The Super Bowl is one of the most watched
events on TV every year. More than 11 million people watched it this year, and
the number keeps growing each year. The Super Bowl has three main categories of
watchers, the football fans, the halftime fans, and the commercial fans. The
football fans are only watching to watch the game itself, and will maybe stick
around to watch the commercials, but that is there time to get up and get food
or use the bathroom. Next, the halftime fans are watching just to see the
halftime show, this year’s being Justin Timberlake. Lastly, the commercial fans
are the people watching to see the ads, and see what crazy ideas companies have
come up with to get people to buy their products. This year it cost $5 million
to get a 30 second commercial to play during the Super Bowl. Why so expensive
you may ask? The Super Bowl is the most watched event on TV all year, and it is
the best time to get product advertisement out to the most amount of people possible.
Each year the commercials get better and better and try to outdo themselves
from the year before. This year there were many contenders for the best commercial,
but you will have to keep reading to find out which one was my “best commercial
of the Super Bowl 2018.”
For me, I am a combination of the halftime
fan and the commercial fan. I am always looking forward to the musical halftime
performance, and I love to see what the companies have done this year to
promote their products. Some of the best commercials from this year, in my
opinion, were the opening Toyota ad, and the Amazon Alexa ad.
The Toyota commercial, Good Odds, off the
bat, grabs your attention because the opening scene is of a baby missing both
legs and one arm. “The odds of winning a gold medal?” come up across the
screen. Right away your mind goes to the Olympics. How can a baby missing three
limbs win a gold medal? And what are the odds that they do? Well, the commercial
is here to show you. On the bottom of the screen a ticker starts counting down
the odds of this baby while throughout her life, she is practicing different
sports with her prosthetic legs. Throughout the commercial you are thinking
that it is an ad for the Paralympics or maybe even prosthetics, but as many commercials
do, this one has a plot twist, it was a Toyota commercial. Surprise! The commercial
is a mini drama, to pull on your heart, make you feel something, and make you
think. Its purpose is to show audiences that no matter what happens, you can
always beat the odds, and get back up again, which the song that is playing in
the background repeats. This commercial drew my attention to be one of the best
commercials because it featured Paralympians, and athletes with prosthetics,
which is very close to my heart because one of my dance students lost her leg
to cancer and is now dancing with a prosthetic leg. This commercial definitely
pulled at everyone’s heart strings making people keep watching to see what this
commercial could be for. The audience is truly anyone who watches that has a
heart because I think this commercial is relatable to anyone. Everyone gets
knocked down and has to get back up again, everyone is in the situation where
you want to beat the odds. This commercial is showing that Toyota is a sponsor
of the Paralympics and helps athletes like Lauren Woolstencroft, the woman in
the video, beat the odds.
Next, we have the Amazon Alexa commercial where
Alexa loses her voice. At Amazon headquarters, we see Jeff Bezos worried that
his Alexa product lost her voice, but his employees have a backup plan.
Celebrities taking over the voice of Alexa. Some of the celebrities include, Gordon
Ramsey, yelling that someone doesn’t know how to make a grilled cheese
sandwich, Cardi B making jokes that she’s never been to Mars, so how should she
know how far away it is, and Rebel Wilson “setting the mood,” for a dinner
party. This commercial is a comedy, but is also satirical and making fun of what
would really happen if Alexa lost her voice. It uses the power of celebrity to
pull in the audience and make everyone want to see “that funny Amazon Alexa commercial.”
The purpose is to show people that no matter what, Alexa will always be the
best at her job, no one can replace Alexa and what she does. Now in this
situation Amazon is showing that celebrities cannot replace Alexa, but in reality,
I think they are trying to show that no other personal home assistant can replace
Alexa. This commercial is getting people to laugh, and although it is showing
the product they are trying to sell break down, the commercial was so funny, people
aren’t really thinking about Alexa losing her voice as a problem. Amazon was
trying to get people to laugh and to get people to buy their new Amazon Alexa
product.
Both commercials are trying to do the same thing;
promote their brand and increase their audience. Many of the commercials had
something somewhat memorable to them, but my top picks had to be Toyota and
Amazon Alexa. These ads were able to do something different for the audience,
but also do somewhat the same thing. Toyota was pulling on my heart, but also promoting
Toyota and Amazon was making me laugh, but promoting the new Amazon Alexa.
Overall, I think that many of the commercials
throughout the Super Bowl were very effective and influential, but not many of
them are still being talked about days and weeks later. The most memorable ones,
are the ones that are going to stick with people and make them remember the
product that was being sold. For example, in a month if I wanted to purchase a
home assistant, I would remember the Amazon Alexa commercial and choose to buy
that, over a Google Home. So, in the end, the Super Bowl is a great place to
advertise and is essentially the best spot on TV if you can get it, and afford
it. You not only have to make you commercial good, but it has to be memorable.
The ones that are memorable and remembered days and weeks later are the ones
that are the most influential and the ones that will make the most impact on
the Super Bowl watching fans.