After a Terrible Year, Brands Try a Serious Approach to the Super Bowl

In a normal year, Super Bowl advertising is a strange art. Advertisers often make choices between product placement and message, humor and seriousness, tried-and-true tactics and the avant-garde. But how do you advertise in a Super Bowl after all that’s happened in the year of the pandemic, racial justice protests, a contentious election and economic devastation? Many advertisers chose not to. This year, 30-second spots went for as much as $5.5 million and, like in normal years, advertisers used their time in varied ways. While AB InBev brands—including Bud Light—paid up for an ad, Budweiser said it would skip the Big Game for the first time in nearly four decades, opting instead to donate its marketing budget to vaccine awareness efforts. Many Super Bowl regulars, like Coca-Cola, GoDaddy and Kia, also bowed out this year. Many brands that did participate opted for light, funny, uplifting spots, but others dared to be serious. The results were mixed. Jeep brought Bruce Springsteen to a chapel in Kansas for a rugged view of the “middle” of America, a vague call for unity, centrist politics and collective empathy in a time of deep political division. “It’s no secret the middle has been a hard place to get to lately, between red and blue, between servant and citizen, between our freedom and our fear,” Springsteen reads in his signature rasp. An ad that one year ago would have felt like a rebuke of Trumpism, now feels like a tired call for “hope” in its blandest, most abstract, most commercial form. The Boss, folksy and hardened as ever, represents Americana through and through, but his Jeep ad won’t unite Americans—and it probably won’t sell any cars either. If Jeep’s ad was futile, Ford’s was just confusing. “Let’s hold the line,” a voice says to a steady drumbeat, as images of healthcare professionals and other front-line workers flash before the screen. “Fight for it. Let’s hold the line. Sacrifice for it. Stand strong for it. Let’s look out for each other. We are so close. So close.” The images are awe-inspiring but the “hold the line” messaging missed the mark. What exactly would this car company like us to do? And how soon do they think this pandemic is ending? But serious ads can be a boon for advertisers, especially amid a chorus of humorous spots. "Given the seriousness of the pandemic and the political division in the country, some brands acknowledging these realities is a good thing," said Geeta Menon, marketing professor at NYU's Stern School of Business. "After all, that’s where the audiences are in their lives and mental states." "Emotions are a great hook, and empathy with the audience is a compounding strategy," she added. Emotion certainly worked in some cases. The job board Indeed kept its ad simple. While the cover of Andra Day’s “Rise Up” was perhaps a bit overwrought, the ad showed real people looking for work: sitting on the couch with their kids, getting ready for an interview in an office bathroom, dressing up in a suit for a Zoom interview from home, and scrolling for jobs in bed, faces illuminated by their smartphones. Anheuser-Busch struck a nuanced tone in its ad, marrying its product with its message in a way that felt natural. Despite a conspicuous lack of masks, the David Fincher-directed, Atticus Ross-scored Super Bowl spot is an ode to community. The message, “Let’s grab a beer,” plays through tough—and shockingly normal—moments in people’s lives: a colleague who has been laid off, a flight has been delayed, a man apologizing to his girlfriend. The ad is the closest thing to a tearjerker in this year’s Super Bowl ad compendium: a nod to the physical closeness of community, something that once felt unremarkable and now feels so distant and perhaps even indulgent. While Jeep fell short in explicitly preaching unity, Anheuser-Busch found a more direct and subtle way to show we need one another. Jeep had the second-most watched ad on YouTube, and Anheuser-Busch's effort was No. 8. USA Today's Ad Meter, which measures public opinion of the ads in real-time, ranked Jeep's ad as No. 12 of the night in front of AB's at No. 15 and Indeed's at No. 26. (Ford's pregame ad was not eligible because it aired before the coin flip.) "At first, I wasn't sure that serious ads would play well in a year such as this," said Rick Suter, editor of USA Today's Ad Meter, noting it might be even more difficult to do such work in the current climate. "But a great ad is a great ad—I think Jessica Long's powerful journey or a Bruce Springsteen narrative, or even a relatable beer after a hard day works during any year," Suter said, including the Toyota ad about Paralympic swimmer Jessica Long, which struck a serious and inspirational tone but didn't comment directly on the difficult year. Toyota's ad ranked No. 5 on the Ad Meter. Evidently, the Springsteen ad played better with audiences than with this tired reporter. But perhaps Budweiser chose the most clear-eyed approach. When the human and economic toll of this pandemic has exceeded comprehension, $5.5 million is an exorbitant sum. The thing that will help these Super Bowl ads return to normal is vaccination. Buying a new car, “holding the line” or even grabbing a socially distanced beer won’t do that.