It’s two in a row for the Kansas City Chiefs and their all-star QB, Patrick Mahomes, though the 49ers didn’t make it easy for them. It was one of the best Super Bowl games in some time, featuring what are truly two excellent teams playing at the highest level. This last game of the season was so close, it needed an extra 15 minutes of overtime to determine the winner. Well worth the late night and the slow Monday morning.
This year marks the fifth anniversary of this Super Bowl Psychology column, a look into what marketers, ad firms, and metrics specialists think will move Americans to buy their product or service. Over the past five years, the media landscape has changed dramatically, with an ever growing list of niche media services to scratch our individual itches. The Super Bowl, however, remains the unchallenged attractor of national eyeballs — the broadcast on Sunday was the most viewed television broadcast in the history of all media.
A well crafted advertisement shown during the program would influence 123 million viewers, give or take a few million stepping away for a bathroom break. And when each advert costs $7 million dollars per thirty seconds, you better bet these ad firms aren’t working off of hunches. After months of painstaking market research, data analysis, and trend tracking, it’s safe to say nobody knows their audience better than the teams putting these ads together.
Forget the State of the Union, the Oscars, the Grammys — if you really want to know about modern life in America, follow the Super Bowl Ads. So what do this year’s football ads say about us?
Humbled Celebrities
Watching the Super Bowl commercials this year was like flipping through a millennial celebrity Tik Tok trend. When everyone is now their own online brand, what better way to sell an actual brand than to enlist the help of pop culture gods and godesses? Every single commercial … I don’t think I can offer you five commercials from Sunday night that didn’t include a celebrity appearance. Yes, celebrities have always taken a front seat in Super Bowl advertisements, but this year, it was too much, like a fourth helping of queso dip after a dozen barbeque wings.
What was most fascinating to me was how many of the commercials traded in celebrity self-deprecation. Some examples include Tom Brady being excluded from gambling apps because he wins too much or Ben Affleck’s failed attempt to form a Dunkin based boy band with Matt Damon’s help (and also Tom Brady again?), to the horror of ex wife Jennifer Lopez. Gronk misses the Kick of Destiny 2. JJ Watt is doing dishes. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Christopher Walken are razzed for their distinctive accents. Michael Cera shills Cerave creams based purely on the joke of his similar sounding last name. Anthony Hopkins brings his intense method acting to the dignified role of bull mascot for an English football club.
If a celebrity was the star of a commercial, the odds were good that the celebrity would be the butt of a wider cultural joke.
One favorite in this category featured famous football players who never won Super Bowls (and Scarlett Johansson?) being gifted “rings of comfort,” a special jewel encrusted ring made from M&Ms for people who came in second place. I guess if you can’t win a Super Bowl despite going to one four times (a la Bruce Smith, former Buffalo Bills Defensive End), you can make your money on the Super Bowl nostalgia circuit every year.
We love our celebrates — they are just like us, right?! Nobody feels like they can measure up to the perfection standards our society has set forward, and so we love seeing our celebs flounder just like we do, regardless of its authenticity.
Same Ad, Same Dress, Same Party
We already mentioned how Tom Brady was in two ads this year, and he’s not the only person or theme to get tapped to appear in so many adverts. We also had multiple appearances from singer/rapper Jelly Roll, halftime performer Usher, and journeyman of joy Jeff Goldblum, who graced three commercials with his visage.
It wasn’t just that actors made double pay over the weekend: certain themes and ideas popped up in completely unrelated ads. Both Nerds and Xfinity, for example, chose to reference the famous 1983 FlashDance water pose. T-Mobile and ELF cosmetics both tapped stars from the TV show Suits to make pitches. As mentioned above, both State Farm and BMW decided that famous celebrity accents and vocal tics were fertile ground for a good joke.
One odd element of overlapping ads included not one, but four, distinct references to beloved NBC comedies from the past. Tina Fey’s advert for a travel booking site featured costars Jack McBrayer and Jane Krakowski from 30 Rock. David Schwimmer and Jennifer Anniston were only one recitation of the phrase “we were on a break!” from putting together a 30 second episode of Friends. A promo for the movie IF called back to an obscure Jim Halpert prank from The Office involving Randall Park. Aubrey Plaza reunites briefly with Nick Offerman to rekindle their mutual magic from Parks and Rec.
The fact that I remembered each actor’s name and show without opening a fresh google tab shows that I am indeed now a “target audience.”
When pitches overlapped like this, it felt like major brands had committed the faux pas of showing up to a formal party wearing the same dress. It’s like all the same marketing firms independently did extensive research on their target audience and came to the same exact conclusion. The result is either comfort food or stale leftovers, depending on your expectations.
Serious Social Ads are Back
Last year’s Jesus-themed “He Gets Us” ads have, I’m afraid, opened a can of worms. After years of playing it safe, the serious social ads are back. This year’s ad slots included both a rollicking history of medicine extolling the work of drug company Pfizer alongside an impassioned plea for congress to address soaring medical costs. The Catholics are jumping into the fray with their Wahlberg approved Hallow prayer app. The scientologists are back too, as well as long shot presidential candidate and Kennedy black sheep RFK Jr. Most of these ads fell flat.
People loved the Google app for verbal photography assistant for the visually impaired, but I feel like I’m the only person wondering how many selfies someone takes when they have a visual impairment as serious as the one they presented. I am open to the idea that I don’t understand visual handicaps like this. It seems more than a little disingenuous, however, that Google would one year boast that its camera has top in class megapixels and AI to improve its night time photography and the next outline how it’s also the perfect camera for people who are legally blind. The NFL twice tried to convince its viewers that it has created an app online that will help reduce bullying and bolster the mental health of millions of kids. A phone app or computerized curriculum designed to improve mental health and reduce bullying strikes me as … counterproductive, no? Sort of like the argument that the way to solve a gun violence problem is with more guns.
Two ads stood out here, however, and are worth consideration.
The first was Dove sharing how many young girls quit sports as teens because of body image. Cute little girls in dance costumes and gymnastics leotards tumbling harmlessly as “Hard Knock Life” from Annie playing in the background makes for a great ad, and the middle twist to talking about body image really seals the deal.
The second was Kia’s commercial featuring the impromptu ice skating performance at grandpa’s house. Those watching the advertisement with me noted how many expectations the advert subverted — was it about divorced parents? A dead mom? A missing sister? The ad was a surprising affirmation of father daughter love and affection, a reflection on the grief of mortality, and the bittersweet realization that technology can stave off death, but can’t defeat it. I dare you not to cry when the grandpa writes on the fog of the window. And when you’re done crying, go buy an all electric Kia, I guess, to stave off the grief of a loved one’s death in your life.
These ads are invitations to argument as much as advocacy. At least with humor, the only question to be considered is “did people laugh?” The He Gets Us ads continue to draw flack from both the far left and far right (despite their theological accuracy and biblical foundation!). The comments under the Dove ad on Youtube have turned into an ugly argument about transgender kids in sports. Even Kia’s beautiful advert elicited a snarky comment from someone sitting near me, who reminded all of us that you can do that same setup without an electric vehicle. My notes above on the Google and NFL adverts prove I am not alone in jumping into the fray.
Putting It Together
The last few years, Super Bowl adverts have been more or less great. The pandemic pushed out the preachy social adverts that defined the late 2010’s. The big ad firms recognized that humor and compelling stories reign and garner extensive brand goodwill. They play into the pageantry of the big game, and recognize their pseudo-civic duty to entertain us just much as as the football game might.
If anything, this year’s commercials signaled that the genre is in a bit of a rut, or perhaps, we as a culture are in a bit of a rut. We are simple people — we like to be entertained, we like to laugh, we like a good football game. The formula works, but this year, the formula worked a little too well. There was just too much overlap in theme, style, and direction for ads to stand out. There weren’t many ads for artificial intelligence (and the one ad featuring AI was not well received), though you can bet that the robots had their hand in helping behind the scenes. Market research and super computers can do a lot of things, but there’s no substitute for artistic creativity.
The Madison Ave ad firms share some blame for this formula, but really, the people are to blame as well: you and me. We are the ones filling out the surveys, giving data to Nielsen, clicking on websites with extensive traffic metrics on them, giving away our data for free. We are the ones who, with our spending habits and dollar bills and social media followers, communicate our preferences and likes. Even though the incredibly diverse media landscape seems to keep us separated, the ad firms are telling us otherwise. We’re not so different, you and I. A bit of nostalgia, a bit of laughter, and a clever product pitch are all we want. The question is whether we are happy being shown our lack of individuality on the day we are all to be entertained through sport and humor.
That’s why my favorite commercial from 2024 was the right silly Reese’s commercial with the Caramel King Cups. There are no celebrities in the ad, and it features a simple goofy premise. “Everyone loves Reese’s. Nobody needs to change it. But here’s something new to try — a Reese’s cup with caramel! Try it! If you don’t like it, go back to the original. If you do like it, you’ve found a new treat.” It’s quite the product pitch. In fact, on the way home from the party that night, I stopped at my local 24 hour gas station and bought a pack to try. Honestly, they weren’t great, and I probably won’t buy them again. But I enjoyed the ad enough to give the Hershey Corporation a few bucks to thank them for a belly laugh.
Strays:
- Along with the themes of humbled celebs and “same dress” ads, creative celebrity pairs were in vogue this year. Soccer star Messi with Jason Sudeikis brought out Ted Lasso vibes. Tony Hale’s assistant role with Beyonce gives out big time Veep vibes. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito are back together like in Twins (1988).
- Speaking of (Mockingbird friend) Tony Hale — we see you hanging with Queen B. Can your star go any higher now?
- I’ve intentionally avoided referencing Taylor Swift, but I do think her blessing of the sport gives permission for a certain generation of women to embrace the sport too. There really are monsters playing in the NFL, and many men can’t turn off their on-field aggression with the women they are closest with. But there are also decent men on the field too, and if number 13 herself helps make football a place where wives and daughters feel comfortable alongside their fathers and husbands, I think everyone wins.
- I thought Usher’s Super Bowl halftime show was fantastic. I’m told that he pulled in the Cirque du Soleil team to help with the acrobatics, which added real drama to the performance. (You can’t fake the flips of an acrobat like you can hide a vocalist with a backup choir). Great dancing and fun visuals — reminded me of the Bruno Mars show from 2014, which was a great show in its own right. I’m also a sucker for a killer HBCU marching band. R&B was never my genre, but this show was really entertaining.
- Someone else besides me must have immediately thought of John Barclay’s “Paul and the Gift” when Americans needed to respond to the gift of the Statue of Liberty with a gift in-kind!
COMMENTS
2 responses to “Super Bowl Psychology 2024”
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As much as I love football, there have been years when the Super Bowl brought out the cynic in me, especially around the ads. I couldn’t turn off my fundamental inner critic that wanted to scream, “They’re just trying to manipulate you into buying stuff with humor and celebrities and pathos! It’s a consumerist trap! Wake up, sheeple!!”
This year, I ate a THC/CBD 1:1 edible before the game and had an absolutely merry ole time. Friends, food, football…what more could you need on a Sunday afternoon?
The KIA commercial was a manipulative whiff for me. You would think the early-adopter father could have figured out how to use a smart phone to share the live, competitive performance to his affluent father in real-time. Power up the pond all you want, but that 80-year old with impaired vision saw nothing from his vantage point. Heck, he might have given me a 10.