The REAL Winners of Super Bowl 2019

With Super Bowl LIII in the books as the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever, our team at SiarzaSD gathered up the best (and weirdest) ad campaigns from this year’s show. With some brands utilizing celebrity influence, emotional appeal, nostalgia and more, our staff explains what made the advertising touchdowns along with a few busted plays.

Kristelle – Game of Thrones & Bud

Easily the biggest crossover of the Super Bowl was “The Mountain” taking down the Bud Light Knight. This example of brand integration showed a seamless appeal to both Game of Thrones fans and Bud beer drinkers. Bud Light has been rolling out their medieval themed campaigns for a while, the audience is already brand aware. To reference another well established and widely popular brand to cross-market both products proved to benefit both brands while making a memorable commercial.

Donyelle – Audi

“A thrilling future awaits. On Earth.” This year’s Super Bowl ads were filled with celebrity appearances and nostalgia, but one ad that stood out from the rest literally brought you back to earth, and starred a cashew. With slight emotional appeal (and some dark humor), Audi was able to keep their audience grounded while reaching for better. Their main message was not at the center, but the product line was showcased beautifully.

Dani – This year’s commercials were just.. Okuuurrrrr.

It is almost like Pepsi knew how the actual game would turn out, just ok. Their campaign set the tone for the rest of the ads with celebrity appeal and a relevant hashtag (that worked out better than they could have planned) Pepsi was able to play on words when it came to the common opinion that “Pepsi is ok.” With multiple OK references from Cardi B, Steve Carrell, and Lil John, Pepsi was able to change their product image from “OK”  to “Okuuuuurrrrr”.

Simon – Amazon: Not everything makes the cut

By poking fun at their own technology, Amazon still did a great job highlighting smart home tech’s advancements and how far it can go. Playing off their own malfunctions showed the audience how committed Amazon is to improving everyday life with smart home functions non-existant years ago. With their multiple scenarios (exploding hot tubs, insane amounts of dog food with Harrison Ford’s four legged friend, and whole continents being shut off) Amazon created a sense of relatability, even if it was very exaggerated in a hilarious way.

Alicia – XBOX Feels

Emotional appeal for the win! Xbox continued their product launch campaign by showcasing the impact of their new Xbox Adaptive Controller. By integrating their core purpose of the product into the campaign slogan “We All Win,” Microsoft appealed on the emotional level while demonstrating the larger impact their new console is making to gamers of all shapes and sizes.

Julia – #EatLikeAndy.

This stood out for how painfully awkward the whole 45 seconds were. After seeing the backstory to the footage, it makes sense for Burger King based on how savage to other brands their campaigns have been. Burger King jumped on the vintage trend that seemed to pop up across many other ads, and could not resist the chance to drag their competitor in the process. Their past social media campaigns take shots at McDonalds on several levels, and the decades old Andy Warhol scene fit perfectly.

Honorable mentions

Adam Levine for California

With such a sculpted advertising space, everyone could not resist noticing the shirtless Adam Levine with “California” tattooed across those well-earned abs. While it is not really an ad at all, we would love a good opportunity to strategize a campaign around Maroon 5’s frontman, starting with his dance moves.

Doritos

Thinking back to years past, Doritos has done a great job bringing together many elements for memorable ads, even years later. They have been know to match the most relevant celebrities to their feature product seamlessly, while sparking laughter.  With last year being Peter Dinklage and Morgan Freeman, this year’s matchup with Chance the Rapper and The Backstreet Boys combined old with the new for one common goal.

NFL 100

Every year, it is safe to say that Super Bowl viewers fall into several target markets. One of the few ads to cater to the hard-core, in it for the sport, fans who thrive on sports nostalgia was the ad promoting the 100th birthday of the NFL. They brought together so many legendary and well known players of past and present to appeal to every football fan no matter the team.

Busts

You win some and you lose some. Here’s a few of the ads we thought didn’t get enough yardage to complete that 4th down conversion.

Bud Light & Corn Syrup

By blatantly calling out their direct competitors, Bud Light wasted their ad space and did nothing to build their own brand. Primarily attacking other ads instead of trying to compete comes off as tacky, not just to marketers.

Michelob Ultra

The concept to appeal to multiple senses had potential, but just did not connect to the audience like Michelob intended. The high paced environment a Super Bowl party creates with friends and family is not the ideal platform to slow down and focus on a singular sense.

Spongebob Squarepants

Trying to appeal to audience demands just missed the mark. Rather than Squidward introducing Travis Scott, most younger millennials were itching to see the full Spongebob performance.

The Actual Football Game

We’re not football experts, but a historically low-scoring, defensive game was worse than Jason Witten’s commentary on Monday Night Football: simply a joke.