor Chris Evans, John Krasinski, “Saturday Night Live” alum Rachel Dratch and former Boston designated hitter David Ortiz discussed a Hyundai feature that lets car owners park remotely. They used exaggerated accents that make “Smart Park” sound like “smaht pahk.”
Jeep: Super Bowl Sunday was on Groundhog Day, so someone had to do it. Fiat Chrysler painstakingly recreated the 1993 movie “Groundhog Day,” including the town square and other locales, with original actors Bill Murray, Brian Doyle Murray and Stephen Tobolowsky. The twist: Instead of a Chevrolet truck, Murray uses a Jeep Gladiator truck. FCA Group marketing chief Olivier Francois said the ad worked to demonstrate the versatility of the Jeep truck because Murray does something different every day.
Google: Google’s 90second ad stood out by not using humor or celebrities. It features a man reminiscing about his wife, using the Google Assistant feature to pull up old photos of her and past vacations. The ad is set to an instrumental version of “Say Something” by Great Big World. “It’s so hard to write earnestly and not make it cheesy,” said Julia Neumann, executive creative director at ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day in New York. “This was really, really well done.” Cheetos: Cheetos used nostalgia effectively, appropriating the 30yearold MC Hammer classic “U Can’t Touch This” — still an earworm after all these years. The snackfood ad features a man with bright orange Cheetos dust on his hands who uses it as an excuse not to move furniture and perform office tasks. Hammer himself — “Hammer pants” and all — also kept popping up to utter his iconic catchphrase. Doritos: The brand added a silly danceoff to “Old Town Road,” the smash hit of the summer by Lil Nas X. In the Westernthemed ad, Lil Nas challenges grizzled character actor Sam Elliott with silly, sometimes CGIenhanced dances moves at the “Cool Ranch.” Billy Cyrus, who features in the song’s remix, also made a cameo.
Planters: Planters teased its Super Bowl ad nearly two weeks before the game, releasing a teaser that showed its Mr. Peanut mascot seemingly being killed. The “death” of Mr. Peanut went viral on Twitter. But when Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash, the marketing stunt suddenly seemed insensitive, so Planters paused its pregame advertising. The actual Super Bowl ad was relatively inoffensive, with a baby Mr. Peanut appearing at the funeral. “Baby Nut” comparisons to “Baby Yoda” and “Baby Groot” sprung up online.
Worst
Avocados from Mexico: Avocados from Mexico have carved out a niche with humorous ads featuring avocados, but they might have veered a little too far into random territory with this effort featuring a home shopping network with fake products such as a babycarrierlike device for avocados. “I thought the Avocados from Mexico spot felt like a random and gratuitous use of celebrity,” said Steve Merino, chief creative officer of Aloysius, Butler & Clark in Wilmington, Delaware. “Not only did it not make sense to have Molly Ringwald as your spokesperson, it was also a bit of a distraction.”
PopTarts: Kellogg’s went for quirky but ended up with a bland spot that isn’t likely to be remembered. In a pseudo infomercial, Jonathan Van Ness of “Queer Eye” describes the new PopTarts pretzel snack. The idea is that PopTarts adds pizzazz to pretzels, but the ad itself failed to have much spark. Squarespace: Winona Ryder went back to Winona, Minn. — after which she is named — to create a website for the town. But nothing much happened in the ad, which shows Ryder in a snowdrift on her laptop being confronted by a “Fargo”like cop. There’s a more involved marketing campaign upcoming with Ryder, but the Super Bowl ad didn’t communicate much. Hard Rock International: Hard Rock International went all in on its first Super Bowl ad, maybe too much so. It enlisted Michael Bay for a frenetic commercial showing a frenzied heist caper involving Jennifer Lopez, Alex Rodriguez, DJ Khaled, Pitbull and Steven Van Zandt — but some found it hard to follow.
Mae Anderson is an Associated Press writer.