It’s over. Dead. But why? Why did they go and kill the mystique of the Super Bowl commercial?
Super Bowl With a Smirk is back with the third of five daily columns needling the self-important NFL and the gravitas of its big game. Flying under the banner, “Make Fun, Not War,” Smirk is an annual Super Bowl Week feature in the Miami Herald years we remember to do it.
How excited would you be to watch Sunday’s Chiefs-Bucs Super Bowl if you knew who won and how because you had already seen the game? What about the halftime show? Would you sit through it again if you’d already watched it on YouTube?
This brings us to Sunday’s Super Bowl TV ads.
There is a supposition that fewer, smaller parties on Sunday will mean fewer distractions and more attention paid to the commercials. The problem: So many of us have already seen them, or heard or read about them.
Not that long ago there would be genuine anticipation on Super Bowl night, an element of surprise and discovery. People at your party would go “Shhh!” as the next ad came on.
Some folks actually looked forward to the commercials as much as the game (although that always struck us as a notion probably first suggested by advertising executives).
But everything changed. The mystique of the Super Bowl ad died when advertisers multiplied the bang for their buck by putting their commercials on social media weeks before the game. Hey, when you’re spending $5.5 million for 30 seconds of airtime, you want your money’s worth.
So (spoiler alert), here are a few of Sunday’s ads we would most be looking forward to had we not already seen them:
Budweiser is taking the year off ... but Samuel Adams beer tweaks Bud with a funny spot in which a team of Clydesdale horses wreaks havoc in Boston.
Though most ads aim to be funny, Ford has a serious one about the pandemic called “Finish Strong,” with a voiceover that says, “Soon we will be what we were — touching, loving, living.”
Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s World return in an ad for Uber Eats.
John Travolta and Martha Stewart for Scotts Miracle-Gro.
Brad Garrett in a Jimmy John’s ad that I would have liked more if it casually mentioned regrets that the company’s founder hunts and kills endangered animals.
Stock trading app Robinhood has an ad that conspicuously fails to mention its recent controversy about restricting trading of GameStop stock in a move that put hedge fund interests above those of average traders.
Smirk will miss see any commercial starring 99-year-old Betty White. Unless that’s the one ad that will surprise us because it has been kept secret.
▪ Sunday’s game will be televised in 25 languages and 180 countries, Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Right now, two old crones stirring a pot of goulash in Budapest are arguing who will win but agree that Bucs coach Bruce Arians “A bolondnak nez ki abban a piros soforsapkaban” (“Looks the fool in that red drivers cap.”).
▪ The sixth annual “1st And Future” competition was held Tuesday night on NFL Network, in which start-up businesses pitched ideas for innovations in player health and safety such as computerized detection of on-field helmet impact. Critics are hailing it as the most boring program ever televised.
▪ CBS Sports says it is providing more than 75 hours of Super Bowl coverage leading up to Sunday’s game, with ESPN and NFL Network offering a similar torrent. There is a phrase for that. “Thanks for the warning.”
▪ Confident on your Super Bowl bet, are you? Nevada Gaming Control has traced Super Bowl wagering since 1991, and reports that in 29 years the state’s sportsbooks have suffered a net loss only twice: on Chargers-49ers in 1995 and on Giants-Patriots in 2008.
▪ Super Bowl Party Tip du jour: Consider not having one. Pandemic and all.
This story was originally published February 3, 2021 at 12:18 PM.
