Five interesting Super Bowl Stats

Published in

Born05

3 min readFeb 3, 2020

Enzo’s Monday Motion #198: today it’s all about the Super Bowl ads. I’ve selected my personal picks based on some interesting statistics around trend, premiering date and Koby Bryant.

No more patience

The trend of early premiering keeps gaining popularity. This year 42 out of the 50 spots were aired before the big match. Facebook kept their cool with their friends-group ad starring Chris Rock. My personal patience pick goes out to Turkish Airlines with an epic spot that seeks parallels with the first man on the moon.

Although the concept is nice, it does lack a bit of credibility. The cast is way to filmic and I can’t imagine they’ve never flown before. The voiceover is another reference to the retro moon-landing, but it feels more like a mashup between Batman’s Blane and Morgan freeman. The beautiful shots make it a good spot as a warming up for the big ones.

Fun vs Serious: 39–11

The Super Bowl is here for pleasure, so logically, brands prefer comedy over common sense. Pepsi tried to embrace last year’s beer-brand-bashing but didn’t really succeed. Google smartly added a positive turn to Alzheimer’s, but my favourite concept combo was made by Snickers.

2020 trends

Four brands were big on dancing, seven were supporting the LGTB- community, but if I had to name this year’s trend it’s most definitely retro. Almost 25% found their concept in (film) classics. Jeep did a remake on Groundhog Day, but in there defence is was smartly found since it actually was its celebration day. Walmart made a sequel to their movie all-star spot and Cheetos brought back MC Hammer and his trademark dance moves. Budweiser delivered me a little smile with a remake of their own classic ‘Whassup-spot’, but the award for the best ‘retro’ goes without a doubt to Mount Dew.

The ad might be my favourite of all. Mount Dew didn’t just ad a celebrity to carry their spot, the similarities between Bryan Cranston and Jack Nicholson are uncanny! The end scene is soo smart and best of all, it’s all in service of the core message: maybe even better than the original.

Koby Bryant

With the half time tribute to Koby Bryant, multiple brands were in (last minute) distress. Toyota and Hyundai Genesis removed their helicopter shots, Hummer postponed their LeBron James ad, but the biggest pickle was for Planters who killed their own all-star Mr. Peanut…

There’s no way in hell Planters could change this story, so the ‘best’ they could do was moving it as far away from the half time show. I can imagine brands will leave the dying hero theme for the next couple of years.

Unknown brands

No small brand will ever have the budget to air during the Super Bowl, but there are a few who are completely unknown outside the USA. Snicker’s taste-a-like Reese’s take 5 delivered a spot filled with corny jokes. Tax preparation software TurboTax feels the groove with a catchy song and trademark dance move and password saver software Dashline made a very recognisable and funny ad.

Little Caesars though had me at pizza… The franchise says it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

It’s hard to imagine that the third-largest pizza chain in the States recently started with their service, but it did deliver a very amusing spot. I say bring it over to Europe and I’ll see if it’s any good.