Super Bowl 2018 Ads

God I miss that show. Such an awesome ride that was.

Yeah lots of stinkers this year, I really think Budweiser has knocked it out of the park with their campaign.

I hadn’t paid attention on the run-up to the Super Bowl, so it was all a surprise to me.

I was very perplexed by the Vikings ad. Why did they suddenly turn around and go home? It was never explained. Instead you’re supposed to go online to watch the whole ad? What kind of idiocy is this?

The Tide Ad was just completely brilliant. I have to admit, it changed all ads for me from that moment on. Like the T-mobile ad with the babies, for instance? I couldn’t stop looking at how clean their clothes were. “Is this a Tide Ad?” was on my mind throughout every Ad after I saw the Tide Ad. It’s true! All those people in all those ads have really clean clothes!

They were all Tide Ads!

I loved the Tide ad myself, God that was genius.

I didn’t like most of the ads. In fact, I had the game on while I was puttering around the basement and at one point, the first ad that popped up after I turned the TV on, was a bunch of babies with missing feet and hands and I was so shocked and horrified I turned the TV off and couldn’t shake it all night. I’m sure it was a powerful message for a good cause but it took the color out of my evening, for sure.

I watched a bunch of the ads this morning and found most of them pretty “meh”, and I freaking hate that term, but boy is it apt here.

The other big set of ads was the movie ads. I usually avoid all movie trailers except during the super bowl, so it’s the one time of year that I get to see movie ads that most of you probably have already seen.

The ones that stood out to me:

Jim from the Office in a post apocalyptic world where everyone has to be really, really quiet. That could be incredible, if it’s more post-apocalypse, and less horror. You couldn’t tell from the trailer which way that was going to go.

Since Last Jedi finally awakened the Star Wars bug in me for the first time, I have to admit, the Solo Star Wars movie really got me excited.

The Infinity War trailer looked really epic. I have to admit, this is the movie I thought Avengers 2 would be, after the first Avengers ended the way it did.

Thought the Hyndai kids soccer game ad was pretty funny, but I think it only ran pre-game.

As strange at the Ram/MLK ad was, I don’t get why the MLK family allowed it. They are notoriously stingy about allowing anything from MLK to be used. Maybe they don’t have control over this speech like they do of the I have a Dream speech.

Overall the commercials were very poor this year. M&M’s actively hurt their product as now I will not be able to eat them without thinking of Danny DeVito shouting at me to “Eat me!”. Ugh. That super awkward Diet Coke Mango commercial with the girl sort of dancing. The obvious pandering of commercials from T-Mobile, Budweiser (Water), Verizon and Hyundai. Even Doritos/Mountain Dew featuring Morgan Freeman and Peter Dinklage fell flat for me. And the Bud Knight, while it elicited a couple of laughs at points, seemed like a lackluster way to end the whole “Dilly Dilly!” campaign. #BleepDon’tStink and the Australia ads were just so odd that I couldn’t really like them. Speaking of odd, Keanu Reeves…yeah. WTF was that?

But that MLK Dodge ad…worst of the bunch by far. When it started I immediately thought “don’t be a car commercial…please do not be a car commercial”. But it was, and in Black History Month no less. Whomever signed off on that campaign should be taken out back and beat senseless before being fired. What’s next, Rosa Parks commenting on how roomy the crew cab is? FFS.

The only real standouts for me were the Tide commercials with David Harbour from Stranger Things. I loved seeing him as a pitch man, and the resulting insertions into what looked like other commercials was a great theme. The Old Spice whistle subverted with “Tide Ad!” made me laugh out loud. I also like E-Trade’s non-retirement commercial, the lifeguard, DJ Nana and the fireman were funny. Avocadoes from Mexico cracked me up with the Utopia dome society. Chris Elliott! Chris Platt’s Michelob “audition” spot was funny as well.

I did very much enjoy some of the non-product commercials. The Solo trailer was awesome, as was the Infinity War trailer. The NBC Olympic spots were well done too. Toyota’s spot featuring Paralympic athletes was fantastic, if a little disturbing at the start. The NFL ads with Eli were amusing, especially the payoff.

Overall though there just didn’t seem to be as many standouts as in previous years. Good thing the game was exciting!

Seriously?

Because the Vikings lost two weeks ago, and did not make the Super Bowl…

One thing to be very clear on: think about the Super Bowl commercials. Think about whether they worked for you. Now think about this: “How old am I?”, and realize that commercials like M&Ms, Doritos/Mountain Dew, Bud Light (“Dilly dilly” nonsense), etc. are aimed at the 18-35 demographic, and very strongly.

One reason commercials from the “good ol’ days” resonated more strongly: you were younger then, and you were the target audience for them back then, and older adults were saying they were trash, just like you’re doing now.

Hey! Get off my lawn!!

I am not sure there are a whole lot of 18-35s who know who the Hell Danny Divito is…

Wow, just looked it up, Taxi ended 35 years ago!

Not true. He’s been on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia for the last 12 years. It’s a show that very much appeals to that 18-35 demographics.

Yep. Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which as delirium points out, is HUGE in that demo.

I coulnd’t make it through the 1st season.

And I never heard of it.

LOL.

Ah okay. That makes sense now. They must have been listening to the NFC championship game instead of going there to watch it in person. That didn’t occur to me. I’d have thought they were on their way to that game.

The worst part of the MLK Dodge Ram ad is that the full speech they drew that excerpt from includes an admonishment not to be sucked into advertising - specifically mentioning car ads.

Now the presence of this instinct explains why we are so often taken by advertisers. You know, those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion. And they have a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying. In order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whiskey. In order to make your neighbors envious, you must drive this type of car. In order to be lovely to love you must wear this kind of lipstick or this kind of perfume. And you know, before you know it, you’re just buying that stuff. … I got to drive this car because it’s something about this car that makes my car a little better than my neighbor’s car. … I am sad to say that the nation in which we live is the supreme culprit. And I’m going to continue to say it to America.

Someone should recut the ad with that part of the speech.

Not a good year for ads, that’s for sure. The Giant’s Dirty Dancing was good, and the continuing Tide ad. I liked the Danny DeVito M&M ad.

But the MLK ad was a terrible idea, and basically any ad that promotes a product while trying to raise social consciousness is a bad idea. The Bud Light ads were bad as well. There was very little good humor this year.