The Pressure of Getting a Super Bowl Ad Right!

7 min readFeb 6, 2019

Super Bowl LIII was one of most-watched shows on American television in 2019, though it’s only month 2 of the year! The New England Patriots battled with the Los Angeles Rams to win the coveted Super Bowl trophy. Though I was rooting for the Rams, the Patriots played well and won the game, fair and square. Of course, for Americans and for people around the world, the Super Bowl is more than American Football. It is an opportunity to gather, to eat together, to discuss sports, to bet on their favorite teams and to raise a toast to the night’s winner. For many, it is a family night, filled with beer and tacos. So it makes sense for companies like Budweiser, Avacados from Mexico and Tostitos to advertise during the game.

Since it began 53 years ago, Super Bowl has been the event to release iconic ads. In 1984 for example, Apple spent its entire year’s advertising and marketing budget to launch the Macintosh computer, changing the face of the tech world forever. Not only did the iconic ad launch the Macintosh, but it also established Apple as a company to watch, a force to reckon with. Of course, Apple took a huge risk with the ad, but it paid off. A few years back I was lucky enough to meet advertising icon Steve Hayden, the creative director behind the historic ad, making it one of my all-time favorite advertising career moments. After all these years, it is still one of my all-time favorite ads. Every time I see it, I get goose pimples. Every time.

Outside of Apple, some of the other previous Super Bowl ads on my list are:

Volkswagen’s 2011 force. Now, this is the way to do a car ad. No computer graphics, no gimmicks. Just good, old story telling:

Google was a big advertiser this year, with more than two long ads. Both of which, in my mind, were quite forgettable. However, Google has used the Super Bowl platform to release some memorable commercials in the past. One of my favorites is this 2010 commercial focused on love. Parisian love. It is focused on the story and on the product promise:

Riding on the anthemic nature of Super bowl, Dodge, in 2013, released its powerful ad called, “So God Made a Farmer”. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend setting two minutes aside to watch the commercial. Powerful and poignant, it caught the essence of the American farmer, while lending a voice to farmers all over the world. Watched by over 108 million viewers, the ad has stood the test of time, finding a spot on my all-time favorites list:

2013 was also the year when the game witnessed a 30-minute power outage. Though not a television commercial, one brand still got it right. Within minutes of the outage, Oreo had released the following ad, making me, personally, fall in love with the advertising profession, all over again. It was a fantastic representation of a successful client/agency relationship:

With more than a 100 million people watching the Super Bowl this year, advertisers lined up to get their attention. Pricey attention, though. At a cost of about $5.3 million for a 30 second spot, (A hike from 1970’s $78,200), it is a heavy gamble for advertisers to get their brand communication right. Super bowl continues to deliver though, making it one of those events that a mass-market product can seldom risk to miss. The viewership for the game has consistently been in 9 figures for the past decade, with no intention for slowing down.

There is always a lot of pressure to get a super-bowl ad right. At that $5 million price point, it can either be the best way to start the year or the most expensive mistake of the 1st quarter. No company starts off thinking that they want to create an un-memorable super bowl ad. However, after spending close to two decades in the industry, one can look at a commercial to see how focused its creative brief may have been. Ask too much of 30 seconds and the brand has already lost the ‘attention’ battle. Some of those who did not make my list this year were Audi, Olay with its terrible #killerskin commercial, Avacados from Mexico, Sprint which obviously learnt nothing from its peer T-Mobile and Cure Auto Insurance.

A lot of brands did get it right though. Here are my favorite ads from this year’s super bowl:

Simply safe: the ad captured our fear of losing our identity in this always-on digital world. It nailed the feeling and brought it all together, focusing on the brand’s product promise:

Pringles stack:Though I have been eating Pringles forever, it never occurred to me to stack it, almost like a multi-flavored sandwich. What a great way to upsell the buying of multiple flavors vs. a single one. Pringles nailed it, giving people, including me, a new way to look at using the product:

Microsoft: The company absolutely nailed this year’s super bowl, with empathy, reality and amazing story telling. It put real people at the heart of its offering, taking a lesson from Apple. After all, it’s not about the product but what it can do for you. Product innovations like this put Microsoft in a league of its own, making it one of my favorite commercials this year:

Verizon: The wireless carrier had a touching ad about first responders. Again, great storytelling, but I struggled to find the brand connection. Replace the ending Verizon logo with any other brand and it would not have made any difference. In other words, there was nothing ‘Verizon’ about the commercial:

My favorite ad, outside of Microsoft? T-Mobile. 4 spots, one for each quarter, they focused on T-Mobile Tuesdays — the carrier’s version of a loyalty program for its subscribers. They were funny, they were innovative, they were easy on the eye and they would be easy to describe tomorrow morning to those who missed watching the Super Bowl. Most importantly, they were memorable. What else could a brand ask for?

So, what was missing this super bowl? The celebration the Phygital world — the link between the physical and the digital world. There were hardly any hashtags, no push to join the conversation on social media or even walk into a store Monday morning, as a continuation of the conversation. Which brings me to the question. It is 2019; my 11-year-old daughter is playing Jeopardy with Alexa and my son is having a conversation with his android smart watch. Me? I am just happy that my digital assistants listen to me. So, while the consumer continues to live in an evolving, seamless online/offline world, why are brands refusing to do the same with a 5 million dollar, 30-second investment? Why not use the opportunity to make the spot work harder? Perhaps it is time to start seeing commercials as content to be used across networks instead of being forgotten around water cooler conversations. Perhaps it is time for agencies to make brand communication work harder, as only agencies can do. For, with this new consumer, you are only going to get one chance. Right, Alexa?

Join me every week, as we navigate these ever-changing waters to make sense of this ‘always-on’ consumer and the technologies that define their everyday. I will be bringing you insights from some of the sharpest global minds in the industry as well as in academia. And do join the conversation.

Until next week

Anika Sharma

A seasoned Advertising and Digital expert, Anika has worked across countries and continents and spoken at companies such as Google and universities such as NYU. She is currently Professor of Business at NYU’s Stern School of Business, teaching Digital, Social and Mobile Marketing. Follow Anika on twitter @anikadas or on Medium.

The Pressure of Getting a Super Bowl Ad Right!

Written by Anika Sharma