Super Bowl commercials aim to comfort and connect

Super Bowl commercials each year provide a glimpse into the American psyche. And this year it’s a doozy.

After a year of pandemic fear and isolation, a tumultuous election capped by a riot on Capitol Hill and periodic uncertainty over whether there would even be a Super Bowl, marketers need to be cautious. The ideal: to promote their brands to a tired public in search of comfort and escape without crossing the lines that could trigger spectators.

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So Will Ferrell is teaming up with GM – and Awkwafina and Kenan Thompson – on a crazy cross-country to promote electric vehicles. Amazon plays with sexual innuendo when a woman is distracted by her new assistant Alexa who looks like actor Michael B. Jordan. And Anheuser-Busch offers a hopeful look at a time when we can once again say ‘let’s have a beer’ to our friends and colleagues.

“Comfort is essential,” said Charles Taylor, professor of marketing at Villanova University. . “

The price for those who find the right balance? The chance to break into the psyche and the (virtual) water cooler speaks to about 100 million viewers who will watch the CBS Super Bowl LV show on Sunday.

NEW WORLD ORDER

With big names like Coke, Hyundai and Kia this year, newcomers are rushing. This year’s Super Bowl will feature more than 20 new advertisers – more than double the 8 from last year if you exclude ads from the campaign, according to a tally from research firm iSpot. Many are teeming with cash thanks to changing consumer habits during the pandemic.

It’s an indicator when a brand can afford the estimated entry cost of $ 5.5 million for a 30-second slot during the Super Bowl. This year’s class includes businesses that brought us our food, let us shop online, and helped us work from home. Among them are delivery services DoorDash and Uber Eats, the Indeed yard, the Vroom automotive site, the recently titled Robinhood investment app, and computer accessories company Logitech.

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Most take proven advertising approaches. DoorDash enlists the characters of Sesame Street for a dose of nostalgia. Logitech takes the stardom route with hip-hop artist Little Nas X’s endorsement of how products like keyboards and mice help artists and creators “defy logic.”

And in what is surely a first in Super Bowl history, an advertisement for Inspiration4, an all-civilian space launch backed by SpaceX, touts a chance for viewers to join the mission. Courtesy of payment processor Shift4 Payments, whose CEO, Jared Isaacman, will be commissioning this mission.

PANDEMIC LIFE

Some marketers were targeting changing habits and lifestyles during the pandemic. The Tide ad features a boy unwilling to wash a clean-looking sweatshirt with the face of “Seinfeld” star Jason Alexander on it. But as the sweatshirt picks up the trash and dog slime, Alexander’s face begins to scowl and only straightens up when Tide saves the day.

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By suggesting that you maybe wear the same clothes more and wash them less, the ad encourages the use of more detergent, said Kim Whitler, professor of marketing at the University of Virginia. “They wouldn’t have run this ad if COVID hadn’t happened,” she said

Amazon, meanwhile, knows that people stuck at home all year round might be fantasizing about something new. So, a woman’s new Amazon Alexa takes on the voice – and body – of actor Michael B. Johnson, much to her hapless husband’s dismay.

Meanwhile, a Cheetos commercial shows real married couple Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher fighting over a bag of Cheetos Crunch Pop Mix – to the tune of Shaggy “It Wasn’t Me,” which shows the frayed nerves of a couple stuck inside too long.

“This is what happens when you lock Mila and I in a house together for a year,” Kutcher tweeted of the announcement.

ELECTION? WHAT ELECTION?

Unlike last year’s Super Bowl, which featured campaign ads from Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg, politics is out of sight this year. With, that is, the possible exception of the online concert market Fiverr, who teased that their ad was for Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

MIA also contains ads referencing the Black Lives Matter movement, which sparked widespread protests across the country last summer. Advertisers may still be battered by a disastrous 2017 Pepsi ad in which Kendall Jenner played a protester who charms police with a frosted soda. It took serious criticism to play down the protests and was eventually pulled.

Marketers who want to stir emotions in viewers this year are offering vaguely hopeful and forward-looking messages.

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Toyota’s place is gearing up for the Olympics and Paralympics, although the two again face a potential postponement as the pandemic continues. Her announcement features Paralympic swimmer Jessica Long’s journey from Siberian Orphan to Olympian, ending with the line: “We believe there is hope and strength in all of us.

And the Anheuser-Busch branded spot shows typical pre-pandemic scenes of people sharing a beer – kitchen workers, orchestral musicians, cabin dwellers, strangers in an airport bar, and reminds people to rejoice. again.

“So when we’re back, let’s remember, it’s never just about beer,” says a voiceover. “It’s about telling this simple human truth, we need each other.”