By Lucas Hauser | Editor-in-Chief
I can tell the truth when I say that I watch the Super Bowl for the advertisements. This year didn’t disappoint, but the annoying football game interrupted the main attraction just enough to leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Companies fight tooth and nail for the opportunity to spend millions of dollars for the privilege of presenting their greatest focus group-tested message that compels us to buy products that we otherwise would not have. Can it get any better than that? Seriously, where else are you going to find video content that is so meticulously crafted?
Now that we’ve established that commercials are the best genre of video entertainment in existence, we need to figure out which commercials are holding up their end of the content bargain and which ones are slacking off, delivering poorly for the name of ads everywhere. No better opportunity exists to analyze this than the Super Bowl.
Not everyone loved the ads. As you can tell, I beg to differ. In the spirit of advancing the genre and contributing everything I can to the art form, I want to identify the most successful advertisements, their brilliant techniques, and how future advertisers can learn from and improve upon these exemplary examples of consumerist brainwashing.
Toyota: The Story of Paralympic Swimmer Jessica Long
The essence of the Toyota Super Bowl advertisement is that it inspires the audience with the heartwarming story of paralympic swimmer Jessica Long and her relentless determination to achieve greatness. Then, for the last five seconds of the ad, we see Toyota’s logo, unexpectedly. The messaging here is genius: Jessica Long is an inspiration for all. Similarly, you can buy a Toyota and achieve greatness. And they have available financing! Other advertisements similarly attempt to use an emotional connection to forge love for their product or brand.
This is a highly effective approach and used constantly in advertising. However, I think we need to take it a step further. The more jarring the transition between the emotional appeal and the product, the better. Audiences love that temporary feeling of confusion where it seems like the first part of the ad didn’t make sense with the closing pitch. For example, we could play off of people’s love of puppies and babies. We open for 25 seconds of puppies and babies being cute, with no other subliminal message or agenda. Then for the last five, we slap on the slogan. “3M Ball-Bearings, only the best for commercial contractors.” Boom. I can guarantee that people will like this, responding positively with their money and through word of mouth. 3M, if you’re reading this, call me.
State Farm: Jake from State Farm
I’m not sure about you, but I have read extensively on the State Farm Advertising Cinematic Universe. It’s amazing. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the whole concept of their latest series of advertisements in recent months is a series of in-jokes based on a “Jake from State Farm” character (that we are somehow supposed to care about?), who is a sales agent State Farm uses in advertisements repeatedly. Like the one in the Super Bowl, the premise of these ads is that you’ve seen the previous ones, making jokes about this Jake character.
These ads kind of go over my head, but I’m sure it’s my fault, not that of the advertiser (If an advertisement is confusing, it’s always the audience’s fault). In fact, my recommendation is to go further into the in-references. The less comprehensible it is to people who haven’t seen all the ads in sequence, the better. Maybe State Farm should invent its own language, or at least jumbled vernacular, solely for the ads. Those who haven’t seen all of the other ones aren’t worth marketing to. Cut your losses and move on.
Other insurance providers have taken notice. Liberty Mutual, for example, has mastered this in their advertisements. The Liberty Mutual mascot is the LiMu Emu, a bird that uses deadpan letdown humor. Perfection! Or the one where the guy couldn’t pronounce “Liberty Mutual?” Priceless! Anyone who is familiar with these ads knows that we want more of them, and we want more of them now.
Geico definitely fails in this regard. They set up simple, easy-to-understand jokes with the sole objective of conveying their slogan. Obviously, this is far worse than the State Farm and Liberty Mutual philosophies. All I associate with Geico is that gecko and “15 minutes could save you 15% or more,” which is definitely the problem here. I could recite that in my sleep, and this is the problem. Why don’t they try something new for once? A different message every ad? Just don’t make it so repetitive! Otherwise, it seems like their current path will never have its intended effect.
Rocket Mortgage: Tracy Morgan and “Pretty Close”
It’s pretty clear at this point that I’m an advertising aficionado. The losers in charge of other advertising firms should listen to me, but it seems they never will, much to the detriment of our corporations and consumers. No one has picked up my “it’s not materialism if you get a good deal” pitch, yet. My time will come.
However, the folks at Rocket Mortgage at least seem to know what they’re doing. Their advertisement featured Tracy Morgan and several jokes exemplifying why “pretty sure” is a lot worse than certainty, and Rocket Mortgage is better than pretty sure. This concept continued into two one-minute ads, with gag after gag reinforcing the “pretty sure” joke, showing how “pretty sure” is unacceptable.
Rocket Mortgage tapped into one of the best advertising techniques: repetition. A surefire way to ingrain the message you want straight into people’s brains. In the Super Bowl, Rocket Mortgage repeated their joke about a dozen times across two different ads. This is a good start, but I think you should go even further. Buy out the entire ad break and repeat your joke or sales pitch for the entire duration. More is better. I guarantee results.
One criticism I have is the use of celebrities to endorse products, like Tracy Morgan in this advertisement. Corporations: I’ll let you in on a little secret. I will advertise the products just as well as some A-list celebrity or athlete for a fraction of the price. There’s no better deal than that! Agents- contact me any way you’d like. Your piece of a fortune is waiting for you!