The Super Bowl, the Women’s Bowl, the Fear Of Robots Bowl, however you choose to describe it most marketers agree when it comes to the marketing around this year’s Big game it was more a case of the Mediocre Bowl.
Sadly, 2019 saw a fairly dull set of Big Game commercials ran in parallel to a fairly dull Super Bowl
Perhaps it was the $5.5m per 30-seconds that broadcaster CBS was charging for a 30-seconfd spot, or maybe it was the $1.39bn that had already been invested into marketing spend by sponsors and advertiser into the NFL and its 32 teams over the course of the 2018-2019, which meant marketers had to skrimp on Big Game ad agency and production costs?
While 2019 wasn’t exactly a stand-out Super Bowl when it came to the commercials, there was still some strong work and key themes.
Sports Spots
For once, perhaps the best commercials in the Super Bowl were sports spots.
Perhaps the sports marketing community has finally realised that property synergy isn’t it itself enough to win the Big Game?
This year’s game saw plenty of sports advertising to admire,
of course, there were also some that just helped pass the time until the game restarted, or even gave enough time to refresh the chips bowl and put the kettle on.
Female Empowerment/Gender Equality
The biggest marketing and messaging trend to emerge from Super Bowl LIII was Female Empowerment/Gender Equality.
Big Game advertisers seem to have finally woken up to the fact that half of the Super Bowl audience and half of the people on the planet are women.
About time!
Societal Fear Of Robots
This year saw an avalanche of jokes about robots. From beer ads, to potato chip commercials and from home security spots to Alexa ads, it is as if society is afraid of technology, of AI and of the rise of the robots.
Or maybe marketers are just reminding us that it is good to be human?
Simple Spots Playing On Football Terminology:
Why fumble in the political space when you can run a Big Game blitz?
Fiat Chrysler’s ‘Roll Rams Roll’ spot within its ‘Big Game Blitz’ of commercials none of which actually ran in the Super Bowl is a fine double whammy example of this slightly strained name/word connection trend as a tactical link between the advertiser and the property.
It wasn’t the only pun-style play on football words ad in the Big Game either: there was a spot about ‘Protection’ and so many more mediocre ads that we aren’t going to reference them all. After all, you get the idea.
Bringing Us Together
This year saw almost every brand avoid getting involved with the kind of political sports and Super Bowl spots we have seen recently from the likes of Nike in 2018 and 84 and Lumber in 2017.
Instead, we saw several old-school unity spots about bringing people together, neighbourhood and community, the whole of the USA and the world too.
If only we would or we could unite (we aren’t sure which).
Big Game Blockbuster Award
And, in a year where Super Bowl blockbuster spots were few and far between, our award for the Big Game Blockbuster goes to
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.