Sunday, Feb. 3, saw the return of the Super Bowl. This year’s match-up hosted the New England Patriots taking on the Los Angeles Rams, and with the return of the Super Bowl came the return of the famed Super Bowl commercials.
These aren’t ordinary commercials; they’re big-budget affairs with celebrities and fancy visual effects intended to hype people up for a product, be it a cell-phone service, an alcoholic beverage or insurance. While people lament the lack of a cover of “Sweet Victory” during the halftime show, let’s explore the best and worst commercials from Super Bowl LIII.
Trailers for upcoming movies and television shows have the chance to hype people for what’s to come in the next few months. On April 1, CBS will debut their revival of the iconic “Twilight Zone” television series, and the ad they showed during commercial break was genius. The trailer starts off on an unassuming note, for the broadcast of the Super Bowl is going well until the signal is hijacked. The camera then cuts to the football field, which is empty. Jordan Peele, the creator and host of the reboot, walks onto the field to re-introduce the doorway where a dimension of sight, sound and mind awaits.
As with previous Super Bowls, many of the commercials incorporate comedy, but this year’s event was light on humor. Most of the ads were emotional and played up how the products appeal to a wide range of people, but that’s not to say the funny ads were left out.
One of the best commercials involved a celebration of 100 years of football and featured numerous current and former pro football players. When the anniversary football falls off a cake and ends up on the floor, it becomes a free-for-all, with all of the players working to tackle one another as if a game had just broken out.
Another amusing ad featured Jeff Bridges reprising his role of The Dude from the classic “The Big Lebowski” in an ad for the alcoholic drink Stella Artois.
However, a majority of the ads during Super Bowl LIII weren’t bad, just forgettable. Many of them were so generic and disposable that they seemed like ones you would find during normal television time.
The Super Bowl is supposed to be the time when advertisers pull out all the stops, but many of them played it safe, with less-than-stellar results. Companies like Sprint and M&M’s did nothing interesting, instead opting to do what they do in their other ads, albeit with a few more special effects than usual.
Part of the problem with the disappointing lineup is most of these ads were already premiered before the game on YouTube. It takes away the surprise of what to expect when you can just look it up with a simple Google search.
Next year, companies will need to put in a little more effort to their ads to keep them diverse. Though there were some highlights, the lineup was underwhelming, to say the least.
photo courtesy Penn Live
