What Super Bowl LVI Taught Me About Advertising
About the best & worst commercials from the big game
Super Bowl ads are a game within the game.
Every year, brands battle it out to see who will emerge victoriously and create the best commercial with the most buzz.
Super Bowl ads are no longer standalone spots — they are creative platforms to spark additional marketing efforts throughout the year.
The ads must earn recognition across social media and tie into bigger brand experiences to bring home the significant investment.
And it’s possible.
Because it’s the one time a year when people outside the industry actually care about ads.
Unfortunately, the 2022 Ad Bowl kinda sucked.
After last year’s lockdown made a number of brands abstain from running spots, the overall trend in 2022 was to keep it light and safe — with fairly mediocre results.
Humor and nostalgia were the overall themes and brands played it safe with proven recipes. Only one commercial stood out and none made advertising history.
Still, here are my highlights, lowlights, and insights from Super Bowl LVI.
Four Touchdowns
Coinbase — “Less Talk, More Bitcoin”
Agency: Accenture / The Martin Agency
This was the standout of the night.
The deadpan secrecy of a floating QR code actually made me pull out my phone and investigate.
As a middle-aged nerd, the retro graphics piqued nostalgic curiosity while the music reminded me of the Amiga 500 demo scene and the first Cubase. Spot-on!
But it’s commitment to the bit that makes this ad work.
When I first saw it, I expected something like Reddit’s blitz ad from last year.
Had this one only been on screen for 10 seconds, it wouldn’t have worked. It was the balls to run for a full minute that won viewers over.
Similar examples of leftfield approaches from previous years (like Cards Against Humanity’s potato) are reminders that simply standing out in the marketplace can beat elaborate productions.
Good ideas don’t have to be expensive — even if airtime is.
FTX — “Don’t Miss Out”
Agency: Dentsu MB
Everyone knows that guy.
Great choice of celebrity to touch on an insight shared by every (aspiring) crypto investor: The conservative uncle or the opinionated reactionary who loudly opposes the future.
It’s not an ad that’ll go down in history but all elements work extremely well and it was certainly the most meaningful of the crypto commercials.
Rocket Mortgage — “Dream House”
Agency: Highdive
The Barbie crossover is a clever way to activate nostalgia in young first-time buyers while making the challenges and solutions appear manageable. Villains were somehow easier to vanquish when you were a kid.
The narrative is creative, easy to understand and all about the product benefits.
I didn’t expect to like this ad as much as I did.
General Motors, Silverado EV — “New Generation”
Agency: Commonwealth/McCann
I might be wrong about this one.
As a fan of The Sopranos, I love everything about the remake of the classic show intro.
But I don’t know if the down-played aesthetics and rough industrial landscape are too easy to overlook on a saturated Super Bowl night if the reference is lost on you.
It wasn’t on me and I loved it.
Two Field Goals
Cutwater — “Here’s to the lazy ones”
Agency: AKQA
I have a love/hate relationship with meta-commercials. Clever references appeal to my inner ad nerd — yet somehow feel lazy.
The original Apple ad is a classic and I’m a sucker for this homage.
But do regular consumers care?
Expedia — “Stuff”
Agency: Anomaly
Again there’s a meta-theme that makes the advertising geek in me happy — but doesn’t really get the breathe during the 30-second spot.
The copy is very well written and the references to classic ads are many: Budweiser, Pepsi, Coca-Cola and more. It’s not the first commercial to make fun of competing brands — but after several lockdowns it’s hard to disagree with the message.
Still, it somehow feels rushed. I wish it had been 45 seconds and with a slower beat.
Three Fumbles
Gillette Labs, “A Quick and Easy Shave”
Agency: Grey
This is a TV spot, not a Super Bowl ad.
I fail to see the difference between this and every single Gillette commercial I’ve seen in my life.
It’s been 16 years since Gillette last advertised during the Super Bowl — and this is their comeback.
Why pay all that money and then not play the game?
Rakuten — “High Stakes”
Agency: In-house
High stakes, low bar.
We see Hannah Waddingham play a nonsensical game of poker. She bets a pair of shoes, a Roomba, and a TV before she has to fold in the face of a $278 return from Rakuten.
Why?
It’s convoluted, pointless and unfunny.
Avocados From Mexico — “Coliseum Tailgate”
Agency: GSD&M
The idea of Romans tailgating outside the Colosseum is pretty good. Just not in this commercial.
The execution is trivial, the jokes are boring, and the product seems thematically out of place — how do pre-colonial Europeans even know about avocados? Or Mexico for that matter?
One Hail Mary (or rather Hail Satan)
Over the last decade, brands have learned to use the buzz around the Super Bowl without actually spending money on airtime.
This year, Liquid Death Mountain Water made a splash when they bet $50,000 on the underdog and hired a witch to visit the stadium and cast spells.
The sorcery didn’t work as the Bengals lost the game — but the headlines alone made plenty of marketing magic.
Final Whistle
The Ad Bowl of 2022 felt very safe.
While the Rams and Bengals took chances on the field, the commercials went for tried and tested tactics with the same old celebrity plays (Payton Manning in four different ads? Really?) As a result, only the Coinbase QR stood out.
If nothing else, Super Bowl LVI will be remembered as the “Crypto Bowl” where crypto exchanges entered the advertising fray to prove their long-term viability.
Airtime at the SB is notoriously expensive (as much as $7 million pr. 30 seconds) and a big ad is a visible proof that the brand is not only pulling out the big guns — but can afford them.
Costly Signaling Theory explains why people trust expensive gestures: We have more faith in an evolutionary organism that spends costly resources on its signals — because it makes it less likely to be a fraud or a predator.
With this year’s Super bowl presence, the crypto industry has sent a strong signal that it is officially joining the mainstream.
