I have always meant to put this one up, but I didn't after Super Bowl L (and I am not going to call it Super Bowl 50 because you HAVE TO BE CONSISTENT WITH YOUR ROMAN NUMERALS) for two reasons. One is an old reason but it remains true: I got busy.
The other: I wasn't all that impressed with the arsenal of commercials that ran during the game. So even though I started it and even went back to revise it, I left it alone after, oh, late September. But now that Super Bowl LI is coming up Sunday, I have felt guilty about not finishing this up. Also, I had reviewed some of the spots that ran during SBL in the months after the game and I realized that I may not have given them a fair shake at first blush. Some of them, in fact, were good enough (though not great enough) to earn a spot in The Most Important TV Event For Commercials Of The Year.
I will give a shout-out to a quartet of Honorable Mentions: Hyundai's "The Chase" (talking bears are cool; I really liked that the bear admitted, "I wanted to eat them"; and then the two just started talking like a pair of type-B personality, uh, bears); "Commander" for Audi (I am touched by this because it features an old man which I think is afflicted with Alzheimer's); Budweiser's "Simply Put" (kind of shocking to see Dame Helen Mirren plugging for a beer, but also kind of cool); and "Portrait" for Skittles (kind of a pat punchline, but I loved it when Steven Tyler said, "Alright, let's do this. I've got minds to twist and values to warp.")
For my top five I will insert the ads below.
5) Hyundai, "First Date"
This is your classic big-budget Super Bowl spot, and it's for a product that is regularly hawked in the Super Bowl, cars. And it's the type of broad comedy that is a hallmark of ads for this game. Some dumbass picks up a girl for a date, but her smothering father does all he can (with the help of Hyundai's stalker-ish Car Finder technology) to keep tabs on them to make sure he doesn't fuck her. As I said, that this is the fifth-best commercial of Super Bowl L, largely on production values, speaks to the relative weakness of last year's crop. But that the father is Kevin Hart makes the spot. With this I finally understand how he has grown to be a charismatic and successful comedian and actor.
4) T-Mobile, "Drop The Balls"
About six weeks after he royally screwed up and embarrassed a poor woman by announcing that she was Miss Universe (aside: here's the card Harvey looked at in announcing the order of the finalists. The article blames the card, but even though the organization is kind of funky and there is room for improvement, Harvey should not have effed that up), he and T-Mobile seized on it on The Most-Watched Television Event Of The Year. Piggybacking on the visual gimmick Verizon uses of balls rolling down ramps to represent a state where one of the Big Four Network Carriers is the fastest when it comes to that category, or something (aside: I've noticed that the wireless companies use each other's ad campaigns a lot. Shoot, Sprint took Verizon's former spokesperson. Is that legal? If it is, why don't other industries do it?), Harvey walks in to set the record straight once again. With card in hand, his "apology" is actually a rebuke to Verizon saying that T-Mobile is downright slow. Once Harvey announces that T-Mobile has double the number of LTE towers in the year prior, an avalanche of balls come running down the ramps and overwhelm the pools in the bottom of it.
I realize now that there are two tracks to the spot. Technically, Verizon was using the balls to represent a "state win" in a category, but T-Mobile are using them to denote the number of 4G towers they now have on their network. It's not the same thing, but that's not really the point. I've done research online and apparently, Verizon's use of the balls on their spots has been the subject of such ridicule that T-Mobile (and Sprint also) felt that they had to use what they think is a dumb visual. Balls, balls everywhere! basically. To me, though, it's still Harvey that sells it. Capitalizing on his dumb mistake, I appreciate that he can make fun of himself and at the same time empathizing with him as he sighs in relief that the "mistake" was Verizon's fault, not his. I've been there many times, sir.
3) No More, "Text Talk"
My friend and I go to the British Television Advertising Awards (now officially called the Arrows, but what do arrows have to do with commercials?) every year, and although the number has gone down recently, he has often complained about the number of grim, negative PSAs that received laurels. I have always said that although they ruin the mood of the screening, you have to admire how effective the ads can be, which is kind the point of a commercial.
This is one of them, using a text back-and-forth between a woman who's enjoying the Super Bowl and her friend, who is ... well, that's the most haunting part of this spot. Texting is obviously a common and modern way of communicating, but it is only used to transmit information. It isn't a thorough arbiter of tone, although you can grab hints by what people are saying. Add that the spot is just a phone screen of thought bubbles and you get the feeling that the person on the other end is really, truly isolated and in danger. Your mind races as to what trouble she could be in, just by what she's saying and, by extension, what she's too afraid to say. All the other spots were noisy and full of color, which makes this anti-domestic violence PSA stand out so powerfully.
2) T-Mobile, "Restricted Bling"
(I'm kind of cheating on this one a bit. The actual ad aired during the Super Bowl was only 30 seconds long. This one is a minute, and like many ads that air during the game, it was released for public consumption online well before that Sunday. You get the gist of the spot in the 30-second, but I'm including the minute-long because it's funnier.)
The third and final of the top five featuring, and buoyed by, the presence of an actor. Drake is a hell of a rapper and singer, and "Hotline Bling" is one of the most hypnotic hits I've heard in recent years. But you have to remember that he started as an actor, having shot to stardom in the Canadian show Degrassi: The Next Generation. His charisma comes through in his double-threat potential -- he has acted on Saturday Night Live twice and has been sterling both times -- and he carries this commercial of lawyers stopping him recreating the video for "Hotline Bling" to cram in exclusions to their phone company's (not T-Mobile, of course) plans in his song. The sarcasm seeps through every comeback to the lawyers' suggestions; instead of coming off as an entitled asshole, Drake seems like a guy doing his best to deal with inane advice. And he's extremely funny while doing it.
1) Doritos, "Ultrasound"
While the overall heft of commercials for SBL was lacking, the clear-cut #1 stands toe-to-toe with the best of other Super Bowls, and it's no surprise that, once again, Doritos comes out on top.
A pregnant woman is coming in for her ultrasound while her lout of a husband is eating Doritos next to her. And then he sees that the fetus is reacting to each chip he pulls out of the bag. I don't want to say more; if you haven't seen it yet, or if you don't remember it from last year, see it again.
Upon further viewings, this is an incredibly constructed ad narrative-wise. The genius of this spot comes in how organic the pieces in place are and how each step building towards the punchline makes total sense. The woman and the OB/GYN are talking when they're distracted by the loud crunching of the father; they're both peeved; they got back to talking when he realizes the baby is reacting to the Doritos; the jerk starts teasing the fetus because, wow, that's so cool; and then the wife gets really annoyed and ... well, just see the spot. When the ending comes, it is surprising and edgy when it comes to Super Bowl ads and yet, in retrospect, that's how this story had to end. And it is hilarious as fuck.
Last year was the last year Doritos was doing its "Crash the Super Bowl" campaign, where they ask people to create a Doritos-centered ad and select which are strong enough to air during the Super Bowl, the price of which the chip company would pay for. (A 30-second spot for Super Bowl LI -- and I don't know why the NFL is going back to Roman numerals because "Super Bowl lie" looks just as clunky as "Super Bowl L" would -- costs $5 million, for example.) Doritos' Chief Marketing Officer said that it's discontinuing the annual contest after a decade because "The landscape has changed." To which I say, So what? Doritos created its own form of viral marketing before the term "viral" became overused. It is now known (well, was known) for hosting a contest where every year, some common man can create a funny and memorable commercial and have the enviable shot of seeing it air during the Super Bowl. I can't see how that became a tired concept, especially if every year you find another person that created something funny or at least memorable. That people can vote before the Super Bowl on which spot will air is democracy at its purest, something we don't have much nowadays. And even though Doritos says that they'll expand these opportunities throughout the year and ask for content for other avenues, there is nothing like the allure (and the chance at a career) the captive audience of the Super Bowl guarantees.
Well, although this is the end, Doritos went out on top.
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