USA TODAY International Edition
Super Bowl TV ads toned down in Trump’s shadow?
Companies wary amid polarization
Donald Trump appeared in a Super Bowl ad five years ago in which he was outsmarted by a Century 21 agent. This time you won’t find him in the ads, though his unmistakable shadow will loom over them.
84 Lumber, a leading supplier of building materials, has a 90second Super Bowl spot that will air just before halftime. You won’t see the original version unless you go online. M. J. Brunner Inc., the agency that created the ad, says 84 Lumber seeks to present itself as a company looking for good employees, no matter where they come from. The ad’s original imagery included a wall — and the agency says Fox asked it to go back to the drawing board.
Trump will have been president for little more than two weeks on Super Bowl Sunday, and ad experts say the mere fact of his administration will be felt in some of the pricey commercials, though in ways more subtle than the explicit example of 84 Lumber.
Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, points to a country that is polarized by a bruising election campaign and a simmering anger that lingers in the land.
“We are obviously in a very tense social moment,” Thompson says. “Most advertisers are not going to want to do something that could be provocative to a large part of a population that’s in an already provoked state.”
Shawn McBride, executive vice president, sports, at Ketchum Sports and Entertainment, says the tone of the times is often reflected in Super Bowl ads. Budweiser’s Clydesdales bowing before the New York skyline after 9/ 11 is a shining example. But in those days the country was united in its grief.
“I don’t think we’ll see ads as provocative as we’ve seen maybe years prior,” McBride says. “That’s just not the temperature of the country right now. You don’t want to come across as tone deaf to the audience you’re trying to reach.”
Tim Calkins thinks brands will try their best to stay on safe ground in fractious times, especially in an era when social media affords the offended a means to complain instantly and harshly.
“There is no question that Super Bowl advertisers are thinking about Trump and thinking about polarization,” says Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “All of these Super Bowl advertisers are trying to resonate and trying to break through, but I think they will work very hard to be safe.”
Budweiser will have an ad that tells the immigrant story of its cofounder, Adolphus Busch. When the ad’s Busch arrives in 19thcentury America he hears catcalls in the streets. “You’re not welcome here! Go home!”
That offers echoes of today’s America. Side note: Trump’s grandfather, Frederick, also emigrated from Germany in the 1800s.
Super Bowl viewers who watch the ad for Avocados from Mexico might wonder if the guacamole they’re snacking on will soon cost more, as the Trump administration has floated the possibility of a tariff on imported Mexican goods.
“We don’t get into those political situations,” says Alvaro Luque, president of Avocados From Mexico, who says the main goal of his marketing organization is brand messaging. This year’s avocado ad has Jon Lovitz; last year’s had Scott Baio, who became notable as a Trump backer. Would Baio’s comic cameo have worked this time?
“No, probably not,” says Jay Russell, chief creative officer of GSD& M Advertising. “It’s a different year.”