Super Bowl Commercials Review: Mostly miss, some hit
Alright, let’s be honest. The commercials for the Super Bowl this year were decent at best. In the past, there have been some commercials that made me gasp for air, and this year that was missing. For five million dollars per thirty second slot, you would think that advertisers could do a little better.
What was up with the Super Bowl baby commercials? Was I the only one who thought that those were really weird? Like what are they trying to say, that the NFL makes babies? In all honesty, those commercials freaked me out.
There was also a Skittles commercial that showed Steven Tyler, the lead singer from Aerosmith, which was strange, to say the least. In the commercial, a Skittles version of Tyler’s lips are talking back to him, and then explode. I thought that that one was a little too out there, and just not funny.
Heinz produced one about dachshunds decked out in hot dog costumes running to people in ketchup bottles. I didn’t think that the commercial itself was that good, I mean, they put “weiner dogs” in hot dog costumes. Brilliant. Sometimes it pays to be punny, but this time was just plain bad.
Taco Bell also came out with a new ad for their quesalupa, and in effect they claimed that it would be bigger and better than anything and everything that the universe had ever seen. I get that they aren’t serious, but the commercial just left me sitting there saying ‘what?’ And what was with the random clip of George Takei laughing right before the end?
Despite the trend of lackluster commercials, there were two that I genuinely liked:
Coca-Cola also came out with an advertisement that featured the Ant-Man and the Hulk in a showdown over a Coke Mini. I am a fan of the blockbuster films and it was entertaining to see the smallest and biggest members of the Avengers team fight it out.
But perhaps the best commercial this year was the Prius chase. Most people know the running joke about owning a Prius, (how they aren’t exactly the best performance car out there) and this commercial seemed to embrace that and use it to its advantage. It was funny to watch, and although I’m no fan of the Prius, it still made me laugh. I thought that it was well-done. I also liked the follow-up after the end of the Super Bowl, where the police employed the use a Prius in an attempt to catch the robbers.
This year, there weren’t any real stand-outs that stole the show, and most commercials fell flat on their face. But even so, there were a few out there that were funny and deserve mention. Hopefully next year, more will follow their example.
