How Tide Won The Super Bowl

As I sit down to write about this year’s Super Bowl, my shirt is extremely clean, so this must be a #tidead. For those outside of the marketing and advertising industry, the Super Bowl is essentially the “Super Bowl” of our industry. Wait, that might be redundant. Regardless, the best of the best creative professionals in the industry did one of three things this Super Bowl:

● Re-established their dominance or broke onto the scene

● Continued with the status quo

● Severely damaged their reputations

Remember that each idea you saw during breaks of the game started in a conference room brainstorming session. The quality of that session may have been the most important part of the whole process, because if the ideas that resulted didn’t have a winner among them, the project was doomed from the beginning. Just ask the agency that came up with the TurboTax campaign.

That being said, there was some brilliant creative on display this year. I already mentioned Tide and will talk more about its advertising a little later, but what Tide did was unexpectedly brilliant for a company that makes laundry soap. Doritos always does a great job with the Super Bowl, and this year was no exception. Australia Tourism fooled us all, which was a pleasant surprise.

Unfortunately, some companies or agencies decided that the creative they’ve already been running for several months was so good that it made sense to run in $5 million minimum ad buy. To be clear, this was a bad idea. Spend another million bucks in production and put a good product on the screen for consumers to watch. Needless to say, some of the ads resembled Mark Sanchez’s butt fumble from years ago. You bought the most coveted ad space in the world and ran a commercial that has been running since September? Butt fumble.

And local companies, don’t think I’m excluding you from the discussion. Just because you have smaller budgets than Doritos — who can afford to put a lip-syncing Peter Dinklage breathing fire on screen — doesn’t give you an excuse to put your boring ad in the commercial breaks dedicated to local programming. Put your big boy/girl pants on and come up with a fresh, creative idea that looks like it belongs in the Super Bowl. Don’t be like a local company who shall remain nameless and just make everyone confused and uncomfortable. Many of the local companies were just like Tom Brady on Sunday: they dropped the ball.

Kudos to Mountain America Credit Union who put some thought and money into its spot and looked like it belonged. The production quality, message and talent were on point.

But, without further ado, here are my picks for the winners and losers from yesterday’s game:

Winners:

1. Tide — This annual event of men clashing with each other in an epic battle on the gridiron was actually won by a clean, softening laundry soap. Tide partnered with several companies who have made memorable Super Bowl ads in the past and got us to wonder if every ad was going to be a #tidead. The multiple-spot campaign reminded us all that if it’s clean, it’s gotta be Tide.

2. Australia Tourism — Three weeks ago, a teaser trailer for the new Crocodile Dundee film came out, which looked like a funny, compelling story about the Australian hero. During the big game, what began as a continuation of this trailer ended up showing off all of the amazing things the exotic destination has to offer. Halfway through the trailer, it became clear that we’d all been fooled by a creative showcase that left us all wanting to visit the land down under.

3. NFL/Eli Manning — While the messaging may have been a little weak, the acting and execution of this spot were right on. Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr. — along with many other players on the Giant’s team — did an incredible job of making us all laugh and displaying memorable performances. It appeared to simply be a branding spot for the NFL during its biggest branding moment of the year, but the fun factor for this spot made it a winner.

4. Toyota — Not all spots have to be funny to be effective. The first spot in the Super Bowl was Toyota’s mini-documentary about the life of Lauren Woolstencroft. The Paralympian was born without feet and managed to become an incredible skier. Toyota’s message was simple: Toyota provides mobility for all. There were several similar spots to follow, but none made as powerful of an emotional connection as the first. An interesting tidbit was the Japanese auto manufacturer’s effort to connect with the American buyer by tying into American patriotism through the Olympics.

5. Febreeze — Apparently there’s only one man in the world whose #bleepdontstink. Febreeze introduced the world to Dave and reminded us that Dave isn’t coming to our party, so we’d better have some Febreeze handy. This was a great, creative use of the product done with memorable humor. If only I had seen the spot before I hit the grocery store to stock up for the game since Dave definitely didn’t come to my party.

Losers:

1. The Super Bowl/NBC — There were 30 seconds of black screen during one of the commercial breaks. This could have been an ad for Febreeze, Charmin or Kohler toilets, because somehow the media giant flushed $5.5 million dollars down the toilet. There is no excuse for black screen during the most anticipated advertising event in the world.

2. Squarespace — Keanu Reeves spent 30 seconds riding a motorcycle and speaking into the camera. I’m sure Keanu built something really cool, but I’m watching the game. I’m not going to pull up Squarespace to see what Keanu built. At least give me a reason to go there. Let’s not forget that it’s been a while since Keanu made a good movie, so why should we have high expectations for his website?

3. TurboTax — I’m sorry if I seem upset, but if you are going to buy ad space in the Super Bowl, please don’t run the same lame ad you’ve been running for months. Nobody wants to hear weird monsters talk about taxes. It wasn’t funny when it cost $1000, and it certainly wasn’t funny when it cost $5 million.

4. Persil Cleaning — Sorry Persil. You were upstaged, outmatched, beaten and destroyed by Tide. Nobody will remember your standard guy in a tux saying our shirts could be cleaner if we used Persil. Maybe next year you won’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

5. Skechers — Howie Long may have played football, but does anyone really believe he wears your shoes? You had 15 seconds of screen time and you basically just gave us a metaphor for the comfort of your shoes. I can’t wait to hear the ROI on that one.

Note: Some may wonder why I didn’t include the Amazon Alexa ad with Jeff Bezos. I’m having a difficult time celebrating a spot that is entirely based around a product defect (Alexa losing her voice). Because I couldn’t reconcile that in my head, I didn’t include it in the winners or losers category. The creative was great, and the spot was fun, but the product defect disconnect is why it’s not in the winner category for me.

In the end, the Super Bowl proves that great creative is still the difference maker in advertising. You can spend all the money in the world, but if your creative is no good, getting an ROI is a pipe dream. However, great creative is worth every penny. The winners came up with original ideas that won the day. The losers presented forgettable ads that have been seen time and time again with a different logo on the screen. If you’re going to spend the money, make your ads clean and original, like a tide ad.