As the country’s biggest celebration rolls out on TV’s most-watched platform, this year’s Super Bowl had to overcome an awful lot of bitter realities to focus on entertaining America.
There are recent allegations that the NFL has shortchanged Black candidates for head coaching jobs. Ongoing concerns about the long-term effects of head trauma on football players. And the general, disruptive state of the pandemic amid worries about inflation.
What’s obvious when looking at the commercials that ran during the Big Game: Most advertisers decided to punt on just about all this, using celebrity, humor, special effects and nostalgia to rush past the issues as if they didn’t exist.
That may be a little disappointing — but not surprising — given that NBC racked up a high of more than $6.5 million for 30 seconds of advertising time. Sports betting, cryptocurrency exchanges, new electric car models and travel sites made big new appearances; with companies spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per second, it’s a small surprise there’s no ads with downer elements like facemasks or pandemic talk.
The result was a batch of mostly-middling commercials that didn’t really feel tethered to much. They didn’t offer unbridled partying or celebration, but weren’t often serious or poignant enough to speak to the modern moment, either.
Strategies for releasing ads also differed. Sam’s Club posted its ad online with Kevin Hart back in January; E-Trade saved the reveal of its ad’s special guest star for Super Bowl Sunday — yes, it was the financial advice-spewing E-trade baby — and Miller Lite stuck a virtual, Super Bowl “adjacent” commercial inside an area of the metaverse for online consumers.
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