Semantic Nonsense: The Ads of Super Bowl LIII

The NFL might be out of touch in many places, but they still know how to pick an advertising agency. Unfortunately, that’s not a trait shared with most of their sponsors.

I’ve been complaining about blah ads for a couple of Super Bowls now. And this year was yet another when I was either hard-pressed to pick bests in my categories, or there was a clear best that was only best because of how bad the others were. Thus, I am taking a different direction this year.

Before the game began, I happened upon a report that Coke was tired of paying the big bucks for Super Bowl ad space (reported as anywhere between $2.25 million to $5 million for 30-second national ads, depending on the source) and make their splash with a mere $200,000 full-minute buy pre-game.

And Coke wasn’t the only ones tightening their Super Bowl belt this year. I have a hard time picking ads because there were simply fewer of them to pick. Much fewer. Awful Announcing was kind enough to do the math for us: The number of ads dropped from 83 last year to 60, with the difference being made up in more CBS promos and ad time for local affiliates.

That being said, the most effective ad was probably one of those very promos:

In any case, the advertisers picked a good year to miss. Saints Nation was turned off and tuned out after getting screwed out of the game by a blatant uncalled penalty that even the aloof Commissioner Roger Goodell felt the need to apologize for. And the Rams, of course, had no friends in Middle America after storming out of St. Louis while taxpayers still had $60 million to pay on their stadium. And the game itself was a defensive grind that I imagine turned off a lot of viewers from the run-and-gun scoring the NFL had the entire rest of the year.

Burger King’s ad was really just the first 45 seconds of this, but as luck would have it this perfectly encapsulated the feeling of the day’s gridiron gridlock.

And luck is exactly what it was, as for any serious company, Super Bowl plans are made long before the teams are decided. As such these cutbacks are curious for what is still the biggest television event all year by a country mile, even if it did hit its lowest average viewership in a decade. It’s also bad news for broadcasters, who had to pay out the nose to get television rights for the big game that the revenue from the likewise expensive commercials need to exceed to be worthwhile. With ad spots down about 25% and rates reportedly flat, that’s a LOT of money missing. No wonder CBS was pimping All Access hard.

Only one company was still all-in on the action: Anheuser-Busch. They cranked up their usual cavalcade of high-production value spots with one for Stella Artois, another for Bon & Viv, two for Michelob and five for Bud (even though one was shared with Game of Thrones).

You have to admit, it’s a good mashup given the whole medieval shtick the Bud commercials have been reading lately, eh?

In addition to that 5:45 of national airtime costing up to $57.5 million, they also ran an ad for Busch in local markets.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the best advertisements this year never got the national spotlight. We know the previously linked Stan Still Stinks ad was gold, but you wouldn’t have seen it outside the St. Louis metro. But that still wasn’t the saltiest local ad. Check out this atypical car ad that ran in Canada:

It’s an interesting echo of American politics. Unifor is saying “Canada First” and doesn’t think much of NAFTA while GM is all like “I will build an automobile plant, and I will make Mexico pay for it.”