Photo courtesy of www.sodastreamusa.com
So it turns out the much-hyped Super Bowl match-up of the NFL’s best offense against its best defense ended up being as exciting as watching paint dry (unless you’re a Seahawks fan). But the American tradition has taken on a life of its own, becoming just as much a consumer showcase as it is a professional sporting event. And the numbers certainly don’t lie: Neilson reports that the same-day viewership of this year’s Super Bowl raked in an average audience of 111.5 million viewers, with 5.6 million people in the U.S. sending 25.3 million tweets over the course of the entire game. FOX, which broadcast the game, said this year’s Super Bowl brought in more viewers “than any television program in U.S. history.” Now that’s saying something. And perhaps this justifies the staggering amount of money that corporations shelled out to be featured during the coveted game breaks.
Forbes has reported that ad time during the Super Bowl cost on average $4 million for a 30-second spot. When you factor in the additional millions it costs to produce each 30-second commercial … well, you get the idea. With so much money on the line, you can bet that creative teams in ad agencies across the country have been frantically trying to convince CEO’s that their sexy, funny, outlandish, silly or touching commercial idea is worth the price tag of admittance, and with the everyday John Smith talking as much about the big game as they are about what they are excited to see in between, these big corporations are sure to be sure before they sign those hefty checks.
So how did these corporations do with their precious time last Sunday? Let’s take a look at some of the most popular, most talked about and more controversial ads showcased during Super Bowl 2014.
First up is an interesting ad by SodaStream, a make-it-yourself soda pop alternative to the big guns in the game, Pepsi and Coca-Cola. What’s interesting about this ad isn’t the fact that it featured Scarlett Johansson (I wonder what her day rate for endorsements is?), but the fact that the creatives who wrote it were foolish enough to make such a rookie mistake in their script by having Johansson call out SodaStream’s competition by name in the commercial. This is a big time no-no, and FOX originally refused to air the commercial for breaking a tried-and-true rule of the ad game. When you are paying an A-list actress to endorse a product in a commercial that costs so much money, and are forced to spend more money to re-edit it days before it’s set to air due to an oversight, that’s just wrong. And when the story of your mistake becomes more talked about than your actual product, that’s just money wasted.
Sticking to the soda game, Coca-Cola had what was in my opinion a bold and touching ad that seemed to try to tap into the beauty of our multi-cultural country. Unfortunately, it created a social media backlash that might leave some ashamed to call themselves American. The ad in question portrayed a number of ethnicities enjoying Coca-Cola, with a rendition of “America the Beautiful” sung in multiple languages. Social media outlets exploded with thousands of comments, many of them too inappropriate to publish here, but following the train of thought that American’s only speak English in this country, and that “immigrant terrorists” have no right to sing “America the Beautiful.” For shame, America. For shame.
Then there were the commercials that pulled on viewers’ heartstrings amid their yells at Peyton Manning to do something, or anything really. Honda asked us to embrace our loved ones for a moment in their “hug someone” ad featuring Bruce Willis and Fred Armisen, and to take car safety as seriously as they supposedly do. Microsoft’s “empowering us all” ad gave a glimpse of how the company is working on new tech, allowing a boy to walk, a man to see and a woman to hear for the first time, among other things. It’s a touching bit of media that paints Microsoft in a different light, while indirectly poking fun at the hipster-dominated, I-need-a-new-iProduct-every-year commercials that Apple has become known for. And of course the Budweiser “puppy love” commercial, that made people “ohh” and “aww” at the friendship between a dog and a horse, and also somehow made us want to buy beer – I think?
Of course, this year also had its fair share of the more ridiculous commercial ideas. Bud Light had a great hidden camera prank-style ad featuring a random guy being swept up in a series of ever crazier events – including a pingpong match with Arnold Schwarzenegger and an elevator ride with Don Cheadle and a llama. A woman with a puppet quit her job on national TV for a reason I can’t remember. A 10 year-old girl tried to sell me a car I could never afford. Radio Shack poked fun at their irrelevance among today’s youth with a commercial packed with 80s stars right before the company announced they would be closing 500 stores across the nation. David Beckham ran around in his underwear, Steven Colbert made me crave pistachios and I recall a dog with a giant head at one moment.
Super Bowl 2014 may have disappointed in its initial promise of a great match-up of the leagues’ best teams, but the nation may take solace in the fact that the big game has come to offer so much more: unfiltered American consumerism at its best. Now if you will excuse me, I seem inclined to go buy some Doritos and Old Spice deodorant.
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Follow Chirag Patel on Twitter: @cbpatel86
