Tech Fails And Sad Robots
How the 2019 Super Bowl Ads Reflected the Growing Anxiety about Automation
The 2019 Super Bowl has come and gone, and the general consensus seems to be this was a rather boring year. The Patriots beat the Rams 13–3 in a low-scoring defensive game, and Maroon 5 gave an unremarkable halftime show “designed to be forgotten.” Even the commercials felt safe this year, with nearly all brands forgoing advocating for political and social causes in favor of lighthearted humor and big-budget spectacles.
A closer look, however, reveals a few noteworthy ad spots that reflected current consumer sentiment towards technology. Voice assistants have officially gone mainstream, and deep-seated anxiety about the impending wave of automation popped up in multiple ads. Some ads remained optimistic in technology’s capability to “make the world a better place,” while others seemed far less positive.
Prevalence of Voice Assistants
Amazon followed up its well received “Alexa lost her voice” spot last year with another star-studded commercial that humorously detailed the multiple Alexa-powered devices, such as an Alexa-enabled toothbrush or a dog collar, that didn’t make the cut.
Amazon | Not Everything Makes the Cut
While tacitly acknowledging the existing limitations of Alexa, this ad spot also served to underline just how prevalent its voice assistant has become in our daily life, so much so that an Alexa-powered hot tub doesn’t exactly seem that out of place any more. By presenting many of the “tech fails” that Alexa could cause, Amazon subtly humanized its voice assistant and demonstrated some much-needed self-awareness to Amazon’s “Alexa everywhere” mission. This undertone of responsible restraint, even presented in a comical manner, is the real message that Amazon is trying to get across with this Super Bowl spot, and it is no doubt a timely message considering the growing “techlash” that has besieged Facebook and Google lately.
Then there’s the Mercedes-Benz ad that is entirely devoted to the convenience of voice command. To promote its own voice assistant, Hey Mercedes, the automaker produced a fantastical spectacle full of special visual effects to demonstrate just how easy life could be if everything responded to voice command, before unveiling its new A-Class model that is equipped with a conversational interface.
Mercedes-Benz A-Class | “Say the Word”
Smart speakers have hit critical mass in terms of U.S. user adoption, so naturally the industry is moving on to find new contexts where conversational interfaces powered by voice assistants could unlock new use cases. Many are now looking to connected cars as the next growth area, which this new ad would support. From Alexa and Nuance to personal assistants that learn your moods, voice assistants are coming to make your dashboard user experience a bit more hands-free. The expansion of voice assistants to smart vehicles would bring audio experiences into new contexts for brands to explore, and would prove particularly relevant for brands that need to connect with consumers on-the-go.
But if there is one commercial during this year’s Super Bowl that perfectly captures just how prevalent voice-enabled devices have become in our life, it would be the “Sad Device” ad from chipmaker (potato chips, not computer chips) Pringles. In this whimsical spot, which features two guys asking a fictional smart speaker device how to stack various flavors of Pringles chips, the non-descript voice assistant quickly becomes sad and started lamenting how it can’t taste the various flavors and has no soul to enjoy the chips.
Pringles | Sad Device Commercial
While the relevancy of this creative angle to the product in question may be debatable, the fact that a commercial for potato chips now centers around a “depressed” voice assistant is irrefutable that smart speakers, and the digital assistants they host, have gone fully mainstream.
Anxiety About Automation
Looking deeper, the Pringles commercial also reveals a deeper anxiety about the upcoming disruption that robots and automation may unleash on our society. The deployment of voice assistants is but the first step in integrating artificial intelligence into our daily life, and it is just a prologue to how much of our lives will be supported by A.I.
Right now, Alexa can only respond to commands, but as they get smarter, voice assistants, perhaps one like Google Duplex, will soon be able to automate intelligent tasks like calling businesses to book appointments and reservations on your behalf. From there, it is not too hard to imagine that automated software tools and robots could do our jobs better than us, especially the ones involving manual labor and repetitive specialized tasks like data collection and management.
Make no mistake, this growing anxiety is not completely unfounded, because A.I. is indeed getting smarter, having already repeatedly beat human champions in Go and chess. Now, researchers at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence have developed an A.I. program that can play either side side of Pictionary, a game that involves some sophisticated cognitive abilities and common sense. While this new A.I. is far from perfect, this development signals a direction that today’s A.I. research is heading.
Another Super Bowl ad that addressed this growing anxiety explicitly was the Michelob Ultra ad Robots. In this 30-second spot, a humandroid that runs, golfs, boxes, and pretty much excels at any physical task that humans can perform, and then inexplicably gets sad at the sight of a group of friends having fun and drinking beers at a bar.
Michelob Ultra | Robots
Even more explicit was a RoboChild spot from online tax service TurboTax, which features a child-like intelligent robot that wishes to be an accountant for TurboTax when it grows up. Although well-designed software would probably be better at doing taxes and make fewer mistakes than most human accountants, TurboTax rejected the RoboChild because it prefers to hire humans to help its customers.
TurboTax | RoboChild
Ironically, most of TurboTax’s customers are supported by its automated tax software, so boasting having human CPAs on board to answer questions as a differentiator for its service is a rather interesting positioning that seeks to add a sheen of human touch to an otherwise highly automated service. It smartly dispels any skepticism that some consumers may have against trusting TurboTax’s automated software to prepare their tax returns while also subconsciously assuages their anxiety about the impending wave of automation.
Together, these three ads frame robots as being sad and missing out on the pleasures of life, so as to make the audience feel better about the supposed “robot takeover” that most people tend to associate with automation. By pointing out that as mighty as the robots may be, they will never get to experience the joy that a flavorful stack of potato chips or a cool beer can bring, this trio of commercials not-so-subtly advocate for the kind of human-only indulgences that their products can provide.
Except that this kind of framing is paradoxically false. First of all, robots in this case are just a stand-in for A.I.-enabled automation: most of the automations that will displace workers won’t be all-purpose robots, but rather automated software and machines that each focus on one specific task that they are designed to master. More importantly, if a robot had developed the emotional intelligence to have feelings and ambitions, then it would certainly have the capacity to enjoy hanging with its fellow robots or pass off as a human CPA to help TurboTax users.
But then again, ads doesn’t need to be 100% logical, and that is not what those ads are aiming for anyway. As with some of the best, these three ads opt to make an emotional appeal to our collective fear about an impending change (in this case, automation) to make us feel better and, hopefully, create some associated brand affirmation as a result.
Looking forward, this percolating anxiety towards automation will have to be addressed by regulators and industry leaders. As we pointed out in our brand new 2019 Outlook report,
Unlike other recent innovations, automation will also displace large portions of the workforce in a technological transition on a scale that hasn’t been seen since the Industrial Revolution, affecting 800 million people worldwide over the next decade. Combined with the techlash in the media and an incoming global recession, automation is likely to be the first collection of technologies in decades which will be pre-emptively constrained by government regulation. Perhaps rightly so.
At the recent 2019 Davos summit, the impact of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” led by automation technologies was a hot topic. According to a New York Times report, while corporate executives and industry leaders talked at length about the need to provide a safety net for people who lose their jobs as a result of automation. In private meetings, however, they are reportedly racing to automate their own work forces in order to stay ahead of the competition, with little regard for the impact on workers. Reports like this certainly don’t help to assuage our anxiety about the rollout of automation. And if the implications of automation technologies are not properly addressed by the companies that stand to benefit from them, negative consumer sentiment towards automation will only continue to spread and snowball into full-blown backlash.
The Double-Edged Sword of Tech
Beyond the “tech fails” and emotional limitations of robots, there were some Super Bowl ads that demonstrated how technology can make our lives better. In an ad for Skechers slip-on shoes, former NFL quarterback Tony Romo walks around his home and enjoys the ease and convenience provided by his cool fleet of voice-enabled gadgets.
Skechers | Easy
This ad obviously shows an idealized version of what a future smart home could look like. Yet, by linking the easy and comfort of the smart home set-up to that of a pair of slip-on shoes, Sketchers made an interesting contrast between how unattainable the gadgets featured in the ad are to regular consumers and the mass availability of its shoes. You may not be able to afford to live like Tony Romo and enjoy all those fancy smart home gadgets, the ad seems to suggest, but at least you can buy a pair of Skechers and enjoys the easy comfort of not having to bother with shoelaces.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ads that featured the most positive depictions of technology came from the big tech companies themselves. Google, for example, released two ads for the big game, one focusing on how its search product has helped veterans to find jobs, and another one showcasing how its real-time translation tools, accessible through Google Assistant, have helped to connect people across the language barrier.
Google | Job Search for Veterans
Google | 100 Billion Words
Meanwhile, Microsoft came up with a commercial showcasing its new Xbox adaptive controller designed for players with limited mobility. By promoting the accessibility of its product, backed by some heart-warming testimonies from mobility-impaired kids, Microsoft made a strong case for the empowerment that technology could bring for marginalized groups.
Microsoft | We All Win
The common thread underneath these three ads is the emphasis they place on technology’s positive social impact. The examples used in these spots are highly emotional and life-affirming, and they each build up to a feel-good ending that paints technology as an enabler of a greater social good. But coming from the tech companies, they inevitably come off as rather self-serving and unconvincing to some.
Altogether, this year’s Super Bowl ads acutely depicted the widespread adoption of smart speakers and voice assistants, humorously addressed our growing anxiety towards automation, and offered some positive examples of technology’s social impact. The question we now face is how we can go on to deal with these unintended consequences of technology without losing sight of the positive changes that innovations can bring. Technology is a double-edged sword, as the saying goes, and it is in our hands.
For brand marketers looking to address some of these concerns, we highly recommend checking out our brand new 2019 Outlook report, which offers some actionable suggestions for brands looking to navigate the increasingly complex waters of innovation.
