Dead boy’s story lit up social media
Voice-overs, brand image were big
NEW YORK — Super Bowl advertisers Sunday night sought to win over viewers in a variety of ways.
McDonald’s called for loving, Coke demanded more positivity, and Nationwide told the story of a dead boy.
Here’s a look the big game’s ad highlights.
JARRING ADS: Nationwide insurance company’s ad showed a boy riding a school bus and lamenting he’ll never learn to fly, or travel the world with my best friend or even grow up, because he died in an accident. The ad for Nationwide was aimed at stopping preventable childhood accidents.
But the ad was so jarring it became the butt of jokes on social media.
Nissan, meanwhile, returned to the Super Bowl after 18 years with an ad featuring the storyline of an up-and-coming race car driver and his wife struggling to balance work and raise their son.
Some fans noted the ad was set to “Cats in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin, who was killed in a car crash.
TRYING TO IMPROVE
BRAND IMAGE: Some companies had a lot to prove — and it showed in their ads.
McDonald’s returned to the Super Bowl with an ad for its latest promotion, which will let randomly selected customers pay for their orders with acts of love, like a high-five, fist bump or a call to a relative. The promotion starts today and runs through Feb. 14
The McDonald’s ad was an extension of the company’s recently launched campaign seeking to associate its brand with the positive emotion of loving as it fights to hold on to customers amid intensifying competition.
According to the contest rules posted online, McDonald’s says each participating restaurant will select 100 winners over the course of the contest.
Carnival Cruise Line’s ad included a voice-over by John F. Kennedy speaking about the sea. The world’s largest cruise company was trying to boost the image of cruises with its first ever Super Bowl ad after several years of bad publicity from illnesses on ships and the Costa Concordia wreck in 2012.
And Coca-Cola’s ad called for positivity in the face of online negativity.
The company’s “Make It Happy” ad was an update on its long-running strategy of getting people to associate its soft drinks with happiness at a time when people increasingly see them as unhealthy.
VOICE-OVERS WERE BIG: Toyota’s first ad starred Paralympic medalist Amy Purdy snowboarding and dancing, set to a speech by Muhammad Ali that ends with: “I’ll show you how great I am.”
A Microsoft ad with a voiceover by rapper Common told the story of Braylon O’Neill, a boy who was born missing the tibia and fibula bones in both of his legs, so he had to learn to live with prosthetic legs developed by the company.
And of course, there was Carnival’s audio clip of JFK.
PUPPY LOVE … AGAIN: Budweiser’s “Lost Puppy” ad was a winner before it even aired during the Super Bowl. The ad, which shows a puppy running away to find his Clydesdale buddies, already had 18 million views on YouTube ahead of the game.
It’s a tried-and-true formula. Last year, Budweiser broke records with its Super Bowl spot, “Puppy Love,” which was a Top 10 branded content video and Top 10 video overall on YouTube.
PRE-GAME SCORE: Chevrolet’s ad “Blackout” appeared to be a live game feed that turned into static and a blank screen. The company used the trick to show its Colorado truck has 4G LTE Wi-Fi, so people could stream the game live in the truck. The spot was an early star of the ad game.