Super Bowl commercials are a reflection of the times, and this year, advertisers are proceeding with caution
The Birmingham News
By FORD WILES
Once a year, on a very special Sunday night, millions of Americans tune in and decide for a few brief hours to really care about commercials. In fact, a recent report released from Nielsen Media reports that a slim majority (51 percent) of people watching the Super Bowl care more about the ads than they do about the game.
And they don’t just watch the ads, they critique them, applaud them, ridicule them and sometimes talk about them for weeks and years to come. As an adman myself, I enjoy watching my friends outside of the advertising industry debate their favorite spot and distill it down to “I like it” or “I don’t.”
With all those critical eyes glued to the screen and some $2.7 million per 30 seconds on the line, advertisers take their airtime seriously. They know the pressure is on not only to be entertaining, but to be relevant and memorable, and their efforts often reveal something more than the latest line of potato chips. Super Bowl commercials are a reflection of the times.
In the wake of the cease fire in Vietnam, we got the 1974 Master Lock commercial where a gunman shoots the lock from close range to show that even a bullet hole won’t open it. A decade later, when we were all looking over our shoulders for Big Brother and searching for individuality, MacIntosh introduced its computer with an iconic ad about breaking conformity.
In 1993, fresh off the Dream Team win at the 1992 Summer Olympics, we got Michael Jordan and Larry Bird teaming up in an “off the expressway, over the river” game of horse in competition for a Big Mac.
In 1999, dotcoms dominated the commercial breaks, and Monster.com’s “When I Grow Up” spot won the hearts of GenX-ers who were entering the work force. In the ad, fresh-faced kids shared their dreams not to be firefighters or astronauts, but to be in middle management.
In 2002, a few short months after the country was devastated and united by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, patriotism swept the nation. The top-rated ad for that year was Anheuser-Busch’s “Clydesdales pay respect to Sept. 11 victims.”
So, as we struggle to gain economic footing after the worst recession in memory, what will this year’s ads say about a new decade in America? A look at plans for this year’s spots seems to reflect our national uncertainty. Just as we lack confidence in the security of our jobs and our investments, advertisers are feeling hesitant.
In fact, some advertisers are opting out altogether. Pepsi and FedEx, two of the largest advertisers in past years, decided to simply skip Super Bowl 2010.
Another longtime Super Bowl advertiser, Anheuser-Busch, had decided to scrap the Clydesdales for a new creative this year. Then they started questioning the move and turned to viewers, asking for fans to pick their favorite of three spots on Budweiser’s Facebook page. Meanwhile, Career Builder took a page out of Doritos’ playbook and opted to let consumers submit spot ideas in an online contest. Sure, it could be argued they save on the cost of production and have more potential for viral success, but they also avoid any potentially risky decision-making on their end.
Other advertisers are dodging the issues of the day and seeking the security of better times. McDonald’s, in fact, is doing a remake of its 1993 success, this time with LeBron James starring. Volkswagen’s “Punch Dub” commercial is a play on the classic “Punch Bug” game that kids used to play in the Beetle’s heyday. Boost Mobile is bringing back the 1985 Shufflin’ Crew for “The Boost Mobile Shuffle.” Home-Away, a vacation rental Web site in its first appearance in the Super Bowl, has hired Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo to reprise their roles from the 1980s movie “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”
All in all, it seems advertisers are proceeding with caution this year, as are the rest of us. We go to work every day, hoping the cycle of layoffs will come to an end before we become casualties of the recession. We invest more carefully than ever. And we spend with great caution.
While the advertising lineup is a good reflection of the mood of America, the way to motivate cautious consumers to open their wallets is not to be similarly restrained. As always, it is those who risk much that will receive the greatest rewards. With that in mind, I’m expecting two experienced Super Bowl advertisers to rise to the top this year:
Hats off to Coca-Cola, which may have the only 2010 Super Bowl ad that tries to get a laugh out of the employment crisis. One of the Coke Super Bowl ads features Montgomery Burns from “The Simpsons,” who goes bankrupt and learns to enjoy the simple things in life — a Coke.
But the winner this year may be Miller High Life, which decided Americans may not be impressed with a company that drops millions of dollars on a commercial while they struggle to pay their mortgage. So, Miller opted to feature four random small businesses across the country in its ads. Hard to say how a Super Bowl spot will affect Loretta’s Authentic Pralines in New Orleans, but I, for one, would like to try one of Loretta’s candies with a cold Miller High Life.
Ford Wiles is partner and chief creative officer at Birmingham-based advertising and PR agency Big Communications. E-mail: ford@bigcom.com.
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