ADVERTISING
7 Themes from 2022’s Super Bowl Ad Campaigns
#adbowl takeaways for marketers
What’s a Super Bowl ad good for, anyway?
At $7M per 30 seconds, a Super Bowl slot is a serious investment. What do brands get in return?
1. Sheer audience size.
The Super Bowl had an estimated viewership of 117 million people.
2. Deeper attention.
The Super Bowl is one of the few (if any?) times when people want to pay attention to ads. One viewer paying attention is worth 50 viewers who are distracted on their phones.
3. Credibility.
Buying a Super Bowl ad says you are a legitimate company with the money to spend on a Super Bowl ad. For new technologies (e.g., crypto), this credibility can be very valuable.
4. And ideally — the holy grail of SB advertising: conversation.
A Super Bowl ad is seen by millions of people all at once, which means it has the opportunity to generate a conversation among almost anyone who gets together the next day. A conversation strengthens the ad impression and memory, as well as the social capital of a company. But it also means competition is high.
Every ad is out there to put on a show and be the talked about brand.
What kinds of shows happened on Sunday?
1] Nostalgia
Typically Super Bowls feature at least a few dramatic videos of failure and human triumph. Not so much this time. Light-hearted spots featuring Scrubs, Austin Powers, Lindsay Lohan, Forrest Gump, the Cable Guy implied a common desire for humor and a return to pre-COVID life.
Lay’s ad centred directly on nostalgia, with a ‘Golden Memories’ concept featuring Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen (and all the times Lay’s has been there).
2] Millennial targeting
Noticeably absent from Super Bowl ads were TikTok celebrities or Gen Z references. Instead, ads harkened to references that older millennials would understand.
I think it’s smart. Yes, Gen Z is where the new batch of consumers lies. But millennials represent those with purchasing power, particularly those who benefited from the ‘K-Shaped’ economic recovery. Gen Z, aged 10–25, is too young to offer a strong ROI to brands advertising in the big game.
3] Celebrity endorsements (signalling the increasing fight for attention)
In the past, using a celebrity in a Super Bowl ad was a signal that you couldn’t come up with a good enough idea, so you banked on star power instead. But this year, celebrities were tablestakes.
Some ads wrapped the celebrities into the idea. Toyota’s ad for its Tundra vehicle featured famous ‘Jones’-named celebrities Tommy Lee Jones, Leslie Jones, Rashida Jones to cement the idea of keeping up with the Jones’.
BMW’s electric car ad ft. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Selma Hayek as Greek Gods lent on their godlike physical features, and connected Zeus’ lightning bolts to electric powered vehicles.
Other ads, like Sam’s Club ft. Kevin Hart, Hellman’s ft. Pete Davidson failed to drive real connection between celebrity and brand. People might remember the Pete Davidson cameo, but if they forget the product, it will be a tough to drive marketing ROI. Multiple friends have mentioned that they liked the great ‘Austin Powers’ ad.. but their memory of the brand is non-existent.
The amount of celebrity-based ads also hints at a power imbalance between brand and media. Audiences and attention are so valuable that brands must invest in a Super Bowl spot and a celebrity for a chance at getting post game conversation.
Will 2023 be the year when celebrity brands go on the Super Bowl?
I’d say…. unlikely. The great thing about being a celebrity — you don’t need to pay for audiences.
4] Crypto grows up (sort of)
Crypto companies can use the legitimacy of a Super Bowl spot to convince new audiences that crypto is a safe and legitimate investment.
And yet, the most talked about ad at all was a joke on Super Bowl advertising itself. Coinbase spent $14M on 60 seconds of a QR code bouncing around the screen like an old Microsoft screensaver. The ad did its job — at least enough to crash Coinbase’ website, generate hundreds of PR articles, and add $1B to its market cap overnight.
By bucking Super Bowl ad conventions of high production values, Coinbase became the talked about company. It’s an important lesson for future Super Bowl advertisers: don’t just focus on what you need to convey. Predict what others will do… and stand out by doing something completely different.
Another lesson? Show, don’t tell. Crypto-focused firms FTX and crypto.com attempted to drive interest in crypto by stating that good fortunes come to those willing to bet on new ideas. But this fails to address concerns about trust and risk. Instead, Coinbase showed they know how to play the ad game better than established brands, building a solid case for audiences to join the winning team 👏.
5] Trolling as a way to sell values
Coinbase was not the only company to poke fun at the Super Bowl. Salesforce’s ‘Team Earth” concept featuring Matthew McConaughey had little (read: nothing) to do with Salesforce. Instead, the ad was a not-so-subtle jab from one tech billionaire to others to focus on what matters.
“We’re not saying we’re against pioneering space. We had our little fun, and we completely mean that. But what we’re also saying is we’re not ready to quit on our home team, which is us, right here… If we don’t fix and restore the best here on Earth between us right now, what product are we going to be exporting when we get to space?
-Salesforce Brand Advisor Matthew McConaughey to FOX Business
On a less grave note, T-Mobile supported its values as a customer-first telecom company with a series of ads poking fun at slow signals and high bills of other providers, namely Verizon.
Takeaway: While jokes may feel, well, jokey, they are also a useful way to demonstrate values and remove power from market leaders.
6] Sonic Branding to drive recall
A few brands leaned on catchy sounds to make their spots memorable. Brand’s have done this for decades (remember Budweiser’s classic ‘wassup’ and ‘Bud…Weis….Er’ spots?) and I don’t see why this will go away in future ‘Bowls.
Squarespace used the classic tongue twister ‘Sally sells seashells by the sea shore’, while McDonald’s spot featured a repetitive ‘Can I get uhhh….’ that sticks in your mind.
7] Self awareness matters (particularly for big tech)
Meta and Amazon used Super Bowl spots to sell their innovations as a future consumers want to be part of. However, Meta’s hard sell backfired, while Amazon’s strategy of acknowledging concerns in a humorous way helped the spot earn the most YouTube views on Super Bowl Sunday.
Meta/Facebook told the story of an animatronic dog who is given a new lease on life in the Metaverse. However, the spot seemed to position Meta’s Quest 2 VR headset as a product for those with nothing left to live for in the real world. YouTube commenters (not necessarily known for kindness) ripped the piece apart: “This ad literally made me feel the opposite of what they were trying for, life may be challenging but man I’d much rather live in reality than whatever this sick thing is.”
Amazon was a bit more honest about tech’s potential shortcomings, with a self-deprecating spot for Amazon Alexa as a Mind Reader featuring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost.
Final Thoughts: Be brave. And don’t forget what you’re selling.
$7M is the entrance fee for a Super Bowl spot, but it doesn’t mean audiences will remember anything. Instead, brands also have to stand out among the 60+ companies also competing for spotlight. Some strategies (celebrities, nostalgia, sonic branding) have been used before and will likely come back in 2023. However, the top ads did not just sell an aspirational future by telling customers to be brave. They were brave themselves. Amazon willingly acknowledged fears about its own product. And Coinbase accurately predicted what the Super Bowl ad landscape would look like… and chose to do something completely opposite. Bravery, strong connection between concept and product, and a bit of humor seemed to be the winning combo for 2022.
