Did you enjoy this year’s Super Bowl commercials? Maybe it is just my personal taste, but I don’t believe they were as good, overall, as they have been most years.
Still, these are some of the most creative commercials we will see all year. For this blog, I found enough water-related commercials and funny bits for me to revisit a few. Later, I will share some opinions from actual television reviewers, who have ranked the best and the worst of this year’s flock of Super Bowl ads.
The most dramatic water-related commercial was a spot for Death Wish Coffee, sponsored by Intuit. In a fierce, dark storm, Viking rowers are battling the waves and preparing to die when the surprise comes for the viewer.
Have you ever watched a commercial and wondered at the end, “What the heck are they trying to sell?” That was not the case with Death Wish Coffee.
In my advertising classes in college, I learned that you need to make the viewer remember the product. But I don’t believe that is the top priority for Super Bowl commercials, in which the producers’ goal may be to get people to remember the commercial, irrespective of the product.
I guess all the rules go out the window when advertisers are paying close to $5 million for a 30-second spot, a price reported by “Business Insider” magazine.
The next water-related commercial wasn’t about a product at all. It was about the use of water, yet the name Colgate nevertheless was prominent.
Jay Busbee and Kevin Kaduk of Yahoo Sports rated the Colgate commercial highly for its social marketing effort. Here’s what they said:
“The toothpaste titan used its 30 seconds to remind those of us with access to clean water to turn off the faucet while we brush. We admire their effort to spread a message of conservation and for resisting the urge to shame us for also forgetting to floss.”
I’ve chosen to recall three non-water commercials that I enjoyed. The first is Butterfinger’s “Bolder than Bold” that uses camera angles to take us deep into the adventure of sky diving with one surprise following another in short order.
The next one, an ad for Avocados from Mexico, shows space beings from the future visiting a museum, where familiar objects from the 2000s — including Scott Baio —are seen in a whole new light.
I also laughed at the Steven Tyler commercial for Skittles, which features a singing portrait of the musician, a portrait that ultimately explodes all over the floor. Not everyone thinks this commercial is funny, as you may see from at least one of the professional writers.
If you’d like to see more commercials with commentary check out the story by Busbee and Kaduk, who offered grades for the ads, and another story by Robert Chan of Yahoo TV, who listed “The good, the bad and WTF?”
I don’t know if so-called experts know any more than the rest of us when it comes to which commercials are good or bad. Even though the writers mentioned above are all from Yahoo, their opinions on individual commercials are quite distinct. Even more divergent is the top 10 as offered by Sport Illustrated.
Which one was your favorite? Post a comment, and I’ll track down the video and post it, assuming it is available.
