Super Bowl Commercials Fail to Get the Touchdown

By Nate Landwehr 

With every passing year, there comes a new horribly Roman-numeraled Super Bowl. While many look forward to the game every year there is definitely something else the average viewer is looking forward to: the commercials. The Super Bowl commercial is one of the most sought after ad segments in the entire world.

Typically in years past, the commercials tend to be focused on humorous aspects in order to entertain the viewer and get them to enjoy learning about their product. However, this year saw an increase in slower and more sentimental commercials than in previous years. With the Jeep commercial starring Harrison Ford, instead of focusing on parodying some of Ford’s most iconic roles, it instead chose to focus on American unity in times that provide for intense divisions. 

A large failure on most brands’ part was that there was no true capitalization on nostalgia for past Super Commercials. The only brand that seemed to truly cash in on nostalgia was Instacart, who had no memorable commercials in previous years. The company was able to find a work around to that however, as the brand used the mascots from other brands, including Puppymonkeybaby from Mountain Dew and the Kool-Aid Man. They used these characters in order to showcase all of the different products that the company is able to deliver. 

An interesting aspect of the commercials this year was that both Pringles and Little Caesars had very similar ads. Little Caesars’ promotion was one of the first to air and focused on actor Eugene Levy being surprised by how good Crazy Puffs are that Levy’s iconic eyebrows became birdlike and flew away. In an extremely similar light, Pringles’ commercial focused on an individual using a Pringle can as a horn which rips off the mustaches of various celebrities and those moustaches then flew away, which brought Pringles cans to the man who blew the horn. While these commercials were very fun, it does make some wonder if there was some form of copycatting involved in the companies’ creative process.

This year seemed to provide numerous opportunities for companies to provide humorous commercials, however, most brands either didn’t capitalize on that opportunity or failed miserably while trying to do so. While many football fans are looking forward to next year’s Super Bowl for the game, many Americans are looking forward to commercials that can hopefully top this years’.