SUPERBOWL ADS FAIL TO SCORE
Yoanna Zhelyazkova
If you feel like this year’s Super Bowl ads have not been generating a lot of buzz, you’re not the only one. As someone who does not watch the Super Bowl, I wait until the day after to hear about the good, the bad, and the controversial commercials that aired during the Superbowl. This year, however, I barely heard or saw anything at all relating to the Super Bowl commercials, whether that be on Twitter, Facebook, or the news.
Commercial slots during the Super Bowl are well-known for costing millions of dollars, and this year was no exception. To air a 30-second commercial, the cost was $5 million and up. With such a steep price, companies and brands feel a lot of pressure to deliver the most interesting and eye-catching commercials possible. Many times celebrities and athletes are hired in order to draw the attention of viewers. Some of the best and most memorable commercials to ever be created have aired during the Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl ads this year offered plenty of recognizable people, like Cardi B for Pepsi, Harrison Ford for Amazon, Chance the Rapper for Doritos, and Serena Williams for Bumble. However, the commercials themselves were not very notable. They did not portray anything to make one stand apart from the other so that it can be remembered by the millions of people who tuned in for the Super Bowl. Cardi B even seemed to be in the news this month for everything else she did except for her Super Bowl ad with Pepsi.
Perhaps the reason for the lack of entertainment from this year’s Super Bowl ads was fear. Brands are afraid of controversy, and would rather play it safe. Recently, brands like Gillette, which introduced its new “The Best A Man Can Get” campaign in January, have been receiving negative backlash for their ads. This is making companies and brands a lot more wary of the content and message they present in their commercials in order to prevent backlash and the possibility of hurting their sales. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues on in the future.