Title: Super Bowl LII
Genre: Sports
Platform: TV – NBC
Release: February 4, 2018
Cast: Philadelphia Eagles vs. New England Patriots
Feature image: Source
Did you catch the Super Bowl LII? Last year the Atlanta Falcons blew a 28-3 lead to lose to the New England Patriots. I was still mad about it until last night when the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Patriots in an exciting game, 41-33. I was afraid that the Patriots were going to pull this one out in the end, but the spirit of Rocky Balboa must have stepped in, because the Eagles held on. Even my brother, a leading Cowboy fan and Eagles hater was happy about the outcome, when you beat the Patriots, you’ve answered the prayers of a grateful nation. To all the Patriots fans out there, my condolences [Ha Ha]. We aren’t here to discuss the game itself, but the television event, mainly the commercials and halftime show. I’ll discuss the halftime show quickly. Justice for Janet! That didn’t happen, Justin Timberlake gave a very adequate show. It was professional and competent. Fortunately he didn’t do the Prince hologram, just a large video of the Purple One. There weren’t any wardrobe malfunctions, just your run of the mill halftime show. Now to the commercials.
Last year, many of the commercials were politically-minded or socially-conscious. This wasn’t the trend this year. There were a few inspirational commercials, but most of them attempted humor, to varying degrees of success. Of course I’m not going to cover every commercial, because I missed some of them, and I’m sure you don’t want a complete review. I’m just going to cover the ones that stood out to me. Strangely, I found two of the telecommunication companies, T-Mobile, and Verizon to have two of the most inspirational commercials during the game, Little Ones and Answering the Call. Budweiser’s Stand by Me was also moving.
The NFL had a good commercial celebrating touchdown celebrations, [something until this year they actively were against] Dirty Dancing. I wonder if Eli will even be a Giant next season. The ‘Crocodile Dundee’ sequel isn’t a movie but a tourism campaign from Tourism Australia. It was a fun advertising campaign and it was great they were able to get some of their biggest stars to take part in it. The ‘Dilly Dilly’ commercials continued with Ye Olde Pep Talk and the Bud Knight. The campaign has been good enough to nearly get me to buy a Bud Light. There were so many Turbo Tax commercials airing during the game that I thought about doing my taxes after the game. Of course that would end my long standing practice of procrastination. The best was the Thing Under the Bed. I would hate to see it under mine. Here in Austin, some people think that because they mentioned Austin in the beginning of the Alexa commercial, that it’s a sign we are going to get Amazon’s second headquarters. That would be hilarious. The commercial was funny, especially Cardin B. My favorite commercial were the Tide ads. It’s a Tide Ad was a series of meta Super Bowl ads during the game that manage to look like a beer, truck, low-rate insurance, and a faux Amazon Alexa ads. The star of the commercial, David Harbour says it’s the clean clothes that make them a Tide ad. Harbour: “So, does this make every Super Bowl ad a Tide ad?” So throughout the game there would be familiar commercials like The Old Spice commercial and that creepy Mr. Clean commercial that turned out to be Tide ads. It was very clever and funny. I think Tide will be the commercial people will remember in the future.
There was one commercial that really got my goat. You probably know which commercial I’m talking about. The Dodge MLK commercial, the very definition of tone deaf. Dodge took an excerpt from one of Dr. King’s final sermons, “The Drum Major Instinct” to see a truck. What makes it so crazy is that part of the sermon talked about the dangers of commercials. Someone took that part of the sermon and played it over the commercial. Here’s an idea, don’t take Dr. King’s, or any other great leaders words to sell your products.
There was a heavy emphasize on commercials for movies and television programs. The big movies were Solo: A Star Wars Story, Mission Impossible: Fallout, The Avengers: Infinity War, and A Quiet Place, a movie that wasn’t on my radar, but the trailer peaked my interest. The television ads were for Westworld, Jack Ryan, and Castle Rock. Netflix showed the trailer for Cloverfield Paradox and released it after the game. That could be a game changer for movie distribution. The Jeep Jurassic commercial was a better trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom than its trailer. I’ll be back with Did You Catch… for the Oscars.
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