If you have ever watched the Super Bowl in a crowded room, you know how intense some people can get when it comes time for a commercial break. Yes, this is the only time people actually eagerly wait for advertisements to crowd their screens. Watchers will shush you and glare if you don’t stop talking – this isn’t something to be taken lightly. In fact, the commercials might be even more of a spectator sport than the football game itself — and there is always a clear winner at the end of the night.
But when did the commercials become such an essential piece of the Super Bowl? At some point the focus shifted to be less about football and more about the advertisements. Companies don’t just use regular advertising techniques when it comes to these commercials — the game is upped; the stakes are high.
The cost for a 30 second ad space even reached $5 million this year and brands can spend a million more vying to get the best celebrity spokesperson and create the most insane plotline, all because the Super Bowl promises, year after year, to be the most watched television program, reaching numbers upwards of 110 million viewers.
There are typical standouts every year: heart-warming (yes, heart-warming) car ads, big entertainment reveals (that Stranger Things season two trailer, am I right?) and ads you really never needed to see (that’s right, Mr. Clean, I’m looking at you).
The commercials this year featured a barrage of celebrities from Bill Nye to Melissa McCarthy, but the ads that caught my attention the most weren’t filled with famous figures; instead, I found myself most drawn to the political commercials, of which there were many.
The Audi ad, as my personal favorite, drew attention to feminism and the wage gap and the 84 Lumber commercial was even cut by Fox for portraying a message that was too aversely political about the “wall.” However, it was the Budweiser commercial that turned the most heads with the attention it drew to refugees – even eliciting a #BoycottBudweiser trend on Twitter.
Advertisers know what will make them the most memorable commercial at the Super Bowl and the ways in which they can keep people talking. In fact, the commercials have become so lucrative that the University of South Carolina even dedicates an entire semester to discussing the marketing techniques in the "Super Bowl of Advertising" class. The class creates a Super Ad poll after the game, and the winner becomes the next recipient of the Cocky Award. This year 84 Lumber, Buick and Budweiser got the most votes respectively, and it’s easy to see why.
Each year, the commercials center around the biggest cultural topics in an effort to be more relatable and relevant. This year, politics were the way to achieve that. Whether you are in favor of the ads or not, you are still talking about them – to the point that some watch the Super Bowl just for the advertisements. These brands have done their job so well that people have started to pay attention to the commercials because they become a part of our culture themselves.