ISSUE 31: THE COMMERCIAL BOWL
A copywriter's take on the ads interrupted by the football game.
Happy day after Super Bowl! It was a victorious win for the Philadelphia Eagles and a really tough loss for me who had to—several times—involuntarily watch Patrick Mahomes chew on his mouthguard like a little baby.
While I have many Philly friends (go birds), I admittedly tuned in for my favorite part of the Super Bowl…the commercials!
TWO THEMES GO HEAD TO HEAD
It’s interesting to see what the big themes are that emerge every year for the commercial line-up. Themes that touch on where we are as a society and could either become big watershed changes, or maybe they’re just a passing fad that someone reallyyyy wanted to jump on. OR MAYBE THEY’RE JUST A DUMB FUNNY IDEA. I’d say this year the most prevalent “themes” were AI (who is surprised) and not hating each other / being a trash human (read between the lines - we love to see it). In essence, AI versus humanity are in fact…contrasts! It reflected back that while we’re seeing a lot of rapid technological advances right now (that no one asked for), we also reeeeeallly need to get our shit together when it comes to caring for each other and getting back in touch with the fact that we are humans. Overall, I thought the strongest commercials were actually from non profits or PSAs—versus commercial brands. They were able to more clearly present a message that wasn’t tainted by “and buy this piece of metal to get in touch with your humanity.” I’ll get into that below.
MY COMMERCIAL TAKES
Super Bowl commercials are interesting to me as someone who works in marketing. Like, sometimes I see a commercial and I think: that is the biggest waste of millions of dollars I have ever seen. People are taking risks in some cases. Other times, I’m literally weeping watching a commercial and I think it should win an award, but then the brand logo comes up at the end and you’re like OMG I’M CRYING ABOUT A LAWNMOWER COMPANY? (random example).
Here’s what stuck out to me during the game:
Rocket Mortgage
This commercial started with a pregnant lady rubbing her belly and saying “let’s get you home.” This could have easily turned into a Sci-Fi-themed commercial if they wanted to get freaky, but then I got slapped with “Country Roads Take Me Home.” Call me European (thank you), but I hate country music—even if it’s sentimental for ~Americuh~. Ultimately this commercial was shot beautifully and did make me tear up. It commented on the fact that the American dream of owning a house shouldn’t be impossible, and that Rocket can help you reach that dream. I mean—that’s beautiful. I’m sure this landed really well for middle America. That sounds so bitchy. I want to move to Europe though so I’m biased. But ultimately this was a strong spot, and I did cry (for a different reason other than country music being played). BTW the song was playing in the stadium at the game after the commercial break. Nice integration.
Liquid Death
I had the ~pleasure~ of hearing Andy Pearson, Liquid Death’s VP of Creative, talk at a panel a couple months ago. Liquid Death is nailing marketing—not because it’s simply evocative but because they have a very clear idea of their brand “as character” (what he discussed at the panel I was at) and they know what works. Their Super Bowl commercial was about how “everybody is drinking on the job.” It showed people guzzling Liquid Death’s at all their work locations (which, if you’re not familiar…LD looks like a beer can!) This was definitely a NORMCORE commercial for Liquid Death (if you want something spicier, check out their “Corpse Paint” collab commercial with Elf Makeup), but I think for such a broad audience that the Super Bowl has, this is was super clear and strong premise that also introduced the brand well for people who’ve not heard of it before. I feel like they could’ve also brought Steve-O back and done a weird thing. But maybe next year.
UberEats
I’d seen these before the commercial. I have to mention them because my Patron Saint Martha Stewart is in them. UberEats has really been packing the celebs in the last couple years. I thought the premise of football being invented to make people buy food was interesting, and I loved the surprise cameo from Greta Gerwig at the end of this spot during the game. How much cash did Matthew McConaghey make from the Super Bowl? He was also in a Salesforce campaign on top of the Uber one. Matthew, comment below.
He Gets Us (LLC)
I thought this was going to be a commercial for laundry detergent or something but it ended up being a Christian ad. Nevertheless, it felt very pointed during a time like this (and by pointed I mean, THEY ARE POINTING A FINGER!). I guess this group has had some controversial ads in the past, but this one felt like a “picture is worth a thousand words” concept where they didnt have to say much. They could’ve tagged the end of the ad with “DONT BE A DICK!” But they didn’t because it’s Jesus LLC. God Inc.
Google Pixel
This spot began with a man talking to a robot voice (NOT Scarlet Johansson) about what he learned from a past “job.” On screen, we see he is talking about being a Dad. Cue: awhhhhh. I liked that it was a dad talking about being a dad and not a mom talking about being a mom #leanin. I thought the copy (words) for this commercial was beautiful, but then at the end you’re like crying and then see oh haha he was talking to an AI-empowered functionality on his Google phone about this beautiful thing. Do I want to talk to an AI device about my life experiences as metaphor? This for me felt like a FORCED sale at the end of the product which was a bummer because I loved the spot up until then. I hope the dad got the job though.
CoffeeMate Cold Foam
Dancing tongues. This was weird but I kind of liked it. Dancing tongues.
Big Brothers Big Sisters
This was such a clean, simple idea but so impactful. I would say this was actually THE BEST SUPERBOWL COMMERCIAL OF 2025!!! CONGRATS BBBS!!!!!!! YOU WIN MY AWARD!!!!!! It was very clear and MADE ME WANT TO VOLUNTEER FOR THIS ORGANIZATION. Emotional impact + call to action accepted = you win big. It also made me whisper “I am somebody.” Oooh! That feels good. Ok, I also just saw agency 72andSunny did this—amazing!
Glen Powell Ram Commercial
I love the reveal that this was a bedtime story for kids. New approach for a car commercial which was refreshing. It was whimsical but still had the BDE that car commercials snort before they walk out the door for work (the Super Bowl). Not my fave overall but I thought it was a creative approach.
Pringles
First of all. Did Adam Brody get hotter—again? Besides the point. I loved the idea of this commercial. It could be one of those commercials that was just weird for weirdness’ sake, but I thought it was very smart to take something from the brand that’s been around for a while (the mustache on the Pringles man) and turn it into a whole premise. It’s like the bat signal for Pringles. Very cute. Simple and weird and celebby. Good mix, I feel.
NIKE
Oh no, I didn’t really like it. I thought the copy was wonky (I’m sorry to peers who make 5x the amount of money than me and wrote this). I loved all the athletes in this like Sha'Carri Richardson and Caitlin Clark and thought the visuals were great. But the premise just didn’t land for me even though I got what they were saying. It was like “You can’t run. So run.” I get it, they’re quoting the haters then being like HAHA I’M GONNA DO IT ANYWAY - PSYCHEEEE. But a way it felt like a “Like a Girl” 2.0 commercial for me, but more abstract and <edgy>. Maybe people loved it because it’s Nike and “JUST DO IT” coded. But I was like meh. The athletes looked great though.
IndyCar
Ok so I believe these various spots featuring drivers were for the Indy500. Besides the Big Brother Big Sister ad, I thought these were actually some of the best. I LOVED the copy for these and thought they were super fun and descriptive and actually made me care about these dudes. Wow. (I still probably won’t watch the Indy500). But I thought this did a genius job at pulling people into this world through a very specific Wes Anderson-level of detail profile of drivers. It wasn’t like HEY WATCH THEM DRIVE!!! FAST!!! ZOOM ZOOM!!!! They told you about the person. I thought they were done super well. Nice job whoever wrote these. They also remind me of a work project I did years ago profiling data scientists and I was able to post a link to a Beyoncé music video on my government contractor-employer’s website. Win for me.
Other Notables:
Old ladies cruisin’ around promoting the WeatherTech car mats. Breast Cancer awareness commercial. AngelSoft ~go to the bathroom now~ commercial.
That’s all! Have a good week, everyone! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a little dive into “not dying.”