University of Michigan Professor Marcus Collins and Mekanism Co-Founder and CEO Jason Harris join Yahoo Finance Live to discuss whether this year's Super Bowl ads lived up to the hype.
Harris notes many brands followed a "playbook" of cramming in celebrities and humor before briefly featuring the brand. He felt the star-studded T-Mobile (TMUS) ad failed to effectively communicate the brand message, saying "the brand gets lost" in the commercial.
Collins argues it's becoming "increasingly difficult" for brands to craft worthwhile Super Bowl ads. Social scrutiny discourages risks and limits creativity forcing brands to play it safe to avoid backlash. However, he praised State Farm's ad for "[landing] the brand's point of view".
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.
Editor's note: This article was written by Angel Smith
Video Transcript
BRIAN SMITH: Millions tuned in last night to watch the big game, where the Kansas City Chiefs became the first team to win back-to-back Super Bowl championships in nearly two decades. The Chiefs pulling off an astounding second-half comeback, beating the San Francisco 49ers with a final score of 25-22 in overtime.
But of course, when we weren't watching the high-stakes game, we were able to kick back, relax with some entertainment. Advertisements brands that you know and love shelled out millions of dollars to have their commercials featured last night. But which ones were a hit?
Let's bring in Jason Harris, Mechanism co-founder and CEO and Marcus Collins, University of Michigan's Ross School of Business marketing professor, to discuss. Gents, great to be able to take some airtime and really break down what we just saw. What did we just watch?
And Jason, I'll begin with you because you're here in studio with us. And we were talking a little bit beforehand here just about the atmosphere that you had going on at your place, where you're telling everybody, shut up, I need to watch this ad at home.
JASON HARRIS: Yeah. I have Super Bowl party every year. Everyone's eating guac and chips and talking in between the game. And I have to be like, I got to take notes. I got to--
BRIAN SMITH: What was the clear strategy then that emerged in these commercials from your purview?
JASON HARRIS: I mean, I think the playbook that is pretty developed now is; you keep it simple, you get a celebrity, you get humor, and then you have to get the brand in there so it doesn't become just the celebrity ad; you got to really sell and get the brand in there.
But I thought what was interesting this year is it felt like a lot of ads were celebrity vomit. They had not "a celebrity." They had like, let's cram five or six celebrities into the ad. And I think that made the message harder to get through for the brands.
RACHELLE AKUFFO: That's an interesting point there because we've got that Uber Eats commercial playing, so the same thing with the Dunkin' Donuts commercial. Marcus, what did you think was the recipe for a really successful outcome and really how companies can build on this once they have the buzz going?
MARCUS COLLINS: I think it's actually becoming increasingly difficult. One, because our expectations of Super Bowl ads are through the roof. It's almost like New Year's Eve. It's never going to actually live up to your expectation. That's the first.
The second is that today, we're such a divisive time post-Bud Lights debacle last summer that brands are much more cautious about what they say, what they do, especially on a stage like the Super Bowl. And therefore, they don't take very many risks.
So while the ads were fine, they were good, they were well-served, they weren't superb. I think a lot of it had to do with that, we have constrained the creative brief that they cannot play in a lot of spaces. It's a lot more confined. And therefore, you get what you get. And you don't get upset, like we tell our four-year-old.
BRIAN SMITH: Sure. And at the end of the day, it comes down to return on investment, right Marcus? So we have-- it remains to be seen who is going to get that best return on investment. But at least, fanfare and how people are talking about it the next day, you can get a little bit of an informal gauge there. Who, from your perspective, though, did win the Super Bowl ad deluge of messaging that we saw?
MARCUS COLLINS: I mean, my take, I think probably State Farm. State Farm's ad was well contextualized, good-- setup to a joke; good premise. But also good play with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. And it landed-- to Jason's point, it landed the brand's point of view, that we're here to serve. We're good neighbors.
Now, you cannot sleep on Verizon. While you may have whatever you have about the ad, the fact that Beyonce was able to coordinate a new song, released two new songs, and the teaser for an album that's coming in March that's going to be a country album from Beyonce, Renaissance 2, you got to give Verizon some props on that one for sure.
RACHELLE AKUFFO: And it really does then, as you said there, raise the bar for what people are expecting from these Super Bowl ads. Are there any that you felt fell flat?
JASON HARRIS: Yeah. I think when the-- T-Mobile ad, when they try to cram-- I don't know, it was Laura Dern, the guy from suits, Bradley Cooper, just random celebrities, almost whatever celebrity they could get their hands on, they put into an ad. And I think the brand gets lost. And I think, as Marcus said, State Farm was Arnold Schwarzenegger and the joke was their tagline. So that really resonated and it stood out. The other one I really liked was with CeraVe with Michael Cera because--
BRIAN SMITH: Thank you.
MARCUS COLLINS: You like that one?
BRIAN SMITH: It was an unpopular decision, apparently, for me to say that one was one of my favorite ones to our newsroom. But hey, guys, I won.
MARCUS COLLINS: But I don't know if Marcus agrees. But for a brand that doesn't have a lot of-- it's not a famous brand, maybe you're not even sure how to pronounce it, I think it did the job. Because Michael Cera, CeraVe, it's very clear what the brand is and you remember that it's sticky.
And one celebrity, one joke playing off the name, it landed. Well, it might not be the riskiest ad ever, of course, like Marcus said. It does the job and it's worth the seven mil to pay for media because now this brand is well-known you've heard of it. So I think it did the job.