This year’s Super Bowl ads are all about fun and familiarity
CNN
Humor and celebrity cameos are in at this year’s Super Bowl, while gambling and cryptocurrency are out.
Humor and celebrity cameos are in at this year’s Super Bowl, while gambling and cryptocurrency are out. That’s the game plan for the 50 brands advertising during Sunday’s big game, which features the Kansas City Chiefs going for a historic three-peat against the Philadelphia Eagles. With more than 120 million viewers expected to tune in, the yearly top-rated TV show is a prime opportunity to attract attention, with brands focusing on familiar faces and products. “It is so hard to get and keep people’s attention — like everything else in the media landscape today — so brands are relying on celebrities, mascots and intellectual property that have ‘pre-awareness’ factor to assure that their message cuts through,” according to Paul Hardart, a clinical professor of marketing for New York University’s Stern School of Business. One of the biggest examples of this trend is Instacart’s upcoming spot, with the grocery delivery app buying its first-ever Super Bowl ad and filling it with well-known consumer mascots, including Mr. Clean, Cheetos’ Chester the Cheetah and the Pillsbury Doughboy. The 30-second commercial brings them all together to show “one epic delivery that is only possible with Instacart,” per a press release. Other brands are hiring celebrities for their message, too. Uber Eats has Martha Stewart and Kevin Bacon to promote its alleged conspiracy that football was invented to sell food (after all, the Roman numerals in Super Bowl LIX appear to read “licks”); Stella Artois is bringing back David Beckham and throwing in a Matt Damon cameo; Coffee mate has hired Shania Twain, with the country superstar belting out a custom song promoting its new cold foam. Perhaps unsurprisingly, as Hardart told CNN, there will “be a fair number of ads” for artificial intelligence. Chris Pratt, Kris Jenner and Chris Hemsworth are starring in a Meta ad promoting AI-powered glasses, while the Muppets use Booking.com’s new AI tool to plan a trip.
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