The fame game that is Super Bowl

At Saatchi & Saatchi we talk a lot about helping brands to be famous in culture. And there’s probably no bigger example of cultural fame than that of the Super Bowl within America.

The football game is the biggest television event of the year, embellished with a star-studded halftime show – this year’s average viewership of 123.4 million was the biggest TV audience since the moon landing.

However, further inflating its place in culture is the public’s enthusiasm for the advertising that runs during it. Ads have become part of the attraction rather than an inconvenient distraction. Brands even run teasers weeks before to coax people to tune into Super Bowl to see the full ad.

How did advertising get into this position?

It’s certainly a phenomenon that has grown organically over time rather than being deliberately orchestrated. One of the main drivers is that brands go to great effort (and huge expense) to create ads specifically for Super Bowl night. Simply showing up in culture at the cost of US$ 7 million for 30 seconds isn’t enough for most.

The question they then ask is how to grab an unfair share of the attention.

And the answer is creativity. And that brings a whole new level of novelty, surprise and intrigue to the ad-breaks.

Apple is often credited for starting this kind of singular event marketing approach with their famous 1984 ad launching the Mac that was only televised the once nationally during Super Bowl. Four decades on, and everybody is on the act.

The competition to make the best, most loved commercial of the night is almost as intense as the competition on the field. This only adds impetus to do something different, be more fun, more entertaining, more interesting, more talked about. No, they don’t all succeed, but at least most of them try, and that makes for enjoyable viewing.

One thing Super Bowl ads have commonly done for attention is use celebrities. At a guess, I’d say 80 per cent of the ads this year did just that. Some might say too eagerly, almost relying on celebrity for lack of a better idea.

But there is clearly cache in the fame of celebrities. Perhaps less for the credibility they bring to a brand, and more for their allure, their entertainment value and for what their personal or on-stage character personas can bring to a script. Super Bowl ads often have short life spans, so a brand is not committing to the celebrity long-term, making it an easier call to go this way. 

I’m certain many briefs request the of use a celebrity. Even if only for some bragging rights amongst CEOs about who scored the biggest star. But this means production budgets allow for the millions needed for celebrity fees.

Some classic examples this year are Arnold Schwarzenegger for State Farm Insurance where he is cast as a State Farm Agent in their movie. However, with his accent he has an issue pronouncing the word ‘neighbour’ in the brand’s slogan, eventually to be rescued by Danny DeVito. It’s deliberately hammy but won USA Today’s Super Bowl Meter as rated by the public, so I’m not going to argue with it.

Another celebrity used well was Michael Cera, playing himself pitching to CeraVe skincare executives to do a collaboration with them. See what they did there? Certainly, this one was humorous and with the product front and centre.

Christopher Walken featured in a BMW ad that showed him interacting with people who seemingly felt the need to do impressions of him. “There is only one original” was the line that connected this to the brand… although I wasn’t convinced the cameo appearance of Usher at the end was necessary.

Aubrey Plaza, has a persona that somehow made her perfect for Mountain Dew’s launch ad for Blast, as she unenthusiastically and even sarcastically tells us how she’s ‘having a blast’ in the most ludicrous of scenarios.

Dunkin’ Donuts featured Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Matt Damon and Tom Brady, but don’t ask me to explain this one here.

Uber Eats brought Ross and Rachel from Friends back together, well almost, and featured David and Victoria amongst others.

However, not every ad played the celebrity card for attention, like VW’s lovely celebration of 75 years in America (although I did see Bart and Lisa in there come to think of it.)

Another one was DoorDash who, in emphasising that they will deliver anything, ran a promotion that allowed you to win one of ‘everything’ that was advertised during the Super Bowl, this included the numerous cars. Pluto TV showed how they farm couch potatoes without a celebrity in sight.

And a simple ad for Dove showed home footage of girls taking tumbles in sport set light-heartedly to “It’s a Hard Knock Life” from Annie. This was an emotionally engaging way to say 45 percent of girls give up sport because of low body confidence, not knocks.

But it was definitively humour that was the go-to style of ads this year, more than we’ve seen for some time. It’s not a novelty that humour is one of the most powerful ways to connect with people. We are sensing a swing away from a period where earnest societal and environmental concerns became priorities in many brand conversations. And now, with the realisation that people want ‘feel good’ from brands again, humour is playing more often.

So, what were the best ads from the 70 or so? For me there wasn’t a standout. (I still hark back to It’s a Tide Ad from a few years ago.) There were numerous strong and entertaining ones. There were a surprising number of lame ones.

But one campaign that did get my attention didn’t even run in Super Bowl. Liquid Death, a massive renegade water brand in the US, ran ads suggesting that rather than spending millions on ‘Big Game’ advertising, you could buy space on a side of their multipack and advertise your brand there. Even inviting Coke to do so if they wanted, and listing the space on eBay. Maybe emphasising to us that with a bit of creativity there are many ways to use Super Bowl to get to be famous in culture.

“Steve Cochran is Chief Creative Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi NZ. He has more 30 years’ experience in the creative industry working across iconic local and global brands, including Toyota, Westpac, Air New Zealand, Chorus, Yellow, Tip Top, New World, and Burger King. He has collected awards at prominent international and local shows, and served on numerous juries, including Cannes Lions. He has written Super Bowl scripts, but has never quite got to have one made. Yet.”

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