The Super Bowl is only two weeks away and while I’m no football fan, I do tune in every year to catch the ads.
My favorite ones of the recent past have included VW’s Darth Vader commercial, Coca-Cola’s reincarnation of its classic Mean Joe Green spot, and the wise-cracking Doritos kid commercial, all of which you can see below.
Likewise, it’s interesting to see the themes expressed over the years. We’ve gone from traditional marketing, philosophical campaigns, and expressing grief after 9/11 to crowd-sourced solutions, imaginative worlds, and resurrections of once-great cities.
The recession has turned the marketing world on its head. Companies and brands don’t want to come off as glamorous, rich, and popular. They want to connect to the families of America who are looking within themselves and their communities for a secure, financially stable future. In 2008, when the current financial crisis was salt to a fresh wound, Marc E. Babej and Tim Pollack for Forbes wrote ::
One marketing consultant has been admonishing companies to "be respectful in giving people a sense of control and empowerment." The partner at a brand consultancy discovered that "in a recession, when there's a lot of doom and gloom in the air, it is precisely the time when [consumers] need to have a laugh about it." Lest this discovery appear intuitive, he qualified: "But it has to be carefully done, or you could look like a fool who couldn't understand."
How will these brands do this? Can they follow in Apple’s footsteps and accurately connect to their broad audience on Super Bowl night?
I personally believe the only way to pull off a successful Super Bowl ad is to garner some sort of empathy, to reach out to the masses through nostalgia, hope, and giving power to the people as Doritos does.
I have no idea who will be playing on February 5, but I do know that I’ll be joining millions of Americans to take part in a tradition of great food, heart-stopping football, and millions of dollars spent on thirty seconds' worth of advertising.
