CARBONDALE, Ill. — With 30-second ads estimated at nearly $7 million this year, this Sunday’s Super Bowl is not just a showcase for football but also for advertisers who seek to capture the attention of a predicted more than 100 million viewers in the U.S. alone, said Bridget Lescelius, an associate lecturer in Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s School of Journalism and Advertising.
“The Super Bowl is one of the most watched events in the U.S.,” said Lescelius, also adviser for the award-winning Saluki AdLab, a student-run, full-service advertising agency at SIU. “So, it stands to reason that brands want to capture that audience. And not only is it a huge audience; its demographics are well defined. Apple used the Super Bowl to debut its 1984 Macinstosh ad, which was produced like a Hollywood movie. So after that, you saw ads become more about storytelling produced in a more entertaining way.”
And those who “might not be super interested the game, watch because they’re super interested in the ads,” she said. “They expect brands to deliver their most creative work. It’s unpredictable and entertains and informs. It’s the Super Bowl of brands too. And they all want to break through and win the hearts and minds of the viewers.”
Before returning to SIU Carbondale as a faculty member in 2017, Lescelius’ career included years as an advertising and marketing executive at various agencies. She provided some insight into some of this year’s Super Bowl advertising entries, selecting spots she believes work with audiences and do not.
In addition, viewers at home can also provide their own input via USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter. Anyone can sign up to review and rate ads, starting Wednesday, Feb. 8.
The Good
Lescelius believes Sam Adams’ Your Cousin’s Brighter Boston, Miller Lite’s High Stakes Game and M&M’s work well. She also likes the Budweiser and Bud Light ads.
“Obviously there’s a theme here,” she said. “Beer companies are big players in the Super Bowl, and they have to work hard to stand out. The fact M&M’s is in the mix is a big deal because it isn’t a usual Super Bowl player. So why these? They all play on human truths — which is something we all can connect to but don’t often realize we have in common.”
- Sam Adams Brighter Boston: “Sam Adams plays on its Boston roots, and how unfriendly Boston is … so they flip the narrative to introduce a refreshed Sam Adams beer that’s brighter.”
- Coors Light x Miller Lite: “The Miller Lite ad is about a competition with Coors Light, and consumers can make their picks on Draft Kings, where you can predict all the details of the ads, from taglines to images used.”
- Maya Rudolph x M&M's: “M&M’s is using the Super Bowl as the big reveal to a PR stunt it started a couple weeks ago by announcing it is retiring the M&M’s spokescandies and replacing them with Maya Rudolph. Now we wait until the big game to see the big reveal.”
The Budweiser ad brings back its iconic tagline “This Bud’s for You” and “leans into how we are all connected, that there is a certain hard-working spirit among all Americans, no matter who you are or what you do,” Lescelius said. “It uses the concept of six degrees of separation as the basis for we’re all connected by a six pack.”
Bud Light, meanwhile, “leans into the fact you can enjoy the least enjoyable moment if you have a Bud Light,” Lescelius said. “A human truth is we all hate being on hold, especially after the recent Southwest Airline debacle, but we see a celebrity couple overcome that pain by having a Bud Light and actually enjoying the on-hold music. It’s simple and elegant, and memorable because we all relate to it.”
Lescelius is also interested in Pepsi’s “Nepo Baby” ad that feature actors Ben Stiller and Steve Martin.
“Using celebrities can really boost or bust an ad’s effectiveness,” she said. “In fact, Pepsi had a major fail a few years ago when it had Kendall Jenner in its ad as the spokesperson.”
Missing the mark
Lescelius said one ad she believes misses the mark is Experian using actor and professional wrestler John Cena “in a lighthearted musical about how now paying rent can affect your credit score.”
“Given we are currently climbing out of a pandemic, it feels opportunistic to target renters who probably represent populations who are economically more vulnerable with a message about paying your rent,” she said. “And the use of celebrity seems haphazard, not strategic.”
What makes a good ad?
Lescelius was in Arizona when GoDaddy.com launched a Super Bowl ad featuring bikini-clad women. While industry professionals panned the idea that a tech company used its advertising budget that way, the public responded, Lescelius said. GoDaddy used the ad “to set itself apart, and it worked. It was unexpected coming from a tech company, but it understood its audience,” she said.
“The ones that work are the ones that at their foundation are built to elicit a response. They have a goal – whether it’s to introduce a new product, or refreshed product like the Sam Adams ad, or align the brand with a social cause, or target a new audience segment, such as appealing to Gen Z over Boomers.”
Chris Cole, a 2019 SIU Carbondale advertising graduate and former Saluki AdLab president, is an art director at Anomoly NY and notes the pressure involved to make ads “stand out.” Cole was not involved with the agency’s three Super Bowl projects this year, but he does work on the Bud Light account.
“Super Bowl commercials, at their core, are no different than other ads,” Cole said. “The best ones have a strong concept that is derived from an insight about the product. The thing that sets Super Bowl commercials apart is the eyeballs. Because millions of people are tuned in to watch the Super Bowl — many for the ads themselves — this is an amazing opportunity to reach a huge captive audience all at once.”
Priceless lesson
That Super Bowl ads have become a part of the game experience is “a priceless lesson,” Lescelius said.
“Ads fuel our economy. Advertising not just reflects our cultural norms; it often creates them,” she said, “using creativity as the spoon that serves up a heaping serving of revenue to keep the American economy healthy.”
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