The secret of the Super Bowl: It’s far easier to score a touchdown in the Big Game than it is for advertisers to do the same in the commercial time that surrounds it.
The secret of the Super Bowl: It’s far easier to score a touchdown in the Big Game than it is for advertisers to do the same in the commercial time that surrounds it.
With the event about to debut its 53 rd edition, longtime viewers might just think they can devise a Super Bowl ad as easily as any creative toiling away at one of the nation’s big ad agencies. Sign an A-list or D-list celebrity. Come up with kooky joke or jaw-dropping surprise. Licence bubbly pop song. Figure out a way to get people talking about all of it on social media ten days to two weeks before kickoff. Et voila!
Making a truly memorable Super Bowl ad, as it turns out, means clearing a higher bar. We’ve come here today to celebrate advertisers who have done just that.
What follows below isn’ t a list of the best Super Bowl ads ever made. Curating that roster is a task best delegated to people with ten times our sagacity or acumen.
Instead, it’s a compendium of those big commercials that forced a change in how Super Bowl commercials are plotted, put together or placed in the lineup of the network broadcasting the game. No, we aren’t going to look at Coke’s famous Mean Joe Greene ad or the popular 1973 Super Bowl commercial for Noxzema featuring Farrah Fawcett and Joe Namath. We will focus, however, on those ads that have shaken the Super Bowl system and given us new ways to consider how to build the biggest, most-watched and most-talked-about commercials in the United States. Make sure and let us know if you think we got them all.
Procter & Gamble, “It’s A Tide Ad” (2018)
Anheuser-Busch, “Bud Bowl” (1989 to 1995,1997)
Appeared In: Super Bowl LII (Tide) and Super Bowl XXIII- Super Bowl XXIX, Super Bowl XXXI (Bud)
What: In P&G’s 2018 four-ad effort, Tide “hijacks” a variety of different commercials that start off as ads for beer, Mr. Clean, Old Spice and other common pitches. In Bud’s multiple-commercial game within a game, bottles of the brewer’s flagship Budweiser take the field against bottles of Bud Light (Bud Ice and Bud Dry would appear as the series wore on) in a stop-motion-animation classic that sometimes seems as furious a contest as the game itself.
Why: Too many advertisers think of Super Bowl commercials as “one-offs.” With some strategic thinking, however, they can create a story line that compels viewers to follow along from first quarter to fourth. Bud’s faux gridiron contest even prompted some people to gamble on its outcome – proof positive that advertisers can use the Super Bowl to craft something much bigger than a couple of 30-second TV commercials.
Netflix, trailer for “The Cloverfield Paradox” (2018)
Appeared In: Super Bowl LII
What: Netflix crashed Super Bowl LII with the surprise announcement that this new entry in Paramount’s “Cloverfield” sci-fi series was suddenly available, telling viewers it would be available for them to see as soon as NBC’s broadcast was over.
Why: This spot heralded the true advent of streaming-video players in the world of entertainment marketing (HBO and Amazon also ran trailers for “Westworld” and “Jack Ryan,” respectively, as part of the 2018 Super Bowl ad roster). Netflix used the ad to brazenly, essentially telling hundreds of millions of people to stop watching NBC as soon as convenient.
Volkswagen, “The Force” (2011)
Appeared In: Super Bowl XLV
What: A young boy dressed as Darth Vader from “Star Wars” attempts to harness the Force to make things happen, like waking up a dog. Of course, he really has no powers. So imagine his surprise when he discovers he can start a Volkswagen Passat (it turns out his father was using a remote control).
Why: Volkswagen became the first advertiser to truly harness social media to wring more value from its Super Bowl efforts. The automaker put a 60-second version of the commercial on YouTube the week before it was supposed to debut in the Super Bowl, and generated millions of views and viral chatter, whetting consumers’ appetites to see it when it finally ran in the game in 30-second form. For a while, the practice of releasing Super Bowl ads early via social media became the norm for nearly every marketer with a spot in the game.
