8 Biggest Super Bowl Ad Trends; Inside Tide's War Room: Tuesday's First Things First

Welcome to First Things First, Adweek’s new daily resource for marketers. We’ll be publishing the content to First Things First on Adweek.com each morning (like this post), but if you prefer that it come straight to your inbox, you can sign up for the email here. The 8 Biggest Trends in Advertising During Super Bowl 54 Brands went big, long and cinematic in this year's selection of Big Game ads, spending an estimated $435 million on Super Bowl commercials. In addition to a widespread celebrity presence across many of the 2020 Super Bowl ads—including Martin Scorsese, Rainn Wilson, Busy Philipps (twice!), Chris Evans, Ellen DeGeneres, Chrissy Teigen and so many more—the lineup saw an explosion in ads featuring movie references. Not even the sky was the limit, both in terms of a recurring space theme and the apparently endless budget of conglomerates like PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch InBev and P&G, which each spent at least $30 million on ads. Read more: Other top trends included new product launches, brands advertising during the Big Game for the first time and strategic shifts resulting from the recent death of Kobe Bryant. The preliminary numbers are in: Super Bowl 54 likely generated a record $435 million in in-game advertising revenue for host network Fox. That’s a year-over-year increase of about 29%. Rather than targeting specific programming, streaming services focused on brand building in their Super Bowl ads. Learn how Quibi and Hulu approached it, and how Amazon Studios was an outlier. Despite the high price, the number of 60- and 90-second spots during Super Bowl LIV, equaled the number of 30-second spots that aired during the game. Learn why marketers are embracing the potential of longer ads. Super Bowl Ads Used Humor and Nostalgia to Distract From Today’s Divisive Climate Super Bowl 2020 arrived amid a tense, divisive political and cultural climate, and political ads from both President Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg running political ads during the game—a first-time occurrence for presidential candidates—didn't do much to ease that tension. But other brands aimed for a more comforting escapism, gravitating toward humor and nostalgia this year. Pepsi and Frito-Lay utilized a humorous, throwback approach in its ads, including a parody of The Shining starring Bryan Cranston for Mountain Dew Zero and an MC Hammer-centric spot for Cheetos Popcorn. Pepsi Zero Sugar took inspiration from classic Missy Elliott music videos featuring the artist while Frito-Lay enlisted Lil Nas X and Sam Elliott for a Doritos Cool Ranch dance-off. Jeep scored big popularity points with its ad featuring Bill Murray reprising his role from Groundhog Day, and Hyundai’s “Smaht Pahk” spot tickled audiences. Read more: This strategy has proven effective among millennial audiences, but it's not without risks. Plus: Which Super Bowl ads had the most impact—emotional and otherwise? Microsoft’s “Be the One” ad featuring San Francisco 49ers’ coach Katie Sowers scored its own sort of win. And the people's choice ratings are in: Discover the most loved—and hated—Super Bowl ads, according to Adweek’s Instagram followers. Here’s What Happened Inside Tide’s Super Bowl #LaundryLater War Room Adweek CPG reporter Paul Hiebert took us behind the scenes with a look at Tide's Super Bowl war room. The team of 40, a hybrid of PR and creative teams from Procter & Gamble’s Woven agency, gathered in support of the single brand as its Super Bowl ads rolled out. All of these people worked together through the Big Game, aiming at getting people and brands alike to respond with their own spin on the idea “Something Now, #LaundryLater.” Read more: The ultimate goal of the night: to amplify Tide’s message across social media, get attention and make sure that attention is positive. Read a play-by-play account of the night's events. 5 Brands That Saw the Most Amazon Hits From the Super Bowl In a study of how TV advertising impacts short-term purchasing behavior on Amazon, ecommerce analytics company Profitero found that Super Bowl ads prompted viewers to buy both during and after the game. The products hailed from brands with Super Bowl commercials this year and were available on Amazon at the time the ads aired. Specifically, Big Game advertisers that were ready for in- and post-game purchases on Amazon with strong positioning and well-stocked products saw big gains in market share. Read more: These are the five Super Bowl advertisers they determined saw the biggest gains on Amazon on Sunday. Best of the Rest: Today's Top News and Insights FTC Sues to Block Edgewell’s Acquisition of DTC Shaving Brand Harry’s The NFL Points to the Future With Another Ambitious, Exhilarating Celebration of Football Super Bowl 54 Sets Record With $435 Million In-Game Ad Spend Super Bowl Ratings Up 1% From Last Year, With 102 Million Multiplatform Viewers Why Amazon and Walmart Played It Safe at the Super Bowl Amazon’s #BeforeAlexa Was This Year’s Most-Watched Super Bowl Ad on YouTube (During the Game) Brands (Mostly) Avoid Politics in Super Bowl Commercials Podcast | 2020 Super Bowl in Review: What Worked and What Didn't To discuss the highs and lows of this year's Super Bowl, Adweek podcast co-hosts David Griner and Ko Im are joined by senior editor Doug Zanger, deputy brands editor Diana Pearl and chief of staff Jameson Fleming. More of the Latest: ’90s Babies, Rejoice—General Mills Is Bringing Back Dunkaroos ‘Big Beef’ and Impossible Foods Square Off Over Regional Super Bowl Ad Twitter’s #BrandBowl 54: Pepsi Wins #MVP for Halftime Show Dove’s Sustainable Vending Machine Celebrated Move to 100% Recycled Plastic Tribune Publishing Names Terry Jimenez CEO