One of them is for the snack brand Popcorners featuring Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad. It’s got some great moments in it that I think fans of the show will enjoy. 

Another is a very interesting engagement-driven campaign coming out from Doritos. It’s a partnership between Doritos and Snapchat. I’m positive this will drive buzz, but will be curious to see the level of engagement beyond current Snapchat users. It seems like it will play extremely well to the current user base, but growth and sponsorship dollars are serious needs of Snap. It will be interesting to see the post-campaign impressions and engagement data.

BU Today: What kind of tone are advertisers trying to strike this year? We’re in a post-pandemic world, so do you think the ads will have less gravitas than previous years?

Sullivan: I absolutely do. I think last year there was a much more thoughtful, sort of serious tone based on what was going on with consumers and in the country. I think this year is back to what I consider the waffle, which is that over-the-top, real focus on humor, with strong, strong celebrities.

Gould: This year is all about A-list celebrities. If you’re gonna play at the highest level, brands seem to have decided it doesn’t matter if the idea needs a celebrity, they are bringing a celebrity into it. So everyone from Dave Grohl to Brian Cox to Aaron Paul to Alicia Silverstone to Melissa McCarthy. These are big, not washed-up names, and I think in the past we might have seen B-list celebrities, or they dug up people from a long time ago. 

There’s a Bud Light spot with Miles and Keleigh Teller. If this ad had no celebrities in it, I don’t think anybody would even care about it. Even with a celebrity in it, I’m not sure it’s that good.

There is a Nick Jonas spot for Dexcom, which is a smart diabetes reader. Nick Jonas, if you don’t know, is diabetic. He makes a spot special because he’s Nick Jonas, but the spot itself isn’t overly entertaining. It’s smart, and it has some good moments. But what’s really brilliant about this play is that this brand isn’t interested in entertaining the hell out of you. The decision they’ve made is that this is a captive audience of hundreds of millions of people, many of whom are diabetic and want a better solution. And now we’ve got an A-list celebrity, who is also diabetic, endorsing this. 

They don’t care if they come out in the top 10. They are exposing themselves to an audience who needs this help while the technology is still making its way into the mainstream. It’s a brilliant move because once you start [with Dexcom], what’s going to make you switch, right?

Sometimes what’s worth looking at is who is using the Super Bowl as an opportunity to grow their business in a creative way. 

BU Today: Last year many companies used QR codes in their ads. Can you talk about the ways ad agencies are trying to up the creativity ante this year?

Gould: Anytime Fitness is not running ads during the Super Bowl. But what’s interesting is if you hear the word “anytime” during the Super Bowl and tweet about it, you can be entered to win free gym memberships and a vacation to anywhere in the world where there’s an Anytime Fitness. 

And when you talk about integrated and creative marketing in and around the Super Bowl, this is a super compelling way to do it. It counts on people being aware that this is a behavior that you need to engage in to win something, which is a risk.

Advertising itself is about creativity, and the Super Bowl is the height of creativity, so anything close to what was done last year would be seen as derivative. People are there to be entertained. There’s a high percentage of people who are there to see the football game, and there’s a high percentage of people who just want to be at a house party, eat good food, and laugh at commercials. And so why would you want to see something that you’ve seen before? 

BU Today: How big a deal is it for the beer industry that Anheuser Busch ended its Super Bowl national advertising contract this year?

Sullivan: I think it is a big deal for the beer industry. However, there have been lots of workarounds [in other years], which is why they didn’t take exclusivity this year. Anheuser Busch had exclusivity just within the actual national Super Bowl broadcast, but any beer brand could buy a spot at a [regional] TV station. 

I worked on some Super Bowl ads, and at that time, Miller, Coors, Heineken, and Corona were going into the local markets. Anheuser Busch is saying that we absolutely are the biggest and best beer advertiser in the Super Bowl, and we’re going to show that through the creatives that we do.

BU Today: Michelle, given your long tenure with the Boston Beer Company, what are your thoughts about the “Your Cousin’s Brighter Boston” ad?

Sullivan: I think they did a really good job. My role was in brand management, so I’m always thinking about the brand, not just the advertising itself. I’m thinking about how it goes back to the position and the messages they want to drive home for the brand. And I think they did a really good job of that because they’ve just changed the formula for Boston Lager, which is their original recipe, and they’ve made it “brighter,” easier to drink, and less bitter. So in their spot, they’re positioning Boston as a “brighter, lighter” city. So I feel like the creative is [asking], “What do we want people to remember?” And they want people to remember Boston Beer’s Boston Lager is brighter. I feel like they did a good job. 

For me, there’s a lot of money wasted in the Super Bowl. There is a notion of, “What is this ad telling me about the brand? Does it really connect to a compelling brand message?” It might be good entertainment, but it’s not necessarily changing my mind or building a new association for the brand. 

So I think for that reason, Boston Beer Company has done a good job of creating a message that sticks through the narrative that we see going on in the spot.

BU Today: What makes a successful Super Bowl spot?

Gould: It depends on what your goal is when you create it. If there are between 60 and 70 spots in a Super Bowl, nobody wants to look at that ad meter and be at the bottom, the least memorable. But many brands go into the Super Bowl and run ads not designed to win.

So brands have to ask themselves, what are our expectation levels for running this ad? What do we want to get out of it? If all it is is exposure to hundreds of millions of eyeballs, then that’s successful. But if your goal is to be remembered, then you have to up the ante and spend the big money and go super creative and take risks.

I remember being struck by the Monster.com “When I grow up” spot from a long time ago. I thought the “It’s a Tide ad” laundry detergent ad was brilliant, and I play it in class because it interestingly took genres like jewelry and automotive advertising and lampooned the fact that they all are done in a particular way, while at the same time breaking the category of what a detergent ad could be. 

Sullivan: I think almost every year, with the pandemic being the exception, we see many ads feature a combination of humor and celebrity. But sometimes it’s the different approach that breaks through the clutter. 

In 2020, there was a Google ad called “Loretta” that featured an older gentleman who had lost his wife and was going through memory loss. He was using Google to look back at their photos to remind himself of their good times. And that ended up being one of the most talked-about ads.

The Super Bowl is a very social and lighthearted atmosphere. But ads like “Loretta” last the test of time. The Budweiser 9/11 ad that Doug worked on, that one’s still on the top. 

A lot of times it’s the one that takes a different approach; those end up being the ones that have staying power and get talked about year after year, and have been influential in culture and the advertising industry.