The average cost for a 30 second commercial during the Super Bowl is about $4.5-5 million. Yet as the price continues to rise for the spots, why are the actual good Super Bowl commercials going downhill? Watching the Super Bowl commercials used to really be an event – and not only did people talk about them the next day, but they stayed with you long afterwards. Today, there is still a lot of buildup around the commercials, but if we’re honest, they really aren’t that good.
Commercials nowadays are boring, uninspired and forgetable. Is it because of too much media out there? Has our attention span gotten so short that ad agencies decided not to spend more time on them? Or have we just run out of ideas? Does the fact that most of them are “leaked” ahead of time ruin the surprise? With the cost going up so much and ads only lasting a mere 30 seconds out of an entire campaign, are brands going for quantity over quality?
This year’s commercials seemed to follow a few unoriginal and lazy trends – throw in a celeb, add a beloved song, or try too hard to be weird for the sake of being weird (cue the puppymonkeybaby). But, be honest, did you actually remember what product that was for?
According to many rankings, some of this year’s best commercials included Budweiser’s “Helen Mirren PSA,” Marmot’s “Love the Outdoors”, Hyundai’s “First Date,” Audi’s “Starman Commander” and Heinz’s “Weiner Stampede.” To me, one of the best commercials was the Doritos Dog commercial, which was actually the winner of the “Crash the Super Bowl” contest for amateur filmmakers. Is this because it was created not by an ad agency? Honestly, the most surprising commercial I saw was the trailer for Jason Bourne. (When did Matt Damon decide to come back to the Bourne series?)
And even this year’s best commercials are no comparison with the commercials from yesteryear. Those are the ones that we still remember. They were good Super Bowl Commercials, clever and funny and original. Remember McDonald’s “Nothing but net” commercial with Larry Bird and Michael Jordan? Remember the Bud-Weis-Er frogs? Remember Apple’s 1984?
There was a lot of hype surrounding Super Bowl 50 – with Peyton Manning most likely playing his last game ever, and rising superstar, Cam Newton playing his first Super Bowl. But by most people’s standards, the game was boring and fell short of expectations. The commercials this year were no better.
The post Where have all the good Super Bowl commercials gone? appeared first on SCG Advertising & PR.