WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW?

Ah, Superbowl ad reviews.
Here comes another one.
If you only read one today then I’d probably suggest you read someone else’s.
Mostly because their one will be far more professional and definitely less tongue-in-cheek.

I’ve mentioned before the personal battle inside my head when I watch advertising called “Planner vs. Punter”.
Planner over-analyses, interrogates the potential brief and looks at the history, sociology and behavioural heuristics surrounding the ads.
Punter just decides what he likes or what he can remember ten minutes after watching it.

I decided in the interests of not being an overthinking, chin-striking bellend that I’d lock the planner in the cupboard for the day (Don’t worry I’ll let him out before work starts on Monday).

Two things before we start.

Firstly I’m not going to use any rubbish wordplay about what ads were “touchdowns’ or ‘MVPs’ or which ones didn’t make ‘first down’. Mostly because I’m not interested enough in a game that takes too long and is a worse form of egg-chasing with pads.

Secondly, it really struck me again that so many agency creatives spend so long trying to write “the Superbowl spot” that they forget all the rules of just writing a half decent advert. For that it is a lot like Xmas advertising in the UK – where most creatives spend so long trying to “write the John Lewis ad” that they forget to write an ad at all.

So, I watched a reel of the ads I was sent. I deliberately only watched it once.
Then wrote this from memory two hours later.

I wanted to see what was memorable and what might have an earthly chance of being socially relevant by next weekend.
75% of all the ads ended up in the ‘meh’ bucket. I can’t remember them. They didn’t make any impact on me whatsoever. And let’s remember I’m paid to care about them, so God knows what Joe or Joanne Public think.

The class of 2018 seem to have pretty much fallen into three buckets – funny, causes or celebrity (with some choosing to do a slightly unwise mash-up of all three).

My mum told me that if I didn’t have anything nice to say then I shouldn’t say anything at all.
So my mum would definitely not be very happy with my point of view of M&Ms (Car accidents and slightly awful sexual innuendo in 30 seconds) or Pringles (worst use of celebrity 2018, up against some stiff competition). She would hate to hear my POV on Jack-in-a-Box or that weird Kia thing with Steve Tyler.

The oddest ad of the night was definitely that subliminal thing for the GOP and Trump’s MAGA agenda from WeatherTech. I’ve no idea what the message was supposed to be, but it came across like it was written by Stephen Miller when he was on a break from drowning unicorns (or whatever he does in his spare time).

Which reminds me just how apolitical the Superbowl was in 2018. Last year you couldn’t move for overt Anti-Trumpness. Maybe this year it is has all become so hyper-normalised that people just wanted to forget potential nuclear Armageddon for four quarters.

There were two ads about water.
Something about Stella and something else from Budweiser.
I preferred the Bud One because it was more heart-felt and didn’t have Matt Damon in it.

I think the overall winners were the ones that forgot all about the context and the competition and just followed the rules of good advertising. They were human, engaging, mostly funny and just good pieces of entertainment that remembered their place in the evening.

Special mention to Avocados of Mexico – mostly because I still can’t believe it’s a real thing. Their spot was insightful and full of funny moments. They smashed it last year, they managed a solid 8/10 this year. Good wifi gag at the end.

Top 5 of Superbowl 52 for me:

5. Bud Light – I remembered it. It featured the phrase “Dilly Dilly”. I laughed, slightly.
4. Doritos/Mountain Dew - Dinklage/Freeman rap battle thing. Memorable. Probably the least cringy celeb spot.
3. Michelob Ultra – Wanted to hate it. Found myself smiling at the Chris Pratt gags. Hated myself for it.
2. Febreze – Old gag, toilet gag. Well done. Good solid old school advert. There aren’t enough of them.
1. Amazon Alexa – Nice to see an ad from over here doing rather well over there (a gag there for anyone over 40). Funny, very well produced and lands well. I’ve also, on the social relevance front, seen loads of column inches about it

There you go. As I said, not exhaustive and certainly there to argue with. No doubt if I agonised over them and watched them all numerous times then I might have a different list.
But no punter is ever going to do that, are they?