THIS YEAR’S SUPER BOWL ADS GO FOR THE HEART
Spots also aim for funnybone via Pratt, Damon, Haddish, Freeman and more
If the American political landscape is more fractured than ever, the American ad industry wants to piece it together by tugging hard on our heartstrings.
That’s the feeling many viewers may walk away with Sunday after watching this year’s ballyhooed commercials debuting during Super Bowl LII from Minneapolis. It seems our captains of industry want us to momentarily put down that tasty chicken wing and pull our fellow man in for a big hug.
But it’s not all tears in our beer as stars including Chris Pratt, Tiffany Haddish, Morgan Freeman, David Harbour, Danny DeVito, Keanu Reeves and, yes, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will be around to try to get us to laugh, too.
As NBC reportedly will generate more than $1 billion in Super Bowl ad sales — the network is asking more than $5 million for a 30-second spot, though that includes a bundling with upcoming Winter Olympics coverage — these ads are more important than ever to corporate America.
Here’s a rundown of what you’re going to be seeing between touchdowns, though some com-
The shape of water
Water, and its importance to humanity, is a focus of two ads from Anheuser-Busch InBev.
A new Budweiser Super Bowl commercial is the one that usually gets even the loudest football fan to pause and go quiet for a minute. Though the Clydesdales remain stabled this year, the humans who helped bottle and deliver water to Texas during Hurricane Harvey, Florida during Hurricane Irma, Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria and California during the wildfires are the stars as the soundtrack plays a version of the song “Stand by You.” (By the way, fans of the Clydesdales can catch the horses in a digital ad debuting on social media.)
Meanwhile, another Anheuser-Busch InBev beer brand, Stella Artois, has Matt Damon to remind us that much of the world has no reliable, convenient sources of water. As part of the company’s “Make Your Super Bowl Party Matter” campaign, Damon urges viewers to purchase a limited-edition Stella Artois chalice as the proceeds go to water. org (a charity co-founded by Damon) in its efforts to bring potable water to more people.
Yet, funnily enough, Anheuser-Busch took a different path with its Michelob Ultra brand. Instead of going the kumbaya route, it got Chris Pratt to play a vain, fitness-obsessed goofball to funny effect.
Hyundai promises to “surprise millions” with its 60-second, fourthquarter spot devoted to Hyundai Hope on Wheels, a nonprofit it established to fight pediatric cancer. The commercial will feature footage from game day as well as pre-shot scenes.
Meanwhile, Kraft is touting its 30-second ad made up of photos and videos celebrating family that have been shared by members of the public through the social-media hashtags #FamilyGreat and #Kraft Entry. Both of these ads will debut Sunday.
With the exception of Michelob, all these commercials tap into social issues and feel-good positivity without getting explicitly political. As AdAge recently noted, “Who can argue with giving away water or curing cancer?”
“Super Bowl ads always reflect the mood of the country to a certain degree,” Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University, told AdAge. “Our country has all sorts of issues right now and it’s very polarizing. And this may be brands responding to that by embracing causes that everybody can rally around.”
Back away from the burger
Apparently, PETA didn’t get the memo and their commercial is not going to be airing during the game but will be available online. (Reportedly, NBC and the group couldn’t come to an agreement over the price.) The animalrights organization probably would have gotten the dip flying at even the most polite Super Bowl parties with its confrontational ad urging viewers to go meatless. Titled “Redemption,” the spot stars actor James Cromwell as a priest hearing the confession of a meat-industry bigwig. This is the one that probably would have sparked even more conversation than whatever Tom Brady does during the game.
Don’t quit your day job
Also certain to get tongues clucking is the one for Alexa in which the device suddenly loses its voice and we’re left to ponder who the replacement voice will be. It’s already been teased with a brief trailer, though the full version won’t be unveiled until Sunday. The one thing we do know is that Jeff Bezos probably won’t be up for an Oscar any time soon. And it will also give the residents of each of the 218 cities that didn’t make the final list to be the home of Amazon HQ2 a chance to boo and hiss when he comes on screen. This means you, Houston.
Texas brew, too
The big breweries aren’t the only ones getting airtime Sunday. Shiner’s Spoetzl Brewery, the makers of Shiner Bock, made a $1.2 million ad that will be shown in Texas during the Super Bowl. After that debut, the ad with the theme “This is Shiner Country” will be shown in Texas media markets throughout 2018.
Doesn’t smell like teen spirit
Febreze gets the award for the commercial with a catch phrase most likely to go viral. It features The Only Man Whose Bleep Don’t Stink, which might just make him the new The Most Interesting Man in the World.
Playing with your food
The best of the food commercials promises to be the rap-battle takeoff Doritos and Mountain Dew are sponsoring between Peter Dinklage from “Game of Thrones” and Morgan Freeman from, well, just about every movie ever made. Dinklage will be spitting rhymes for Doritos’ new Blaze chips while Freeman will be showing his skills for Mountain Dew’s latest iteration, Ice. So far, all we’ve seen are the teaser trailers, featuring Busta Rhymes as Dinklage’s coach and Missy Elliott helping Freeman, and they are gold. (Speaking of rappers, Australia’s Iggy Azalea will be repping Monster audio products, the company’s first effort at a Super Bowl ad).
Pepsi will be going for nostalgia with an ad starring Cindy Crawford recreating her famous 1992 Pepsi ad, but this time she’s going to be joined by her son, Presley Gerber. It will also pay respect to other memorable Pepsi moments featuring Michael Jackson and Britney Spears.
Skittles is making headlines by making a commercial that won’t be shown during the telecast. In fact, most of us will never be able to see it at all. Instead, the commercial will be shown one time to just one person — Marcos Menendez of Canoga Park, Calif. — and the curious can watch his reaction to that commercial through a live stream on the Skittles Facebook page Sunday. There are four teasers online, all starring former “Friend” David Schwimmer.
The makers of Pringles, in their first Super Bowl ad, want us to be stacking different flavors of their chips and saying “wow!” To get all of us on board, they’ve hired comic actor Bill Hader to show us how to do it and make it a thing. Well, it’s no “Dilly, dilly!” Similarly, M&M’s turned to Danny DeVito to get us laughing as an M&M who has taken human form. If just the sight of DeVito makes you giggle, then it’s amusing. If not, bathroom break.
Hollywood heroes
It wouldn’t be the Super Bowl without an ad for the next blockbuster movie. So get ready for Disney/Marvel to pounce with “Black Panther,” especially with a tie-in with the Lexus LS 500. The tagline is “long live the king,” which fits in with what Black Panther, who’s also the king of the fictional African country Wakanda, would drive if he needed a car.
OK, we’ll forget that little Oscar thing
Comic actress Tiffany Haddish may have not been all that charming when she butchered names as the co-emcee during the Academy Awards nominations announcement, but she’s back on comedic terra firma in an ad for Groupon. All is forgiven.
Keanu Reeves’ excellent internet adventure
Keanu Reeves follows in the footsteps of Key & Peele, John Malkovich and Jeff Bridges, who’ve starred in Super Bowl ads for Squarespace, the websitedesign company, with a couple of headscratcher ads of him talking about designing sites for his Arch motorcycle company. They do play to the actor’s deadpan strengths, though.
The Tide is high
Tide has been in the news lately because of the idiotic, internet-fueled fad of people old enough to know better eating Tide soap in the so-called Tide Pod Challenge. The new series of commercials, with a “Stranger Things” star taking over for Terry Bradshaw, might bring the company some welcome positive attention.