For this blog post, I will be talking about my top five favorite and least favorite 2020 Super Bowl commercials. I will be looking at aspects such as editing, videography, if it addresses the audience, if it is effective, as well as others to determine how I like the ads. I will start by listing my top five least favorite Super Bowl commercials. These commercials include, in no particular order, Olay’s “Make Space For Women”, Audi’s “Let It Go”, Tide’s “Laundry Later”, Heinz’s “4 Ads in 1”, and Planters’ “Baby Mr. Peanut”. To me, all of these commercials suffered from more negatives then they had positives, which I will explain.
In the Olay commercial titled “Make Space For Women”, for example, I found it to be confusing when trying to exactly see who the ad is aimed at. Obviously, women are always the primary target, but in this commercial, this is never stated, and instead we are shown female astronauts going into space with the message of more female equality. I have nothing against female equality and I hope women and men will be seen in an equal light, but that being said, what do astronauts have to with any of this, plus the fact that none of Olay’s actual products are even shown.
Three of the five commercials, Audi’s “Let It Go”, Tide’s “Laundry Later”, and Heinz’s untitled commercial all, I feel, lack a key ingredient in making good commercials, which is emotional impact. In the Tide and Heinz commercials, the focus is much more on comedy than anything else, while in the Audi commercial, a catchy song is used to describe how drivers should feel while driving Audi’s cars. In both cases, there is no focus on any emotional impact the viewer should feel, which in my opinion, lessens the quality of the commercials.
One of the five commercials that did try and show emotional impact in a comedic way was the Planters commercial. In it, people are gathered at the funeral of Planters mascot Mr. Peanut, who had “died”, before being reborn into a baby peanut thanks to the tears of the Kool-Aid Man. My problem with this commercial is that the focus is more on story of the commercial than it is on the product it is selling, as it never directly tells the viewer what the product is, although many most likely already know that the product is peanuts.
Overall, my biggest complaint with all of these commercials is that the majority lack any emotional impact while others are not as direct with their audience about what they are selling as they could be.
Now with my least favorite Super Bowl commercials out of the way, I will now talk about my top five favorite commercials. These commercials are, in no particular order, Google’s “Loretta”, Jeep’s “Groundhog Day”, Porsche’s “The Heist”, NFL’s “Take It to the House”, and Kia’s Josh Jacobs commercial. For me, I felt that these commercials all had the right aspects which should be in a commercial to make it successful, which I will explain.
One of these commercials I enjoyed was the Porsche’s “The Heist” commercial. In the commercial, it depicts many different Porsche models being raced against one another by supposed robbers who are later revealed to actually be the Porsche security team. This commercial, for me personally, gave off a great deal of energy, excitement, and fun with its action. The videography and editing, I felt, were both done very well, with many different angles and cuts. To me, it also gave the impact of the fun of having a Porsche, which was what it was aiming to deliver to its target audience of those who can drive.
Another commercial I enjoyed very much was Jeep’s “Groundhog Day” commercial. The commercial, staring Bill Murray and others, was based on Murray’s 1993 movie of the same name. To me, I felt that the commercial was very well shot and edited with many different shots and angles. Along with this, I felt the creativity and writing in the ad was done very well too. I felt that Jeep sells their pitch to potential buyers very well, as their car it is shown to appeal to everybody, even people like Murray’s character who would normally be depressed and angered by repeating the same day over and over, the plot of the original movie. Along with this, I feel that the ad has a good emotional impact to it, not because it tries to be emotional, but because many people have enjoyed the movie it is based on and are aware of it, making them nostalgic in a sense while exposing them to a new product.
Three of the other commercials, Google’s “Loretta”, NFL’s “Take It to the House”, and Kia’s Josh Jacobs commercial, all, I felt, had some large emotional impacts in them, while having all of the other key elements as well. In each, the emotion of whatever is being spoken or scene, rather that be a deceased wife, a sport that people love with a passion, or a person’s lifelong journey to being a player in that sport. As humans, we can relate to feelings of love and struggle, which is why these ads pack a good punch, as they hold just what can make an impact on someone. Besides this, the three commercials, I felt, all had very good videography and editing, and well as writing and creativity to them and their concepts.
Overall, these five commercials I felt had all the ingredients needed to make something impactful and memorable, while also selling a product to their audience. Each had a good premise, strong writing and creativity, great videography and editing, and a big emotional impact for the audience to feel. I hope to see these kinds of great commercials again during the next Super Bowl.
Video Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xSxXiHwMrg – Google
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sXWVxRr0g – Porsche
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnhzGUcENWo – Jeep
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbkafMhmvMo – NFL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyMev6_XZ9s – Kia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbeEBZQ15Pw – Heinz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXBkmBRwZzU – Olay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPrLiNseyCc – Tide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvjofkLllZs – Tide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RVUcdyEq9k – Tide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvEAklsAAts – Audi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSeBuY9F2hE – Planters
Lukas Sedelmeier’s Film Blog 