#Trending: Brands that won the Super Bowl

There were tons of serious actors and fabulous celebrities starring in many of the ads, along with a variety of animals (farm animals seem big this year), aliens, avocados and something weird in the Mountain Dew ad that the cat dragged in. The Broncos beat the Panthers 24 to 10, if you are interested at all, in what most commentators have described as a rather boring game marking the historic 50th anniversary of the Super Bowl. The real action was in Beyoncé ‘winning’ the half-time show, and the fact that #SuperBowel trended alongside #SuperBowl, due to the disproportionate amount of ‘intestinal’ advertising this year.

Source: Detroit News

It’s a strange cultural phenomenon, the Super Bowl, where the ads flighted and the half-time acts (Beyoncé, Coldplay, Bruno Mars; and Lady Gaga sang the national anthem to rave reviews) are as wildly anticipated as the actual game of football. And brands have been teasing us for weeks with careful previews of their Super Bowl ad battle. Previewing Super Bowl ads has also become big business as advertisers realise it gains them more exposure and more business over a longer period.

For those people who don’t care about Super Bowl and want to know what else was going on - it was also the eve of the Chinese Year of the Fire Monkey which starts on 8 February 2016.

The Super Bowl is when the world’s most expensive advertising is aired, where brands pay $5m for a 30-second spot. And the ad spot that won? Many tweets are nominating a comment by the Broncos football star, Peyton Manning, on his win immediately after the game, in which he said: “I’m going to drink a lot of Budweiser tonight.” Question is, did Budweiser pay him to say that? If not, it was the most valuable “native advertising” out there on the night, quipped one insider.

Anheuser-Busch subsequently issued a statement to the effect that they did not pay Manning to make that comment, saying they were “surprised and delighted” that he did. Active NFL players are however not supposed to recommend alcohol brands. Manning reportedly also has a stake in some Louisiana beer distributorships that deal with Anheuser-Busch, Variety writes.

And the biggest loser on the night? Storytelling, according to many complaints. True narrative was dropped in favour of a litany of celebrities and obscure memes and the ‘schlock’ effect. The lack of true integrated advertising was also clear, with only a tiny percentage containing a digital call to action or any follow through on another medium.

In fact movie trailers aired on the night, such as ‘Independence Day’ and ‘X-Men’ were better than the ads, according to some social media commentators. Maybe that’s because they are stories that build anticipation of the final product… something advertisers profess to be doing today, but clearly failed in playing it safe at the Super Bowl this year.

This is our favourite Super Bowl ad, the Heinz sausage doggies dashing towards their favourite Heinz sauce as cute little hot dogs in ‘Weiner Stampede’ from agency David in Miami. Big awww factor! You can’t go wrong with the puppy formula. (Disclosure: both editor-in-chief Leigh Andrews and I are parents to Dachshunds, so we are definitely biased).

A close second for me was Axe’s ‘Find Your Magic’ from agency 72andSunny, which leaves the blatantly sexist ‘bro’ advertising behind to celebrate everything that makes a man attractive, each unique “thing”, including dance moves (in high heels), a cool suit, grooming, chivalry and, awww, kittens… Kittens will work every time.

Of course the recipe to a good Super Bowl ad often includes puppies and babies. And monkeys. So Mountain Dew created #PuppyMonkeyBaby, a bizarre combination of all three. You won’t be able to unsee it and might end up muttering puppymonkeybaby, puppymonkeybaby, for the rest of the day until you have a lie down.

PuppyMonkeyBaby

Advertising Age actually voted #PuppyMonkeyBaby by BBDO New York as one of its best Super Bowl ads for 2016 in its review of the top 50 ads, giving it four stars. The New Yorker gave it their “Weirdest” accolade.

This is The New Yorker’s analysis and their winners on the night:

1. Axe ‘Find Your Magic’ (72andSunny)

2. Official Super Bowl 50 PSA ‘No More’ (Grey New York)
3. Heinz ‘Wiener Stampede’ (David Miami)
4. Jeep ‘4x4ever’ (DDB Chicago)

5. WeatherTech ‘Resources’ (Pinnacle Advertising, Illonois).

For their worst ads, The New Yorker chose Quicken Loans ‘What We Were Thinking’ (Fallon); ‘Avocados From Mexico ‘Lost in Space’ (GSD&M); and the NFL’s ‘Superbabies’ (Grey New York).

In promoting the whole shebang for their 50th anniversary, the NFL produced a promotional video highlighting the fact that a Super Bowl win can lead to a population boom for the winning team’s fan base, set to a Seal song. Music is a big feature too and Audi’s touching ‘Commander’ ad (Venables Bell & Partners) might make you cry when you hear the Bowie soundtrack. Both ads were previewed by Super Bowl Commercials.

Superbowlcommercials.tv, which also crits the ads, writes that to be a Super Bowl commercial, an ad needs to be of a high quality: “This can come in the form of great photography, winning humour, or of a touching narrative. To be a bad Super Bowl commercial, a spot must be, well, like one of these uninspired, forgettable spots from the 2016 Super Bowl…” They listed their top five worst Super Bowl ads that really “suck” as:

1. ‘What He Said’ from Acura (Mullen Lowe).

2. ‘New Truck to Love’ from Honda (RPA).
3. ‘Robot Razors’ from Schick (J. Walter Thompson).
4. ‘Great Loans; , from SoFi (Muhtayzik Hoffer).

5. ‘The Portrait’ from Skittles, featuring Steven Tyler (DDB Chicago).

Most were “Meh” as one Facebook industry friend commented, and I have to admit, even screaming goats were better than the singing sheep in the Honda commercial this year.

Superbowlcommercials.tv’s five best Super Bowl ads were:

1. ‘The Longest Chase’ from Toyota (Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles)

2. ‘Train On’ from Pokémon (Omelet).
3. ‘PuppyMonkeyBaby’ from Mountain Dew (BBDO New York).
4. ‘Restricted Bling’ from T-Mobile (Publicis Seattle).

5. ‘Never a Sellout’ from TurboTax (Wieden & Kennedy).

I thought #PuppyMonkeyBaby was one of the creepiest and worst ads this year, but if the criteria for an effective ad also means ‘talkability’ and recall, then I guess they are winning on that front, *shudder*! It reminds me of that ghastly dancing baby in that 90s sitcom hit, Ally McBeal, but worse.

A special mention to Christopher Walken in the Kia Optima Super Bowl ad (David & Goliath agency) for awesomeness, “Do you want to be beige?”. Great sock/apparel ad. Not so much for cars. Although the best car ad on the night was probably Jeep’s celebration of its 75 years, nice tune, cool execution.

Social responsibility dominated many messages, with a simple, yet powerful, domestic violence ad in the form of a text message which was the Super Bowl’s official ad, by Grey New York. First time advertiser Colgate advocated water saving instead of advertising its toothpaste, in a well-received ad spot (Y&R Peru). Budweiser’s anti-drunk driving spot was also excellent just because of Helen Mirren. No one wants to be called a ‘pillock’ by her. Cringe!

Since the Super Bowl is also the day for the advertising clan to shine, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Super Bowl, AdWeek, which provided blow-by-blow reviews of each ad flighted, running polls for best and worst, also produced a video and an infographic to showcase how Super Bowl advertising has changed over the years from 1967, when one minute cost only $75,000 (from NBC)!

For a breakdown of all the commercials, AdWeek is also running a Super Bowl Ad Checker with everything they know on all the Super Bowl commercials. Handy resource for those of you who will be reviewing Super Bowl advertising for your teams, clients and all those boring marketing conferences this year.