What Super Bowl Advertisers Are Missing About Our Changing Culture
Reaching people by giving them deeper meaning is a sure way of touching their hearts and souls
Question: What by-the-numbers corporations are willing to spend $6.5 million, plus millions more in production, to air meaningless content with no real market value?
Answer: Snack foods conglomerates, Pepsi, Budweiser, BMW, Nissan, and the like.
In all his brilliance, Steve Jobs created a trend in 1984. Not the Macintosh, not the revolution of personal computing, or even his steadfast vision of simplicity and elegance. He spearheaded the trend of lavish super bowl advertising that 30% of viewers in 2021 said were a “major reason for watching the game.”
An interesting side note is that Jobs’ 1984 ad barely made it to the super bowl. His board was vehemently against it, citing its risky nature. It took a lot of brash negotiation and maneuvering for Jobs to prevail, and the result made history as it’s been widely hailed as the greatest ad ever to air on national television.
And it set a trend of extravagant ads running at escalating rates — in 2022 some costing as much as $7 million for a single 30-second spot. There are lots of interesting statistics about which groups of people prefer the game over the ads, the ads as much as the game, the half-time show over the game, etc. But the overarching question is why do so many companies spend insane amounts of money for little to no market value?
I caught the idea of watching the ads (not the game) and looking for something of deeper meaning I could share. Watching the ads though, I was at first hard pressed to find anything of deeper meaning given how silly many of them are. But then it occurred to me — the depth is not in the ads but in who’s running them.
Traditionally, super bowl ads were dominated by companies peddling old-school commodity products like snack foods, inexpensive beer, and soda. The event still caters to a sizable number of these advertisers, but in 2022 enter electric cars and cryptocurrency exchanges. Some have even referred to the 2022 bowl as the “Crypto Bowl.”
The Change Conundrum
I worked for a big city newspaper from 1997 to 2008 during a time when the industry was in upheaval due to the rise of the Internet. I got to experience from the inside what it’s like working in an organization where its deer-stuck-in-the-headlights-leaders truly don’t know what to do. It was not unlike Kodak trying to adapt to digital photography or Blockbuster dealing with streaming services. It’s the same old quandary of our collective resistance to change.
And yet advertising has gone through huge changes in the past 25 years. Behemoths such as Google and Facebook have offered highly sophisticated advertising targeted to very specific audiences, and thus rendered mass advertising to broad audiences (the shotgun approach) less effective and less desirable.
But then there’s the super bowl.
Its advertising has become a tradition attached to a distinctly “American” cultural event — the best of the best of our heavily padded gladiators battling it out to see who wins the ultimate bragging rights. Every year there are different teams, different quarterbacks, and wide receivers. Even different stadiums and host cities. But the ads? They keep rising in price, the audience continues to look forward to them, and the big corporate conglomerates continue to fork over seven and even eight figures in hard earned cash for the privilege of interrupting our attention on a mass scale that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
It makes sense on the surface. Why wouldn’t these deep pockets want to shell out the cash to get in front of 112 million people?
Except the success of these ads is not based on increased sales or market share, or even in brand loyalty, but rather how entertaining, humorous, and innovative the ads are deemed to be. From a marketing perspective they are nearly worthless. One survey sited 97% of media planners viewing super bowl ads as “effective in raising awareness.” But that’s just the opinion of media planners. The same planners who work for agencies that rake in 15% on top of the ad fees.
One of the most celebrated ads of this Sunday’s super bowl was a high-level production skit featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Selma Hayek playing Zeus and Hera. I found it mildly funny, definitely quirky, but I had to watch it three times before I got which company the ad was for. It was for an electric car, but the BMW moniker took a while to sink in.
And what a huge miss. BMW coming out with a new electric car is not just following a new fad. People who go electric while charging stations are still sparse and range is limited do so because of the perceived environmental benefits. But instead of speaking to the wellspring of car buyers seeking to lessen their carbon footprint they made it about celebrity comedy. Never mind the fact that the new Beemer EV won’t even be available until March at the earliest.
But lo and behold, the super bowl is not an event about deep thinking or cultural change. It’s an institution that represents where we came from more than where we are going. And yet we can still find some meaning in it merely be paying attention to which companies are running ads and what their ads are saying. Are we changing as culture? In what direction? And how fast?
In fact, we could actually get a fairly good read on our broader American culture merely be assessing who advertised in the 2022 Super Bowl. It tells us there are still tens of millions of people hopelessly addicted to their snack food and cheap beer. And at the same time there is a strong movement toward decentralized finance and sustainability. Elon Musk (whether you love him or dislike him) knew what the bellwether auto industry did not, that people want electric cars, and all the automakers would not be scrambling to unveil their new EVs were it not for Elon.
Changing Times
Culture is constantly changing and institutions that fail to change with the times will inevitably decline. The reign of super bowl advertising represents the ‘coast’ that institutions experience. It’s what I felt working in the newspaper business. We coasted for years before the small dips morphed into chasms of disappearing revenue, which led to numerous rounds of layoffs, chapter 11, and several changes in ownership.
The NFL is not going anywhere anytime soon, but the cultural distinction that the super bowl represents is on its way out, and so too will its over-the-top advertising and exorbitant ad rates.
Unless . . .
Unless the NFL changes more rapidly by giving people of color an equal seat at the table, and its advertisers (directed by their big-time ad agencies) can change with the times and begin offering something of deeper meaning than mere comedic gimmicks, star glitz cameos, and nostalgic reminders.
Salesforce took a step in the right direction with this Sunday’s ad featuring Matthew McConaughey, offering a deeper perspective on the new frontier. Instead of looking to the metaverse and Mars for it, that it’s right here on planet Earth — with more engagement, trust, inclusion, and care for nature. As McConaughey said, “It ain’t rocket science, it’s right here,” as he holds out his arms featuring a wide expanse of nature in the background. Thus, engendering a feeling of depth, inclusion, and respect for the Salesforce brand.
I’ve actually been thinking about discontinuing my Salesforce subscription as I don’t use it much, but this gives me a moment for pause.
Society is craving more depth. Maybe not all of us, but a growing number. So, for those who market and sell, reaching people by giving them deeper meaning is a sure way of touching their hearts and souls, which is a whole lot better than appealing to base desires and instincts.
Old established institutions paying $7 million for “brand awareness” is more egoic than meaningful, especially when most of the EVs advertised aren’t available for sale yet.
I trust that the advertising industry will get this eventually, and we’ll see a steady evolution in the onslaught of advertising crossing our attention stream.
And just for fun, here’s my second favorite ad from this past Sunday. It’s truly funny and offers a hint of depth as Gwen Stefani lists her criteria for a man to date as, “cultured and sensitive and not threatened by a strong confident woman.” But I’m still struggling to remember who this ad is for.
Progress, not perfection.
Hey Glenn, I agree with your comments about the Salesforce ad. I'm generally pretty averse to ads (they tend to trigger my disgust mechanism easily), and the same was for the Salesforce ad. Why? Because it felt meaningful. All of a sudden, I felt swept up in the notion that there can be hope for the future, but I still knew that I was watching something that was meant to sell me something. I got over my disgust, and came to the conclusion that they did a great job, and my respect in them as a company increased as a result of their message of hope.
I saw quite a few ads that appeared to me mirroring TikTok videos. Every time there's a fad with young people, advertisers seem to try hard to mimic it to be "cool" and get attention from younger users, and few succeed. The case was the same this year at the Super Bowl.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Total agreement, Glenn! Adding to your list of cultural changes in the direction of meaningless, trivial, confusing and misdirected advertising, the substantial reliance this year on special effects and animation. Now that we have the technology to put on the screen anything we can imagine, advertisers are using their toys to attract our attention—rather than attend to story, or as you noted, product identification and information. Never before have I seen so much razamataz and so little clear communication—or storytelling!
As a former producer of hundreds of commercials while working in commercial television, it’s important to note: national ads in all media are less about selling a product or service; much more about establishing them as part of the culture. (If you don't have it or use it, you're not with it, in the know). And advertisers don’t sell products on behalf of their clients—they sell desirable lifestyles, easy and quick remedies and glamour.
Could they shift toward more deeper content? Of course, but television is a MASS medium. What we see on the screen is both a reflection of the consciousness of advertisers and producers. Especially, they are showing us what THEY think WE want. They therefore pander to their IMPRESSION of us.
The way to change the impression is for everyday viewers to tune out and turn off the hype and base content, turn on and tune in to substantive programming and let the advertisers and producer know what we're doing. It’s up to us, one individual at a time, one incident at a time to change the culture. That's because we are it.