@niche: THE SUPER BOWL, CONTINUED.003175

Editor’s Note: This week, Peter talks about the ads we liked – and didn’t like – in this year’s Super Bowl. In On The Table we take a detailed look at the new Aston Martin Vantage, and we preview the extensive updates to Porsche’s all-electric Taycan for 2025. And our AE Song of the Week is “Don’t Let the Old Man In” by Toby Keith. In Fumes, we bring you the next chapter in another of Peter’s popular motorsports series with “The Muscle Boys, Part IV.” And finally, in The Line, we look at Aston Martin’s 2024 F1 machine – the AMR24 – along with the 2024 Formula 1 and World Endurance Championship programs from Alpine Motorsports, and the new – and unfortunately named – RB VCARB 01 F1 car. Enjoy! -WG

By Peter M DeLorenzo 

Detroit. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The Super Bowl started slow and finished in a frenzy. Since I’m what can be called a hardcore football enthusiast, I won’t bore you with my thoughts on the game, suffice to say I enjoyed the hell out of it and I’m sorry the season is over (there’s always the UFL in March! – WG).

And then, of course, there was some advertising worth noting on the game too. Make no mistake, despite all the criticisms of the event, and all of the relentless touting of the Internet marketing action as being “the thing” there is nothing, I mean nothing that comes close to the advertising opportunity to reach the biggest audience of the year. And I expect the audience numbers from Sunday night’s Super Bowl to set a record.

The Super Bowl is the thing for the advertisers with the cojones to place ads on the game. This year, a :30 spot cost $7 million. That’s serious ca$h-ola. Plus, if you do a :60, not only does the cost double, but inevitably there are other costs involved – especially if an advertiser employs a celebrity – that can easily push the financial commitment to produce a :60 spot on the game to approach $20 million. Needless to say, it’s not for the faint of heart.

With that in mind then, some clients and their ad agencies are creatively adept at it and are repeat advertisers; some are first-time players stepping up to the plate, and some just suck at it. (Evidence? The RFK ad was a disgrace and a flat-out embarrassment, for instance.)

With another Super Bowl marketing extravaganza in the books, the spots ran the gamut from tearjerkers to awkward product reaches, and from welcomed, laugh-out-loud creativity to sober, religious pleas for unity. 

Longtime readers of this website know about my background in advertising. It began as a noble pursuit for me, an exhilarating, high-wire act fueled by a passion for creativity in an arena revolving around the idea of going for it. All the time. At least that was the case at the beginning of my career. There was a camaraderie in being on the lowest rung of the totem pole in the creative department at a big-time ad agency. You worked relentlessly hoping for a morsel of positive reinforcement from the creative elders, and if all else failed, the parties were wild and memorable. But nothing lasts forever, and the ad biz devolved into a cacophony of sycophants, spineless weasels and mediocrity peddlers, and that was just on the agency side of things. The client side was exponentially worse. And by a lot.

Which is why I launched this website going on almost 25 years ago, because I had a lot to say about the Ad Biz and the Auto Biz, and still do. But there’s no use denying it: I still love parts of the business, because when it’s “on” there’s nothing better or more satisfying. Sure, a lot of it was like waiting around the firehouse “on call” in-between fires. Then, when a life-or-death assignment came up, you’d work for 30 days straight and think nothing of it. In fact, that was the most intoxicating part of the business.

I’m offering this perspective for a reason, because I have the utmost respect for the creative teams, account teams and production houses responsible for the work I am going to discuss today. The Ad Biz is a singular pursuit that requires passion, diligence and an overwhelming desire to do great work. With this in mind then, let’s begin…

Spots we liked include the Mountain Dew Baha Blast spot with Aubrey Plaza and Nick Offerman; the Dunkin “DunKings” spot with Ben Afleck, Matt Damon, Tom Brady, Jack Harlow, Fat Joe and Jennifer Lopez; Uber Eats featuring Jennifer Aniston and a bunch of other stars; Dina and Mita (with Jenna Ortega) for Doritos; Beyonce for Verizon; Tony Romo with Mr. T for Skechers; “Dr. Umstick” for Drumstick; a spot to scare you shitless about AI from Microsoft touting its Copilot; and we’re always a sucker for the Budweiser Clydesdales and their ‘Old School Delivery” spot, complete with a classic track from The Band; Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Jason Momoa for T-Mobile; Dan Levy, Lil Wayne, SNL’s Heidi Gardner and Jeff Goldblum for Homes.com; LL Cool J and Lainey Wilson for Coors Light “Chill Train”; Tina Fey for Booking.com; Michael Cera for CeraVe; Chris Pratt as “Mr. P” for Pringles; and finally the trailer for “Wicked” featuring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo is spectacular.

But what about the car spots? BMW weighed in with “Talkin’ Like Walken” for the all-electric i5, featuring Christopher Walken (with a guest appearance by Usher). Christopher Walken is one of my all-time favorites, but this spot was an annoying waste of his talents. Watch it here. 

Toyota presented an eminently forgettable spot entitled “Dareful Handle” for the Tacoma. Toyota operatives would have been better off taking the money and burning it in a bonfire behind Toyota headquarters in Texas for a company get-together. What a waste of time and money. Watch it here. 

Kia delivered an emotionally riveting spot – and a much more successful creative execution – for its all-electric EV9 called “Perfect 10.” It is very well done. Watch it here. 

But taking the top spot among the auto ads on the Super Bowl is “An American Love Story” from Volkswagen. Created in partnership with Volkswagen’s longstanding creative and advertising agency, Johannes Leonardo, and set to Neil Diamond’s legendary song “I Am… I Said,” the spot “is a vivid, nostalgic tour of the brand’s 75-year history in America, beginning with the arrival of the first Type 1 vehicles—fondly nicknamed “The Beetle”—imported by Dutch businessman Ben Pon in 1949,” according to VW’s PR minions. Calling it “an epic tale about how an underdog with big dreams is not only embraced but becomes part of the very fabric of American culture,” agency ECD Jonathan Santana nails it. This spot is just about perfect. The choice of Neil Diamond is inspired and unexpected, and it works exceedingly well. But about three quarters of the way through, when we reach the contemporary/future products section, things start to unravel. The footage starts to feel a bit forced, and it certainly lacks the emotion of the Beetle nostalgia tour that preceded it. But overall, through both historical and recreated footage, “An American Love Story” is just that – a heartfelt tribute to the role that VW and specifically the Beetle have played in American culture. 

And the last line is just perfect: “We shape its metal. You shape its soul.”

Watch the two-minute extended cut here (VW ran a :60 version on the game, which was okay, but it comes nowhere close to having the emotional resonance of the two-minute version). 

Look for the Lions in next year’s Super Bowl…

And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.