If the dominant tone of last year’s Big Game commercials was sombre and serious, the most popular approach for Super Bowl 50 was fun and silliness.
The majority of brands that spend $5m on 30-seconds of ad space decided to try and put a smile of fans’ faces.
The two most common comic approaches were talking animals and comic celebrities and these are Activative’s Top 5 Super Bowl 50 silly spots.
1 > Mountain Dew Mashes Up Big Game Animal Magic With #PuppyMonkeyBaby
Odd, eclectic, slightly addictive and very, very silly, BBDO’s #PuppyMonkeyBaby ad for Mountain Dew claims its origins lie in research into the favourite things in Super Bowl ads over the last 20 years.
But we can’t help but speculate it simply emerged from a ‘so weird it’s bound to trend socially’ hashtag brainstorm.
This ‘let’s cram everything into one creative’ comic commercial is just the central piece of a heavily-teased multi-platform campaign that spans digital, social and out-of-home.
The first in-game Super Bowl spot from the brand in 20 years, this counts as a sponsor spot as parent company PepisiCo is one of the NFL’s biggest and oldest commercial partners.
It trended pre-game and in-game and it racked up 10m+ YouTube views.
Plus, of course, it’s funny – in that weird, annoying and repetitive way that things sometimes are.
Click here for full campaign case study.
2 > Car Company Comedy Classic Commercials…Maybe
League sponsor Hyundai went big in the Big Game with a comic commercial triple bill.
By blending the classic comic Super Bowl spot silly themes – talking animals and comic celebrities, official NFL automotive sponsor offers a best-in-class case study of Super Bowl 50’s classic commercial/silly spot approach
The car company’s creative turned thriller-into-comedy through talking bears in The Chase (‘The Revenant’ it isn’t),
and chose Hollywood star slapstick for Ryan Reynolds fronted ‘Ryanville’,
while Kevin Hart’s ‘First Date’ adopted the approach of a suspicious father in a straight to streaming, coming of teenager comedy,
while the brand’s fourth ad, ‘Better’, felt like it was only there to make sure consumers still took the car company slightly seriously.
Honda’s agency RPA also plumped for the talking animals – well, silly singing sheep to be more accurate, in its ‘A New Truck to Love’.
Kia, along with agency David & Goliath, opted for offbeat Hollywood humour in the form of ‘Walken Closet’ – a word-play, pun-based droll spot about beige socks and midsize sedans lit up by the creepy comic charisma of Christopher Walken.
Similar in creative approach and creepy comic tone (although not in industry category) was Snickers’ spot that sees Hollywood’s Willem Dafoe channel Marilyn Monroe’s famous ‘Happy Birthday’ presidential serenade reworked from President Kennedy to the Super Bow’s 50th birthday itself. (Well, trans is a contemporary socio-cultural theme isn’t it!)
And finally, back to cars, Toyota’s ‘The Longest Chase’ also went for comic irony in the form of a Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles stretch a cops and robbers post bank robbery car chase into a sedate, yet silly Prius promotion.
3 > Deliberately Bad Costumes Make Good Comic Commercials
Two Super Bowl 50 spots show once and for all that badly made-up actors wearing deliberately awful comic costumes is a recipe for Super Bowl comedy gold.
Heinz’s ‘Wiener Stampede’ was yet another weird animal comic creation (from David Miami) with sausage dogs dressed, as err, sausages running through a meadow into the arms of people dressed up in Heinz condiments costumes.
The dogs look cute, at least the be-costumed actors seem to think so.
Odd then that the narrative conclusion and ad message is that the sweet little pets are about to be eaten.
While, Avocados From Mexico, in its debut Big Game ad, sees costumes seemingly from a terrible, low budget Dr Who wardrobe nightmare worn by bad actors pretending to be aliens looking around a human civilisation museum exhibit in which the best of mankind’s great achievement isn’t the emoji alphabet, the white and gold (blue and black) dress that caused a ‘civil war,’ but, yes, you guessed it, avocados.
4 > Official Big Game Beer Bud Light’s Politically Themed ‘Bud Light Party’
Wieden & Kennedy’s ‘Bud Light Party’ is a topical and yet fairly safe spot starring comic actor stand-ups Amy Shumer and Seth Rogan in a not entirely unfunny election-themed commercial – that comes complete with a sexual innuendo that’s sticks out like a surprising sore thumb in a Super Bowl spot. It aims to encourage voting, well, to encourage new Bud Light drinkers (and old ones to switch back from craft beers). It might manage to help defend its share.
See our full A-B InBev Super Bowl 50 activation case study.
5 > NFL’s Own Comic ‘Super Bowl Babies Choir’
Some might feel Grey New York’s in-game ad for the league itself is a slight overreach – after all it is a Seal-fronted music video that revolves around data showing a nine month, post-championship birth spike in Super Bowl winning cities.
Others seem of the opinion that for the first time ever, it is the league’s own ad, the right’s holders own spot that has scooped the award for funniest Super Bowl 50 spot.
Which might not go down that well with all the sponsors paying billions and the advertisers paying millions.
After all, its a bit like the NFL lifting the actual Super Bowl.
One thing is for sure, new parents in Denver better get their kids names down for competitive school places now.
See our full NFL League Super Bowl 50 activation case study.
