My least favorite ad was Sesame Street muppets shilling for Door Dash.
It was interesting how both the Door Dash and Uber Eats commercials focused on keeping neighborhood small businesses alive. Here in Kansas City they recently passed some rules in the city on how much these services can charge restaurants, and I think with those restrictions in place these services might actually be useful in keeping the restaurants alive. Throughout the year, every week we hear about long running restaurants in KC that finally had to shut their doors.
Yeah, the delivery fees they charge restaurants is obscene. The big franchises might be able to afford it, but it’s murder to the small guys. They take a 30% commission. That’s eating all of the profit for the restaurant.
I like how Budweiser was supposedly “sitting this one out” in terms of advertising, and yet there were multiple commercials for Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch, so basically they just gave one brand’s spot(s) to their other brands. If they really wanted to make a point about outrageous ad fees for the Super Bowl in a time when so many Americans are struggling, they would have not advertised at all across any brands, and instead given a few million to local food banks. Granted, they did drop a sizeable donation to national COVID awareness, but c’mon, the optics of saying you’re not going to advertise, then running no less than 3 brand new unique ads…
As for the commercials, I too like the Amazon Alexa spot, the Rocket Mortgage spot with Tracy Morgan, Will Farrell’s GM spot and Brad Garrett’s Jimmy John’s spot, as all were clever and had that “Super Bowl Ad” creativity and feel to them. Toyota’s Paralympics spot featuring swimmer Jessica Long hit me in the feels. Samuel L. Jackson’s Verizon gamer spot, Drake from State Farm and the Fiver spot with Four Seasons Total Landscaping made me laugh.
Many of the spots were cringeworthy and/or tone deaf though, especially Uber Eats and DoorDash encouraging people to patronize local restaurants while the same companies are killing said restaurants with their fees. The NFL touting it’s Inspire Challenge is gag-worthy given their terrible history on social justice issues. Bruce Springsteen shilling for Jeep was just pathetic, especially given how these days he looks less like a rock icon and more like the old guy that yells at kids in the neighborhood. Oatly’s CEO wins the “vanity project” award for his obviously self-produced spot…yikes. And then RobinHood with the “We are all investors” bit…holy crap is that ever tone deaf in the wake of the GME fiasco.
Oh, and we watched The Equalizer starring Queen Latifah. I think Queen Latifah is one of the smartest and most empowered women in the industry today, and my respect for her knows no limit, but even the smartest people can make mistakes, and The Equalizer is a mistake, no doubt about it. It plays to none of her strengths as an actress, and plays instead to all of the old tired tropes for shows of this genre, including her old CIA friends just happening to live in the same city, having access to lots of weaponry and technology and the skills to use them, plus the money to bankroll what is essentially a black ops team despite no longer working for the government (and in the case of Adam Goldberg’s character, supposedly being dead). Just awful all around, and I doubt it gets picked up for a second season.
I enjoyed the E-trade commercial with the kid training montage. I love a good training montage.
Dr Rick from Progressive has been a genius campaign. “the mulch game” killed me.
I continue to dislike all the Liberty Mutual ads.
Yes, the Dr Rick spots are fantastic. That actor has great timing and delivery.