Super Bowl fans can traditionally be parsed into three categories—the game watchers, the food eaters and the advertising lovers. While some of us at Team Zipie live for football, our majority rests in those latter two categories. And we’ve got lots of thoughts on this year’s ads. With a few powerful spots here and there, the majority of the Super Bowl LIII was a little boring.
Our team has a few favorites, but with an overarching feeling of “meh,” we’ve got some more insights on what didn’t work, rather than what did.
Kia has been a Super Bowl staple for the last few years and generally goes for laughs—think Melissa McCarthy saving the world while running from rhinos. This year, though, they worked to pull our heartstrings with a kid in a cowboy hat showing Kia’s connection to West Point, Georgia where the Telluride is made. While the sentiment was there (everyone who appeared in the spot was actually from West Point), the connection between the all-new Kia SUV was disjointed and awkward. We’re also pretty positive driving your Kia—or, really, any vehicle—through that much standing water won’t bode well for either you or your car. Don’t try this at home. But, really. Please don’t.
We were ten kinds of confused when it came to Burger King’s #EatLikeAndy spot highlighting just that—old 1982 footage of the famous artist eating a Burger King burger. While we’re fans of Warhol, it seemed odd to highlight an artist many may not even recognize. A little birdy also tweeted that, during the original film, Warhol actually asked for a McDonald’s cheeseburger. So, that’s awkward. Burger King fired back with a tweet saying: “It doesn’t matter who you flirt with, it matters who you take home,” which is admittedly hilarious.
While we’re down with forward thinking, we’re not sure every other commercial (it seemed like, anyway) needed to feature artificial intelligence. We’re looking especially at you, TurboTax. However, we did appreciate Michelob’s take in their spot, “Robots” and are pretty sure if our metal friends do end up taking over the world, it’ll be while we’re at the bar.
And, while there were certainly ads that didn’t tickle our fancy, our cry count (Social Media Manager Chloe and Copywriter Haley have a problem with their tear ducts and emotions) did reach at least three with a few powerful commercials here and there.
Microsoft’s continuation of their holiday spot, “We All Win” highlighting their adaptive controller was a team favorite for inclusion and overall goodness. Tears came when Owen’s dad said that when his son, who has Escobar Syndrome, isn’t “different when he plays.” We also loved Google’s “100 Billion Words” that connected us all as people with the most translated words are “how are you,” “thank you” and “I love you.” And, of course, we’re big Doritos fans here and throwing it back to Backstreet Boys will always get our stamp of approval.
To see our full live coverage of #BigGameBigAds, you can check our Twitter feed. And, as always, let us know what you think! Which ads were your favorite?