A 30-second TV ad for the 2018 Super Bowl cost more than $5 million, down from $5.5 million last year. About 100 million people watched the big game, which is why advertisers are willing to pay so much for the ads.
Unfortunately, the ads again this year were violent, violent, and more violent. That was due, in large part, to the awful violent movie trailers and ads for TV shows. I just don’t know why children are allowed to watch so much of this kind of violence on television. I don’t go see horror movies and I don’t want to watch ads for them – ever.
Fortunately, Betty White or another person wasn’t tackled and thrown to the ground as happened in the 2010 Snicker’s ad or a man wasn’t slapped in the face because his sandwich was good.
However, the ad makers, and the companies that hire them, can’t resist using violence to sell.
Best ads
Ads for the Olympics featuring stories about how some of America’s top athletes became successful in their sports.
Toyota’s ad about a rabbi, priest, imam, and monk riding in a pickup truck together to root for a football team.
T-Mobile ad showing babies of different races, calling them all equal and saying “Change starts now.”
Stella Artois joins with water.org asking people to buy a beer glass so money can be donated to get clean water in third world countries.
Silly ads
Sprint’s depiction of robots laughing at a man for staying with Verizon because it was supposedly twice as expensive, for only 1 percent better service.
All the Bud Lite ads. In one, the Bud Knight jokes about going to a party rather than helping an army win a battle.
M&M’s turning one of their candies into Danny DeVito.
Skittles saying it was making a Super Bowl ad for one person, then with follow-up ads.
Vikings driving to the “matchup” in a Dodge Ram, but turning around pulling a truck behind their boat when they find out the Minnesota Vikings weren’t in the game.
Squarespace showing a Keanu Reeves standing on a motorcycle as it travels for miles, telling men they have the power to do anything.
The NFL ad showing Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr. recreating a scene from “Dirty Dancing.”
Peyton Manning taking kids on a trip through Universal Studios’ theme park to sell vacations sold by Universal Parks and Resorts.
A tourism ad for Australia that started out looking like a movie trailer.
All the Spam ads.
Outrageous ad
Dodge using quotes by Martin Luther King Jr. from one of his speeches to sell Ram trucks. It might have worked if the King quotes were used, then the company put its logo up at the end rather than showing the trucks throughout the ad.
Awkward ads
A young woman, dressed in what may have been an attempt to mimic some new trend of the younger generation, talking and dancing awkwardly about Diet Coke’s new mango flavor. Other new flavors were shown at the end.
Martha Steward pulling off Jack in the Box’s nose as they argue about who makes the best deep fat fried chicken sandwich.
Alexa losing her voice in an Amazon ad and celebrities replacing her, giving silly answers.
Coke discussing the uniqueness of everyone while showing a wide variety of different situations around the world to sell its unhealthy product.
Ageist ads
Senior citizens, depicted as old and wrinkled, working because they don’t have enough money to retire, with the song playing in the background of them singing “I’m 85 and I wanna go home” as it shows their various jobs. A pathetic, sorry looking lot is shown to us by E-Trade, as it tells the audience one third of older Americans have no savings and they should use E-Trade to make money.
Worst ads
All the Doritos ads. Peter Dinklage, for Doritos, and Morgan Freeman, for Mountain Dew, rapping didn’t do it for me.
All the Tide ads, especially the one in which old people are shown in a bad light.
The Pringles ad about the new flavors of Pringles.
Groupon’s ad on how great local business are with a rich man opening the door of his fancy house getting hit in the stomach with a football kicked by a football player.
Terrible ads
Febreze’s ad about Dave’s “bleep” not stinking, with six people talking about it. At the end, he asks what Febreze is.
Quicken Loans telling people about how great their mortgages are. A payday lender making a mortgage loan? I can’t imagine anything worse.
Halftime performance
On the halftime show featuring Justin Timberlake, I thought his performance was ordinary, not outstanding. It was good he had on a suit, which looked like warm camouflage, unlike Lady Gaga and Beyonce, who wore skimpy outfits. He wore a red cowboy handkerchief around his neck and white tennis shoes. He just walked in, no zip line, sang and did some dance routines, then left. There were lots of laser lights, but no fireworks.
If you’re invited to perform at the Super Bowl, you should at least try to do something spectacular.
The violent game
Once again, the violent ads in the violent game of football is such a depressing combination. I'm glad research is finally showing how dangerous the game of football is to its players in terms of how concussions damage the brain.
