Opinion

Super Bowl review: It doesn’t have a bowl that’s really super

72andSunny creative director Andy Flemming reflects on the Super Bowl's advertising in Australia.

Apparently the team that wins the Super Bowl doesn’t get a bowl that’s really super.

I learned that today. I was expecting something huge and gold, speckled with diamonds and bits of meteorite. But no. They get a silver spike thing with a ball on it made by Tiffany (the brand of choice for six-foot-eight powerlifters.) I also learned that one of the quarterbacks had to play the whole game with a bad injury. This was presumably why every time he got the ball his name popped up as ‘Jalen Hurts’ instantly reminding us of who he was and how he was feeling. But hey, I could bang on all day about a confusing game I’ve never watched before or just talk about the ads because, you know, that’s the other thing the Super Bowl is famous for.

I’ve often envied the Americans for having an event that’s world famous for its advertising. It means once a year clients tear up the brand guidelines and write enormous cheques (or ‘checks’ as they call them) so they can hire Will Ferrell to be amusing for thirty seconds. It’s a career-defining moment to write one and 72andSunny have written some belters. But I won’t be talking about this year’s crop as almost everyone on Twitter has already done it seeing as they always get leaked a week early.

I initially thought it would be funny to review the ads that run during the game in other countries so I used a VPN and watched about an hour of seriously weird TV. The Russians banged tables a lot and didn’t seem to be showing the game and the Italians, Mexicans and Chinese didn’t seem to have any ad-breaks. So Australia it is.

Our advertising is weird. For someone who works in the business, I don’t watch much free to air as, let’s face it, most of it’s crap so it was interesting to see real ad-breaks for a change. This is what I learned.

As far as insights go, the Aussie ads were bang on. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve used a cheap auto repair shop only to drive off and have my doors, bonnet and wheels immediately fall off. Thank god there’s AAMI. Now I can get real insurance from a girl on a motorcycle who drives past ‘Julio’ with a smile – leaving him stranded by the side of the road with a car without a door, bonnet or wheels.

The Supercars stuff from Seven was seemingly written by someone with an unhealthy obsession with one of the drivers. I mean, the whole ad is him basically standing there like a greek god as the voiceover says stuff like “Look at him, just LOOK at him. He’s amazing. How can the other drivers beat THIS man? He’s a PREDATOR.” I think the only predator here is the writer and the driver should probably get some serious security before they creep round with some ropes and handcuffs.

And let’s not forget the man in his underpants in the middle of a road spraying himself with about a gallon of deodorant called ‘Tradie’ as a car (another supercar) did a burnout or something in the background. I wasn’t sure if this was a joke ad for something else or there genuinely IS a deodorant called ‘Tradie’. Anyway they say it’s for your ‘pits and bits.’ So there you go. Now your bits can smell like a Tradie’s. Lovely.

Telstra’s latest biggie reminded me a lot of Sicario – almost to the point where I was just waiting for that biker to pull out a machine pistol and absolutely obliterate the little girl with the sunflower on her phone. Thankfully, the symphony of death was avoided and we were all taught an important lesson about internet safety.

Probably the best line I saw during the entire game was for Frank’s Hot Sauce which was simply ‘I put that shit on everything.’ They don’t say shit, obvs, they use a splat of Frank’s Hot Sauce but it’s a hell of a line and I’d be well pleased if I’d written that. On further digging I found out that it’s the American ad they’re running here. Fuck it.

The food delivery boxes all made an appearance with at least two of them setting their ads in offices with people fiddling around with vegetables. Hello Fresh decided to set their one in a supermarket with seemingly empty shelves and people coughing in the background and a line about ‘supermarkets not being super.’ My local supermarket is fucking amazing and has at least three types of truffle cheese and almost any food I could ever consider eating so a bit of a strange insight guys. (Full disclosure, I use Hello Fresh, mainly because of the food, but also because they amusingly use dry ice to keep the food cold and it’s fun to drop huge chunks in the sink and pretend you’re a mad scientist).

The Daily Telegraph is apparently what you get when you ‘want to get a read on’ – this is presumably getting a read on climate change being fake, masks are bad and why oh why isn’t there more Jesus? I genuinely don’t want to get a read on what Andrew Bolt and Peta Credlin think so I avoid it like the plague (I actually avoided the plague by wearing a mask and getting vaccinated.) Oddly enough, no matter how many of their ‘articles’ I delete on Twitter, they keep popping up. But after seeing Elon Musk sitting next to Murdoch at the game I know why.

There were a few ads for trading platforms. The first one had a man in a suit entering a newsagent run by the guy who looked exactly like the guy who tortured Mel Gibson in ‘Lethal Weapon.’ The man bought something for $2.50 and asked the owner to ‘place the change into a trading account’. The look on the face of the owner was exactly what you’d expect if someone walked into your shop and asked this. Apparently you can do this on the Raiz app, whatever that is. The one for Plus 500 had Keifer Sutherland saying stuff. I can’t remember anything he said as there was a huge super that alarmingly read ‘YOUR CAPITAL IS AT RISK.’

The James Boag’s beer spot is excellent. I never tired of watching it and it’s beautifully shot, written and produced. Well done. A decent ad in the Super Bowl. Who’d have thought it?

Andy Flemming is creative director at 72andSunny.

ADVERTISEMENT

Get the latest media and marketing industry news (and views) direct to your inbox.

Sign up to the free Mumbrella newsletter now.

 

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.