While some folks were tuned into Super Bowl LII to see the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the New England Patriots on Sunday night, the team at Zipie was getting geared up for the biggest night in advertising.
It’s no surprise by now that Super Bowl programming, commercials and all, has taken on a life of its own. With roughly 110 million viewers over the course of the big game, every company wants to be the Super Bowl commercial that has us chatting at the water cooler or coffee pot on Monday morning. Tack on the fact that companies are shelling out an estimated $5 million per 30 second spot, their competition for attention has become that much more important.
The office was packed Sunday night as we sat down and hashed through the Super Bowl commercials live on Twitter, hosting the discussion around our hashtag #BigGameBigAds. We laughed, we cried, we groaned, and the vast majority of us ate our weight in Buffalo wings.
After taking the night to digest (ads and food both), we’ve put together our winners, losers, and other thoughts from the Super Bowl 52 commercials. Feel free to also take a look back at our live coverage and the ads we were talking about here:
Last night we were covering the #BigGameBigAds in real-time. Miss our coverage? Check it out here.
“Zipie Super Bowl Recap”https://t.co/kp8MvxcOzC
WINNERS:
Tide
When Tide’s initial ad aired we loved their self-awareness from the jump. Instead of taking the traditional route, Tide took a step back, poked fun at all the classic ad formats we’ve become familiar with, and set us up for the “every ad is a Tide ad” bit. At this point we, and the majority of the nation, thought the commercial had run its course. It was a nice ad, and alone it would have been fine. But the follow-up spots featuring well-known commercials (Old Spice, Mr. Clean, etc.) pushed this one over the top for us. Sidenote: between David Harbour crushing it in Stranger Things season 2, becoming a fan-favorite for engaging with regular folks on Twitter and now his Tide mini-franchise, is anyone having a better last six months than him?
Was your favorite #TideAd a #TideAd? Sounds like it. #SB52 #SBLII pic.twitter.com/sWU3ySHBfY
— Tide (@tide) February 5, 2018
Amazon Alexa
As if Amazon wasn’t already ingrained in your everyday life, their “Alexa Loses Her Voice” spot found another way to make sure the commerce giant was in the forefront of the discussion. The star-studded lineup of stand-in "voices" from Gordon Ramsay berating a novice cook to Cardi B’s staunch refusal to play country music, this commercial had the whole office laughing and debating who they’d like to hear as their celebrity voice of Alexa long after the spot ended.
Thousands of panelists rated 65 #SuperBowl LII ads and chose Amazon's Alexa as the top spot in USA TODAY's #AdMeter. https://t.co/An0uveEfsf pic.twitter.com/gKAdxDxSBo
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) February 5, 2018
Coca-Cola “Enjoy Yours”
Let’s lead off here by saying that when we saw the Diet Coke “Groove” spot earlier in the game it was received with collective groans. Coca-Cola redeemed themselves later on, putting out a feel-good, all-inclusive ad that’s linking Coke with a message of support and caring for your fellow person.
There's a Coke for him and her and them and he and she. And though we all are different, we're better as a "we."
P.S. Every ❤️ gets a special reply from us! #EnjoyYours pic.twitter.com/BNEovkWmZP
— Coca-Cola (@CocaCola) February 5, 2018
LOSERS:
Ram Trucks
Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1968 speech “The Drum Major Instinct”: actually good. Using said speech to sell trucks: not good. Virginia Commonwealth University's Brandcenter’s Kelly O’Keefe put it well in an article for ABC: “You wanted to root for it because the cause is good, but it just didn't end up fitting the brand, so you ended up feeling a little bit manipulated.”
Kraft “Family Greatly”
Our biggest beef with this spot was landing on the hashtag #FamilyGreatly - how many eyes saw this and passed it off? Using user submitted photos gives a level of authenticity to the commercial, but we felt that the campaign missed the mark.
Wix
This one didn’t move the needle for us. Rhett and Link, while YouTube famous, make for ok spokespeople in a rushed basic tutorial on the platforms basic functions. It felt like for a $5 million dollar investment some further thought would be given behind this one.
ADDITIONAL FACTS AND OTHER MUSINGS:
- Honorable mention for the ads that didn’t make our top-3 winners: Doritos x Mountain Dew, Toyota’s “Good Odds” spot, Michelob Ultra’s “I Like Beer” ad, and the NFL’s Dirty Dancing-inspired hit.
- Our final tally of Zipie employees crying at commercials came in at six.
- In addition to hearing Dilly Dilly regularly, we are forecasting a dramatic increase in the use of the phrase “NOBODY ASKED YOU KEVIN!”
- We didn’t realize that Eli Manning had that choreography in him, guess that’s what the Giants were doing when they went 3-13 (ziiiiiiing).
- There was a tie between Avocados of Mexico and Persil for the “Wow, Didn’t Realize They Had Super Bowl Commercial Money” award.
In all seriousness, we had a great time being part of the Super Bowl discussion. Over the course of the live event, Zipie’s Twitter account reached the 10,000 impression mark, while #BigGameBigAds reached over 70,000 impressions and reached over 40,000 people. We’re happy with our first ever Zipie Super Bowl conversation, and we can’t wait to see what Super Bowl LIII has in store.
And congrats to the Eagles, we guess.
