A Comprehensive Look at the Commercials of Super Bowl XLIX

[John Keefer]

A Comprehensive Look at the Commercials of Super Bowl XLIX

There were more than 50 commercials during the course of Super Bowl 49, and we present a compendium of the ads from yesterday's big event.

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[Queen Michael]

A few thoughts:

1. While I never got the point of patriotism, I do feel a certain weird pride that my native Sweden never goes this coconuts over TV commercials.

2. That Budweiser ad just had to include a guy with a hipster moustache, didn't they?

3. I need to tell my little sister that if she uses Always tampons, women will be liberated! Somehow! Also, the camera woman had very annoying voice. She sounded high.

4. Hey, skittles people? That the rainbow's associated with gay people doesn't mean it sucks or anything. Being gay's cool, so you can stop overcompensating now.

5. "Turtle and hare-girl, sitting in a tree... Do-ing best-i-a-li-ty!" Seriously though, Shinichi Hoshi did this old story way better.

6. "Together, we can make safe happen." Nationwide, listen up. My grandma barely speaks English, and her grammar is better than that.

7. So were they trying to allude to Lohan's substance abuse, or...

8. Heh, I liked the part of the avocados ad where the dodo died.

9. Look, I'll be frank: God looks like he's trying too hard to be Morgan Freeman.

10. Sarah Silverman! Yay! She's always funny.

11. Watching Kim Kardashian's back... hand? Not the end of that word I expected, I admit.

12. Hey, Victoria's Secret people? How about some love for us BBW lovers?

13. Ah. Fifty Shades of Grey. If the books didn't give you enough glorified rape and abuse. Think the movie will include the part where Christian rapes Anastasia in front of his parents?

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Ah, another year, another round of Super Bowl commercials. My thoughts?

I liked the "Dad" commercials, if only because I'm a bit of a sap for those things. The Coca-Cola commercials nice too, wish we had something like that to deal with idiots on the internet. Either that or a taser button.

Thought the "Flying Pigs" commercial was funny, and the Snickers one as pretty impressive with how it incorporated old footage.

The commercial with Pierce Brosnan was amusing, and so was the "Fable" one (to me, anyway.)

As for the movie trailers... the only one I'm interested in is Tomorrowland. Ted 2 and Fifty Shades of Grey can go to hell.

EDIT: On the "NFL Rally" commercial... damn, they went all out, didn't they? We got LEGO characters, ponies, penguins, Keyboard Cat... I'm amazed they managed to pull it all off!

 

[Sylocat]

I'm still trying to figure out how a team of marketing professionals got the idea for that "Buy Nationwide or your children will die" ad and thought that putting it on TV at the Super Bowl was a good move.

 

[madwarper]

[snips]

And, your list is missing what I'd say was the most WTF commercial, if not the best of the night.

Spoiler: Mountain Dew: Come Alive

 

[MoonWhispers]

The Budweiser "Brewed the Hard Way" nonsense was pretty amusing. They went out of their way to insult craft beer drinkers and craft beer in general, right after they purchased four craft breweries (INCLUDING one that sells a Pumpkin Peach Ale that they called out as nonsense in the commercial). I lol'd. The owner of that brewery (Elysian) was pissed. A guy from Bud has been trying to downplay it ever since.

Granted I am far from the target demographic (for most of these products), but I still find it so funny that despite how much they pay for these ads, a lot of them don't actually try to sell you on their products. Mostly they are just trying to be cute, or folksy, or entertaining, or whatever. I guess getting us talking about them helps them sell stuff, but I still don't know how. I mean, that's how advertising normally operates, but the Super Bowl pushes it up a few notches. I think the movie spots are the most effective, since movie trailers tend to sell spectacle, especially for any movie than can afford a Super Bowl spot in the marketing budget.

 

[Neverhoodian]

"NFL: Rally" won it for me for one reason only:

Spoiler

Ponies in the Super Bowl. Who would'a thunk it?

Hey, cut me some slack here. We haven't had a new episode in nine months. Hell, I wasn't even mad when the Seahawks lost because I was still riding high on it (but seriously, going for a pass? What were they thinking?!).

And hey, the cast from The LEGO Movie made a cameo as well. Awesome!

The Budweiser "Brewed the Hard Way" nonsense was pretty amusing. They went out of their way to insult craft beer drinkers and craft beer in general, right after they purchased four craft breweries (INCLUDING one that sells a Pumpkin Peach Ale that they called out as nonsense in the commercial). I lol'd. The owner of that brewery (Elysian) was pissed. A guy from Bud has been trying to downplay it ever since.

Yeah, the ad reeked of desperation to me. After selling nothing but watered down piss for decades, Budweiser is scrambling to stem the tide of people turning to alternatives. They're throwing everything against the wall in the hope something will stick.

 

[Dandres]

And, your list is missing what I'd say was the most WTF commercial, if not the best of the night.

Spoiler: Mountain Dew: Come Alive

Thanks, I missed the beginning of it on TV and could not figure out what they were selling.

 

[VectorSlip]

34 pages all about superbowl commercial.

And here I am dumbfounded by how anyone cares about this.

If superbowl commercials are your thing then more power to you, go ahead and enjoy what you want. But for me I just cant get over the fact that besides some increased production values im ultimately still being advertised to. They just want me to buy stuff and whether the commercial is 30 seconds or 1 minute and involving a horse saving a puppy I just cant bring myself to care other than fastforwrding through them.

 

[Ictarius]

what? no ponies?
WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE PONIES?

 

[John Keefer]

And here I am dumbfounded by how anyone cares about this.

If superbowl commercials are your thing then more power to you, go ahead and enjoy what you want. But for me I just cant get over the fact that besides some increased production values im ultimately still being advertised to. They just want me to buy stuff and whether the commercial is 30 seconds or 1 minute and involving a horse saving a puppy I just cant bring myself to care other than fastforwrding through them.

I think it is the spectacle as much as the Super Bowl itself. This is where the ad guys are SUPPOSED to be at their most creative. Granted, it is still trying to sell something, but for me at least, it is to see who can make me think or laugh. I never take it seriously, but enjoy it nonetheless.

 

[Nimcha]

The only thing I really cared about was the one from Nissan announcing their new prototype race car...

 

[Burnouts3s3]

When I was a kid, I remember Superbowl ads were funny. Is this a generational thing? Am I getting old? A lot of the ads were so depressing and serious. I mean, it started to grow old when the cruiselines were quoting JFK, but when the Nationwide commercial hit, I think we were all glad Katy Perry came in to lighten up the mood. (I was thinking about 'that' scene from The Interview, but still it put a smile on my face).

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I must say there's something very odd about celebrating being advertised to. Maybe it's something about the US's capitalist nature that people actually make TV adverts a "thing", whatever that thing might be (a tradition, a celebration, a "festival", etc). Enjoying being advertised to by corporate business is a strange phenomena, one that I will admit I simply don't get.

 

[Tortilla the Hun]

I must say there's something very odd about celebrating being advertised to. Maybe it's something about the US's capitalist nature that people actually make TV adverts a "thing", whatever that thing might be (a tradition, a celebration, a "festival", etc). Enjoying being advertised to by corporate business is a strange phenomena, one that I will admit I simply don't get.

The attitude is less, "Yay, sell us Coke and Dew and Doritos!" and more, "Ha, that pig is flying with a rocket!" It's not as if people enjoy a sales pitch, which is essentially what a commercial is. They're being entertained in the brief amount of time a commercial has to do so which takes some creativity, which is what is really being celbrated.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I must say there's something very odd about celebrating being advertised to. Maybe it's something about the US's capitalist nature that people actually make TV adverts a "thing", whatever that thing might be (a tradition, a celebration, a "festival", etc). Enjoying being advertised to by corporate business is a strange phenomena, one that I will admit I simply don't get.

The attitude is less, "Yay, sell us Coke and Dew and Doritos!" and more, "Ha, that pig is flying with a rocket!" It's not as if people enjoy a sales pitch, which is essentially what a commercial is. They're being entertained in the brief amount of time a commercial has to do so which takes some creativity, which is what is really being celbrated.

You don't think it's weird that, as a nation, you've not only been convinced to watch the ads but further, to anticipate, enjoy and/or celebrate doing so, that watching them is in fact a "good thing"?

No wonder the ad slots are so expensive then, if those companies are guaranteed so much exposure to people who actually *want* to watch them. It's an advertisers dream come true. o.o

 

[Tortilla the Hun]

I must say there's something very odd about celebrating being advertised to. Maybe it's something about the US's capitalist nature that people actually make TV adverts a "thing", whatever that thing might be (a tradition, a celebration, a "festival", etc). Enjoying being advertised to by corporate business is a strange phenomena, one that I will admit I simply don't get.

The attitude is less, "Yay, sell us Coke and Dew and Doritos!" and more, "Ha, that pig is flying with a rocket!" It's not as if people enjoy a sales pitch, which is essentially what a commercial is. They're being entertained in the brief amount of time a commercial has to do so which takes some creativity, which is what is really being celbrated.

You don't think it's weird that, as a nation, you've not only been convinced to watch the ads but further, to anticipate, enjoy and/or celebrate doing so, that watching them is in fact a "good thing"?

No wonder the ad slots are so expensive then, if those companies are guaranteed so much exposure to people who actually *want* to watch them. It's an advertisers dream come true. o.o

Alright, to think that people have been supposedly brainwashed into wanting to see commercials is ridiculous, paranoid almost to the point of being laughable. It's not that we want to be advertised to. It's not that we enjoy people telling us, "HEY, BUY THIS THING, OUR THING IS THE BEST OF THE THINGS IN ITS CATEGORY!" But commercials exist, and there's no sign of them not existing in the near future, so why not at least have commercials that are funny and thought-provoking while they're there?

And the reason those companies are guaranteed exposure is because, whether some people like it or not, the Superbowl is a big thing. That's not likely to change either. So why is it outlandish a thought that a company would want to get that sort of exposure? And if they're getting that sort of exposure, of course they're going to do the best they can to make sure that people will actually watch it, so they get their best and brightest to keep people interested, whether by being funny or thought-provoking.

So no, I don't think it's weird why people might be interested to see the best ideas these companies can come up for keeping them entertained. And to think that America is some sort of hive-mind, being forced to buy products simply because that's what appears on TV is nonsensical.

 

[Worgen]

"NFL: Rally" won it for me for one reason only:

Spoiler

Ponies in the Super Bowl. Who would'a thunk it?

Hey, cut me some slack here. We haven't had a new episode in nine months. Hell, I wasn't even mad when the Seahawks lost because I was still riding high on it (but seriously, going for a pass? What were they thinking?!).

Dammit, you beat me too that one. The only ad that mattered.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

I must say there's something very odd about celebrating being advertised to. Maybe it's something about the US's capitalist nature that people actually make TV adverts a "thing", whatever that thing might be (a tradition, a celebration, a "festival", etc). Enjoying being advertised to by corporate business is a strange phenomena, one that I will admit I simply don't get.

The attitude is less, "Yay, sell us Coke and Dew and Doritos!" and more, "Ha, that pig is flying with a rocket!" It's not as if people enjoy a sales pitch, which is essentially what a commercial is. They're being entertained in the brief amount of time a commercial has to do so which takes some creativity, which is what is really being celbrated.

You don't think it's weird that, as a nation, you've not only been convinced to watch the ads but further, to anticipate, enjoy and/or celebrate doing so, that watching them is in fact a "good thing"?

No wonder the ad slots are so expensive then, if those companies are guaranteed so much exposure to people who actually *want* to watch them. It's an advertisers dream come true. o.o

I think you're missing the point. Again, it isn't that we're being advertised that we're happy about. It's that the ads in question are entertaining to watch. We aren't celebrating being advertised to, we're celebrating being entertained. In fact, most studies have shown that Super Bowl ads don't necessarily drive-up sales. So it's less "That commercial was funny, now I need to go buy some Doritos," and more, "Holy crap that Doritos commercial was funny, which ones did you like?"

 

[Parasondox]

As a Brit I must ask the US viewers,

How do you do it?

Allow me to explain, How can you watch a game of *american accent* FOOTBALL, with so many ads between plays? That would drive me nuts and it did. Maybe it's cause your ads are eye catching, or not all sales ad, PPI's and and some sort of insurance in this country but HOW? Strange for me to ask cause I am a Motorsport fan and company logos and slogans are everywhere.

Our best ad at the moment is this;


Added Note: Nationwide US is fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucking depressing.