My Superbowl commercials review - 2023 edition.

Here I am again with my Superbowl commercial’s review, 2023 edition.

Once again, kudos to all the professionals who sweated this work out, it’s not easy and there’s a lot of pressure. I say that first because some of my comments may seem to poopoo the work – but absolutely not, I do not intend to do so, I just refer what I see as a man-in-the-street and in a tongue-in-cheek manner (and with a dash of brand strategy commentary). And good job Mahomes & Co.!

INTUIT TURBOTAX - So that you can not do your taxes – and do what you do. Allright, thank you for telling me. But cute – nothing more.

IBM - Let’s create. Not new, been around a while, but IBM never fails to have good ‘positioning themes’ – one of these days I gotta write an article of the several of theirs I have lived through, as a consumer and as a consultant to them, for the past forty years. And of course it’s a concept that’s endlessly expandable -- the ‘enabling’ thing is not new of course, but is sensibly handled.

HYUNDAI - I love Kevin Bacon (who doesn’t) and now I’m in love with his daughter too. What a family. Oh yes, they were advertising a car brand I think.

AVOCADOS - How come that avocado gets all the attention? Do they have more marketing budgets than its fruits & veggies peers? It’s the trade association that’s more aggressive? And yes, a naked Statue of Liberty would be a heck of a tourist attraction. Does all this make you want to consume more avocados though? I wonder, maybe it does, I’ll look it up.

T-MOBILE - Bradley Cooper in pink (but sorry, it’s Magenta! I worked on it fifteen years ago). Cutesy mom&son routine, didn’t convince me, kinda corny and trite. But I didn’t know that Bradley was very nominated and seldom prized – one always learns something new.

REMY MARTIN - There’s Serena delivering a solemn “one inch at a time” exhortation; then I was waiting for something to relate, but no – a French cognac brand is the signer. This takes the cake for arbitrary correlation / association. And please French Brand, you want to appeal to the American Football Fan now? Good luck – both with the drink as well as the Frenchness.

MR PEANUT - Good job to all my friends at VaynerMedia. The roasting thing is a given (but I nor anyone similar brand ever did anything with it, to my knowledge) and the obviousness made it for an entertaining thirty seconds – run by the Roadmaster General Jeff Ross of course. Made me think of a time long ago when I went for lunch to the Friars Club and was sat next to a stranger who asked my name while shaking hands, and when I told him he spouted “ew, it sounds like a disease” – I asked the lady to the other side of me who was that jerk, and she told me that he was Henny ‘take my wife please’ Youngman.

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY - Who’d know I’d like an ad from this source. But was tasteful, things coming to life – on-brand I guess.

SOTYKTU - (ouch, I hurt my hand typing it) - I know all names are taken and can’t trademark anything anymore, but Sotyktu? Really? Call it PsoriasisPro or DEUCY (short for Deucravacitinib) and be done with it.

CURE - “We can’t protect your opinion but we can protect your car insurance”. A whole forced and clunky intro to then qualify for that punchline. Who thinks these things up? Go buy an idea somewhere please – even Chatbots would have done better.

BASS PRO SHOP - So true to subject matter, old-fashioned good. Showing and telling exactly, and nicely, what they do and how and why – what else needs to be said? Not every commercial need to be super ‘creative’. Hear me Sotyktu?

PEPSI ZERO - And no. Yet again Pepsi-the-brand fails to impress me – not even interest me actually. Ben Stiller, be real.

AMAZON - The dog is sweet but then he gets mad when s/he’s alone; so the owners get something from Amazon, open the box, it’s a crate – and so you think ‘awww, so sad’ but then a puppy comes out of it – the dog’s new companion so he won’t feel lonely anymore. Beautiful! Reminds me of Jeffery Archer’s 100-word story competition (have you ever tried to write a full 100-word story? I did. It’s not easy.), where the writeup takes you in a direction and then … the punchline blindsides you.

(wait: so … Amazon delivered just the crate (I assume), and then the family sets the puppy up to come out of it? And if so, what does that have anything to do with Amazon? They sure didn’t buy the puppy on Amazon. Whatever, one better not think too hard I guess.)

TEMU - “Shop like a billionaire” is what the brand consultant and the copywriter came up with, brand-wise, for this … marketing aggregator I guess, who peddles $8.99 shoes and $9.99 dresses. Never mind that it’s this ‘business model’ that feeds the clothing sweatshops of the Far East and then (six months later) their enormous landfills of discarded clothing -- coming back to where it was made. Pitiful. Some businesses should be just forbidden already, and certainly be banned from spending millions on Superbowl Sunday – more money down the sustainability and consumeristic drain.

MICHELOB ULTRA - “New member day”: Serena putting and missing (why?), Alex Morgan in the gallery (why?) – and the second spot is even worse than the first: the putt dramatically stops just at the edge of the hole, ball sitting right there – then someone uncaps a beer and the birds on a tree fly off in a hurry, and that makes the earth tremor (out of the noise of the wings I suppose), and … the ball drops in the hole. Whatever – can’t believe I just wasted five minutes of my time writing this paragraph.

SQUARESPACE - “A website that makes websites”. A puzzling statement that would make anyone wonder, and yawn, but that only the great Adam Driver can make funny.

DEXCOM - Nick Jonas (is he a diabetic?). Direct and modern message, no frills, it is what it is, the value is made clear. Just as Bass Pro Shop, sometimes just tell it like it is.

FARMERS DOG FOOD - Life of a dog from small to old – beautiful. Almost cried. But then again, I’m a huge dog lover and can relate. I’m gonna look up that food for my baby girl Cleo.

GM - Nothing interesting really, until the final tag: the GM logo appears, then the tagline starts to form … “EV … (glows blue) erybody in” – . Well done, clever, not forced, natural. And the everybody in brand message / rallying cry for “the transition to an all-electric future” is a great Brand Promise as it makes an exhortation – similar to Just Do It, but socially meaningful.

DORITOS - Try another angle. The fact that the triangular shape of the product is supposed to give you brilliant ideas in your everyday is something I did not know. But it worked for Elton, so there must be something to it. But these brands that have nothing to say really, as to real value, can and must come up with these ‘different’ angles (indeed) – they have no other choice. Then again, I don’t and never did much consumer branding.

POP CORNERS - Another brand that has nothing of real value to say and has to invent bizarreness. But no no no no: you have the gall to take an icon, and its characters, and put silly words in their mouths. That’s just sacrilegious and I’ll never forgive you - and so I’ll never buy you. And shame on whoever owns Breaking Bad and gave license to use its assets – I doubt that they needed the money. Really, crass, and cheapening of the BB Brand.?

DISNEY 100 - Another well-done-nothing-new. But a trip down Disney 100 years memory lane cannot possible fail or not awaken great memories - in anyone on planet Earth. Needed to promote itself? What could be the impetus for spending Superbowl ad dollars? Ongong corporate image - fair.

RAM 1500 EV - Premature Electrification: a long minute of tongue-in-cheek solemn-ish banter, by men and women, tasteful though. Maybe a tad too long, got tired of the soon-repetitive banter before the end of the commercial (was 60 secs, they could have saved a lot of money and cut it to 30) - timing is everything, indeed (see what I just did there?)

BUD LIGHT - Young Couple on a phone hold, cute, natural, not forced, nothing much to it really, you just watch them. Tag is easy to drink. Cute lady, if I may say.

JesUS - Corny corny corny that jesUS gets US. But I guess for the faithful that’s a Branded Jesus and who am I to diss it – even though having grown up in Rome and Catholic school I should be far more understanding. Or wait, maybe that’s the very reason I’m not.

VERIZON - Nothing special really, but I’m always amazed at how one can have an Identity System made just of black and white and red and a beautifully bold typeface, and make it so distinctive and beautiful. I worked with it quite a bit as Verizon had been my client for a long time, and it’s a pleasure working with those assets. (credit goes to the genius work of Michael Bierut / Pentagram)

What did you think? Let me know.

'Til next year.