Super Bowl Commercials Are Going to Be Different This Year Because of 'the Bud Light Situation': Marketers
Last year, over 115 million people watched Super Bowl LVII. This year, according to Fast Company, the television audience could be even bigger.
That’s a lot of eyes on every commercial — which helps why a 30-second ad spot will put companies back to the tune of $7 million. (Note to fans of “The After Party”: That’s about 700,000 Hams.)
It’s also a lot of risk. Spending that kind of money to tank your company’s market share with a poorly chosen advertisement would be a double whammy.
That’s not exactly what Bud Light did last year — its boycott-instigating marketing campaign was related to the NCAA’s March Madness, not the NFL — but that disaster, which caused Bud Light to lose its place as the top-selling beer in the U.S. after 20 years, is still fresh on the minds of national marketing executives.
That’s why, according to The Wall Street Journal, viewers of the big game can expect commercials of a kinder, gentle nature, with little to offend.
Spots like this one, from BMW:
In the wake of the Bud Light debacle, which led to the departure of the brand’s chief marketer, companies are looking to be as inoffensive as possible, the Journal reported.
“It has usually been that when a brand gets into trouble like that, it recovers fairly quickly and people forget about it and move on,” Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, told the outlet.
“The Bud Light situation has been so different because the brand has been hit very hard and it hasn’t really bounced back,” he said.
Viewers can still expect plenty of humor and celebrity appearances this year, but shouldn’t see anything tendentious.
“Nobody’s pushing the edge on these jokes and nobody’s hinting at anything remotely controversial,” Calkins told the Journal.
Bud Light will have a spot during the game — so surprise there — but this one will feature the “Bud Light Genie” — and, of course, Peyton Manning. (Public Service Announcement: Anyone playing a drinking game during the Super Bowl that involves taking a shot any time a Manning appears in a commercial should not be allowed to drive home.)
It also includes large groups of people partying at home, at event venues and a house party, all of them holding Bud Light bottles and not drinking any.
And that might be the best example of what this year’s Super Bowl commercials are going to look like — lots of jump cuts for viewers with short attention spans, plus music, celebrities, special effects and overall goofiness.
It may not be the most entertaining commercial anyone’s ever seen — but it doesn’t seem likely to offend anyone very much, either.
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