Well I knew ahead of time they were planning on something. They wanted to be seen as more than a young, guys, horses, parties and jokes. I don’t know they could have tried to do that in any better way than they did. I generally question the cost of any ad played during Super Bowl but it is quite effective, so much so kids and young adults get assigned watching these commercials as homework.
It’s called charitable or cause marketing, and it is a valid strategy, if done correctly. One could assume, that the notoriously high priced ads during the Superbowl might rub intended recipients the wrong way, however.
The effect might have worked in your case, you saw the ad as a genuine and nice presentation of the good the company does. It did not work for me, it screamed, “we have the money to blow on this here superbowl ad, so let us tell you about when we decided to give money to a better cause.” Neither opinion is wrong, it’s in the subtlety of the marketing campaign.
It doesn’t always have to be about giving to a charity. It can just be aligning yourself with something good. A movement, a positive story, etc. Remember the Chrysler “Imported from Detroit” commercial during the Superbowl a few years ago? Again, they aligned themselves with something good, showing that Detroit is still great and can be, and that it still has beauty to show us. It also aligned Chrysler with that, as though they were trying to be at the center, being a part of it. Have they donated millions? Probably not. It didn’t matter, the ad was a powerful attachment to the cause.
The company I work for does quite a bit during disasters for free. We don’t market that, not in any major way. If you came to our company headquarters you might see a few pictures, but that’s about it. And I respect the hell out of that method, much more so than using it as a form of positive spin to drive the product. It might mean less money for the company afterward, or less of a bonus, or whatever. But it’s a positive spin FOR THE EMPLOYEES. We work harder to help. We, like a lot of people, want do to anything, something. But we, respectfully, don’t advertise about it during the superbowl.
TL;DR - Just play the horse ads.
I agree it was weak crop of ads. Best moment for me was Alexa, Gordon Ramsey and the grilled cheese recipe.
I thought the “Made in Detroit” series was a great idea and an effective campaign, at least the first few. It both called back to their past and spoke to the slow revitalization going on in Detroit (which we’d all like to see go faster, but people like Kwame pull it down).
Unlike the Matthew McConaughey ads for Lincoln, which I loath.
I appreciate the fact that companies do good works. I just object to their spending money to tell me about it.
Do we talk about the halftime show in this thread or the thread for football. I figure this is a safer spot.
In the past, even when I don’t necessarily listen or keep up with a particular artist, when it’s time for their superbowl half time show, I always recognize their songs. Every single time. Even Bruno Mars, when he appeared a few years ago. I wasn’t familiar with the guy. But when he started playing his music, I realized that I’d heard some of the songs before. That’s the thing with pop music, right? The music gets in through the ether. Maybe a radio station, music playing in a store at the mall, during a program on NPR, during a TV commercial, etc.
So I was really surprised last night because I’d never heard of the songs Justin Timberlake played. I’m familiar with him because of his numerous appearances on SNL sketches and even some tonight show sketches on Jimmy Fallon’s show. The man is clearly a very talented musician, just judging from the sketches. That’s why it surprised me that I wasn’t familiar with his music. The only song I knew was the Prince song. And I couldn’t make out any of the lyrics of Timberlake’s songs either, which is a sharp contrast to his sketch songs that he does on SNL, where the cleverness of the lyrics is a pretty big part of the appeal.
JT is largely famous for “I’m Bringing Sexy Back” and his work with NSync, though he’s had some other chart toppers through the years. Those are just the things that pierced my metalhead skull.
However, I gotta say that my favorite JT thing is, by far, his turn as a drugged out punk rocking military vet in the supremely weird but strangely compelling Southland Tales (from the same director as Donnie Darko, if you’re looking for an approximate ballpark level of weirdness). Midway through the flick, he just goes into a drug-induced song-and-dance rendition of The Killers’ “I Got Soul” and it’s just so fucking bizarre and wonderful.
I like that scene a lot, and man, the cast in the flick is crazy.
I love that song a lot. The movie, not so much.
well, interesting they aren’t speaking for the estate:
Eric D. Tidwell, the manager of the Estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, which handles the licensing King’s intellectual property, made the decision to allow King’s sermon to be used in the advertisement.
“When Ram approached the King Estate with the idea of featuring Dr. King’s voice in a new ‘Built To Serve’ commercial, we were pleasantly surprised at the existence of the Ram Nation volunteers and their efforts,” Tidwell said in a statement to the Post.
He said that the advertisement was reviewed to ensure it met “standard integrity clearances.”
“We found that the overall message of the ad embodied Dr. King’s philosophy that true greatness is achieved by serving others,” he said.
JT also had a small role in Inside Llewyn Davis:
And here, but he’s upstaged by Adam Driver being goofy:
What did you guys think of the Skyscraper trailer? I couldn’t decide if the movie was trying to be another San Andreas or another Die Hard.
It looked super stupid lol.
I too thought that the “Tide Ads” were the best overall. The “dirty dancing” thing with Manning and OBJ was pretty good but went on too long. I liked the “Guest Alexa Voices” things… but they too outstayed their welcome. I got a chuckle out of the fake “Crocodile Dundee” remake spot.
I think you guys might be looking at the Dodge MLK ad from the wrong direction – I think they went out of their was to make it controversial. They wanted people to be debating whether or not it was respectful, or whether there should have been more African Americans in it or fewer. Car ads are really, really hard to make memorable, and pickup truck ads are probably even harder. The fact that we’re talking about it three days after the event and can actually name the company while doing so means that it was an unqualified success.
I would think making a memorable ad would be easy, making a good memorable ad is hard.
It’s clearly different;he has a prosthetic leg.
The prosthetic leg is a stand-in for Mclane’s bare feet!
For a couple of seconds, because of the insane amount of Hollywood remakes in recent years, I actually thought it might be a Dwayne Johnson version of The Towering Inferno.
I expected Dwayne Johnson as John McClane’s son tbh. When it wasn’t related to Die Hard at all, I was like, uhhhh… ok?