What Marketers Can Learn from the 2022 Super Bowl Ads: Did We Reach Meta Yet?

It was only in 1984 that the granddaddy of all ads made its spectacular and might I say meta debut during Super Bowl XVIII propelling the Macintosh computer to iconic status Public reaction for that Big Brother narrative represented a watershed moment that catapulted Apple as a brand but also forever changed the world of Super Bowl advertisingIt39s 2022 welcome to the best short film festival you will see this side of TellurideAt a price tag of 7 million per spot we witnessed the craft of storytelling reach new heights with adrenalinpowered adventures featuring unlikely action hero Eugene Levy in his blazing yellow 2023 Nissan Z sports getaway car to the space odyssey turned into aamp160 quotlet39s save earthquot trek that only Matthew McConaughey could pull off energized by his Salesforce trail mix of courseIn many ways this year39s slate of minifilms over indexed on all things super superstars Zendaya Anna Kendrick Serena Williams Salma Hayek Arnold Schwarzenegger and the list goes on superhighways with super gods BMW super babies GM and Etrade super robots Kia super beats among wild beasts CheetosDoritos super couples Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost for Amazon Alexa and then the super simple Coinbase39s QR 60 seconds musical bounce actOur industry is besotted with lists and meters from USA Today39s Ad Meter to iSpottv39s Ace Metrix These provide useful aggregate consumer reactions to the stories and seven million reasons that a CMO can use to justify the spend to their oftenskeptical CFO except maybe for the Coinbase team minus the tech headache of fixing their appAs purveyors of authentic stories that touch the heart and fill the coffers we are always on a quest to unlock that magic formula for the greatest ad show on earth This year that formula relied heavily on celebrities and humor and less so on good ole brand messaging to drive recall Remind me again what product Larry David told us not to buySo what learnings can we apply for the rest of our campaigns in 2022 as we emulate some of the Super Bowl stardust minus the ambitious budgets and reliance on AlistersSimple vs SensationalThere is no brand that epitomized simplicity on game night better than Coinbase Inspired by the bouncing DVD logo meme the brand39s 60second ad showed a colorful dancing QR code and that was it Consumers had ample time to scan the code that would bring them to Coinbase39s promotional website offering a limited time promotion of 15 worth of free Bitcoin to new sign ups along with a 3 million giveaway That clever stunt broke their app due to a massive influx of traffic and it is a great example of a simple and uncluttered execution to drive consumer action Interactive TV can work just make sure you39re ready for all that attention and have a way to sort out the real buyers from the overly zealousLet39s compare that to the more sensational revisionist history approach that another crypto brand took With a spotlight on Larry David the brand was FTX by the way well known for his contrarian antics on Curb Your Enthusiasm the spot was a melodramatic backwards time machine where the master of skepticism rejects everything from the wheel to Edison39s light bulb to the Founding Fathers39 push for American independence The hilarious ad created the perfect story backdrop to showcase the Larry David brand and maybe just maybe enough viewers will remember what FTX is On this highly cryptodriven stage consumers needed to differentiate and recall this execution versus another with a highvoltage celebrity none other than LeBron James who was pushing competitor cryptocom Time will tell which brand outperformsUtility vs MultiBrand StorytellingThe Coinbase execution provided consumers a utility a way to quickly learn about Bitcoin The QR code39s landing page got a whopping 20 million hits within just one minute of the ad airing according to a company spokespersonAnother financial services brand that also experimented with QR codes but in a more organic less direct way was the Rocket Mortgage ad featuring Anna Kendrick and Barbie This was a great example of multiple brands being woven together to tell the story of one lead brand The world of Barbie comes to life with master storyteller Kendrick combined with some dramatic twists colorful characters and a couple of hidden surprises within the ad One of the kids in the spot is sporting a QRcode design Tshirt which if scanned would take viewers to StockX the resale platform that shares the same founder as Rocket Mortgage These surprise quotgoodiesquot inside the story is what Rocket Mortgage is using as a tactic to drive further engagement and playbacksThe other multibrand effort came from Frito Lay39s Flamin39 Hot Cheetos and Flamin39 Hot Cool Ranch Doritos in a junglethemed story of ravenous creatures including a sloth deer bear fox and a redplumed little songbird voiced by Megan Thee Stallion Along with SaltNPepa39s dance hit quotPush Itquot the ad features Charlie Puth a recognized Grammynominated beatboxing entertainer The execution brings story music and humor together to showcase the brand39s burst of flavor and the zeal to stealCelebrity Buzz vs Product as HeroThere is no doubt that there was an overreliance on celebrity star power during this year39s Super Bowl One ad that effectively weaved in the brand story without the celebrity presence overpowering the message was Alexa39s Mind Reader execution featuring reallife couple Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost According to YouTube it was the No 1 mostwatched spot on Sunday It tapped into a key benefit that Alexa provides around simplifying your life but then takes it to a comical extreme what if Alexa can actually read your spouse39s mind A witty execution that cleverly used the JohanssonJost duo to communicate Alexa39s value in a memorable way The brand story was the hero with the celebrities as the supporting act and not the other way aroundWhen it comes to smart devices Cue Health39s Super Bowl ad relied on positioning the product as hero while still sprinkling in audio star power by featuring the voice of actress Gal Gadot Cue Health39s 30second commercial placed second among all Super Bowl advertisers in terms of how well it drove people to search and engage with the brand online It performed 225 times better than the median Super Bowl ad according to consumer search data from EdoBy focusing on the brand and personifying it with some tongueincheek references to the quotcompetitorquot smart home devices viewers quotwarmed up to Cuequot and its important role in protecting families from COVID19 through its rapid tests Surprisingly it was the only COVIDrelated product advertised during this year39s Super BowlSpeaking Up vs RepresentationWhile there were many examples of diversity in action across the slate of Sunday39s ads only one explicitly used the national stage to drive home an important social impact message about the experiences of people of color Google boldly addressed inequities headon in its commercial which showcased the Real Tone capability of its Pixel 6 image at top By shining a light on individuals and families with diverse skin tones and some of the photographic challenges of capturing the nuances of differences in tone it effectively raises awareness on a topic many would not have been aware ofFeaturing an original song from Lizzo the ad was directed by Joshua Kissi a GhanaianAmerican photographer who is one of 17 other photographers that Google worked with to test the camera for higher quality and representative imagesThis is what makes this story very powerful Every aspect of the brand from product development to communication to the diversity profile of its chosen agency told a consistent story of taking action on representation not words but quantifiable steps towards change Google chose Gut to work on the spot and the Miami agency39s founders are Latinx with 22 of the team identifying as a person of color and 62 identifying as femaleAnother brand that walked the talk on Game Day was Hologic The representation story was ingrained in the product narrative itself given the brand is focused on women39s health By being intentional in its selection of female leaders both in front and behind the camera viewers were able to immerse themselves in the quotHer Health is Her Wealthquot anthem with the enigmatic energy of Mary J Blige Diversity was honored with the choice of director agency creative leaders media PR and the broader army of specialists needed to execute the highpowered and engaging spotThe NFL39s quotBring Down The Housequot cast a Black family as the hero with NFL players also featured acknowledging the fact that the league is 70 Black Importantly the NFL was not the only brand to cast people of color in lead roles Sam39s Club Pringles Caesars Sportsbook BMW Vroom Bookingcom and Squarespace also did so Many of these lead roles were played by celebrities Zendaya as a sea shells entrepreneur with rapper Andre quot3000quot Benjamin jointly appeared in Squarespace39s ad JB Smoove played Julius Caesar and Halle Berry was charming hostess Cleopatra in the Caesars39 ad Kevin Hart was the quotVIP guestquot lead in the Sam39s Club39s spot Idris Elba was the welcoming face of Bookingcom and Salma Hayek was glamorous Hera in the BMW spotMeta vs Down to EarthThere was one celebrity who touched on issues on a planetary scale in one of the few ads to touch on the environment and Mother Earth not counting the seven electric car ads from BMW to PolestarAs referenced above the TeamEarth Salesforce spot showed Matthew McConaughey floating in a hotair balloon over the San Francisco Bay Area challenging viewers to focus on earth before we dream of space with a definite dig at Bezos Musk and Branson He implores us quotwhile the others look to the metaverse and Mars let39s stay here and restore oursquot This ad will be remembered for this message an exquisite execution with subtle nods to Salesforce39s brand narrative with quotblaze new trailsquot and quotthis ain39t rocket sciencequot referring to Salesforce39s Einstein product perhapsGoing from space travel to the metaverse let39s turn our attention to the Meta in the room Meta39s Super Bowl debut under their new name tried to capture a feeling of nostalgia by featuring a selfreferential story that started in real life inside a rundown pizza joint called Questy39s with an animatronic house band called The Cometeers grooving away to quotDon39t You Forget About MequotFast forward to the future and the members of the band get back together again in the vibrant and more optimistic meta world of the quotBosworth Space Centerquot enjoying the mysteries of space through their Quest VR goggles Is this an apt metaphor for Facebook39s attempt to transform from controversial social media giant to an immersive and less divisive meta environment Perhaps The ad certainly was entertaining as viewers followed the adventures of Harry its shaggy animatronic canine character It counts as one of the Super Bowl ads that relied on the animal kingdom others included the sloth and jungle animals of the DoritosCheetos spot the Clydesdale from Budweiser the mythical winged horse quotPeggy Pegasusquot from BMW and of course the robodog from KIAThe objective of the Meta ad was simply to show what is currently available on VR today Pity about the disclaimer quotScreen images simulated and not representative of our current product User experience will varyquotSubstance vs SizzleAt the end of the day the might of a 30 spot is measured by its ability to impact brand metrics from awareness to intent to actual purchase to loyalty and WOM Not all these objectives need to be achieved at once but touching on enough of them over time to warrant a 200K spend per second should be the target of any effective marketing campaign At this year39s Super Bowl we were dazzled by a lot of Alister sizzle and some instances of substance If we use customer actions as a metric then the two quotCquot brands win Cue39s COVID19 health monitor garnered 10000 times more hits on its website compared to pregame and Coinbase drove 20 million app downloads with its minutelong QR danceAs brands look to continue strengthening their story narrative for the rest of 2022 considering the current zeitgeist there will be a premium placed on entertainment with substance not just brand substance but social impact substance We only saw glimpses of this from a representation angle from Pixel 6 and Hologic from a TeamEarth perspective from Salesforce and from a quotenjoy life not stuffquot lens from Expedia Perhaps people are weary of too much substance and sentimentality and the grit of reality After all there was no direct reference to the pandemic no salute to health workers or mention of the importance of getting the COVID shotEscapism ruled the night Could brands have done more on the greatest stage that money can buy As Americans enter a third year facing an unrelenting pandemic and economic uncertainty we need brands to step up to drive not only the highest brand returns but also to speak up and address the biggest social challenges of our time They need to go beyond the sizzle take charge and demonstrate brave leadership while still holding on to the humor glamor and ardor of a Hollywoodinspired trailerClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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What Marketers Can Learn from the 2022 Super Bowl Ads: Did We Reach Meta Yet?

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Raquelle Zuzarte

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