Super Bowl LV came with many changes, from the limited capacity at Raymond James Stadium to The Weeknd’s unconventional halftime show. However, there was one unchanged aspect of game day that many people tuned in for despite the dip in ratings: the commercials.
When it comes to memorable Super Bowl advertisements over the last decade, 84 Lumber’s 2017 commercial and PETA’s catastrophic promotions come to mind. According to Patrice Nealon, a senior lecturer in marketing, this year was comparatively disappointing.
“For the most part, they were underwhelming,” Nealon said. “I think there’s a consensus out there that they were underwhelming.”
Some commercials simply missed the mark, like Squarespace’s “9 to 5” remix featuring Dolly Parton. Despite Squarespace’s success in advertising over the last few years, Tom Byrnes, a senior lecturer in the Poole College of Management, said their 2021 Super Bowl commercial did not perform as well as anticipated — even considering Parton’s recent popularity.
Byrnes said that Squarespace’s money could have been spent better elsewhere, especially considering the success they’ve had in recent years regarding public advertising.
“Squarespace has a wonderful product, and I think word of mouth and some of the other ways that they promote their product has been very, very helpful for them,” Byrnes said. “If they continue with the same level of advertisements that they’ve done over the last couple of years, I think that they’re wasting their money [with Super Bowl ads].”
Some companies chose to opt out entirely from a Super Bowl advertisement this year, either for budgetary reasons or for a PR stunt. Either way, Coke, Pepsi and others were noticeably absent from the 2021 advertisement lineup.
“I believe it’s for a few different reasons,” Nealon said. “These companies are not making as much money as they did, partly because of the pandemic. They’re looking at their promotional budget, and they realized that their promotional budget can be better spent using digital marketing.”
According to Byrnes, a few companies took their usual Super Bowl commercial funding and diverted it toward COVID-19 relief and vaccine support. By publishing this data, it became a PR campaign of sorts to prove their commitment to being an ethical brand.
One of the companies that received surprisingly good feedback on their advertisement was Reddit — their commercial flashed across the screen for a mere five seconds, yet it won instant praise across social media for its unconventional marketing techniques.
“Any time that you can have a minimal amount of visibility and get your logo and some kind of value proposition out there, that will go a long way,” Byrnes said. “You don’t necessarily need the celebrity spokespeople. The celebrity spokespeople make it more humorous, but the message can certainly be out there.”
According to Nealon, the blazingly fast advertisement led viewers to flock to social media to discuss the content, which only boosted public opinion of Reddit’s commercial.
“What was so smart from a marketing [perspective] was that the traditional ad itself is 30 seconds, but what smart companies recognize is that it’s not the ad itself,” Nealon said. “It’s the conversation that happens beforehand and the conversation that happens afterward. That’s exactly what happened with Reddit.”
Beyond Reddit’s success, DoorDash’s bright commercial featuring Sesame Street favorites and Daveed Diggs of “Hamilton” fame landed well with Gen Z.
“I think that Gen Z can relate to the value proposition that was provided with DoorDash,” Byrnes said. “What they did was feature Sesame Street characters — I think that’s recognized across all generational cohorts, but Gen Z could probably relate pretty well to Sesame Street and the value proposition that was provided through DoorDash.”
With Super Bowl commercials running over $5 million now, companies have to be looking for the best way to get their message across and their product out there. Even if they fail at that, at least they’re entertaining.
