Well congrats to the Kansas City Chiefs. Their 2nd title in 4 years, cementing Pat Mahomes as one of the greatest and possible heir-apparent to Tom Brady. Great game with not too much controversy. Halftime performance was what it was. meh. I'd like to, however, talk about the Super Bowl commercials. As has been the trend, there wasn't an ad that jumped out as wholy original or fresh in any sense. The Tubi 'Rabbit Hole' commercial was probably the closest because as it started and progessed I found myself thinking 'What's going on here? Where's this going?' and for an advertisement that's a good thing. You had me engaged and interested. Big, giant bunnies grabbing people and then eventually throwing them down a big ole hole in the ground was actually very effective. It fit with the product they were advertising (a streaming service akin to Hulu and Sling TV). But that's about it. I realized while watching the ads that this was another year where creativity in Super Bowl ads was down again but didn't realize til I read this post by Defector.com's Laurent Theisen that they mostly just featured celebrities shilling stuff. Now, I don't care if any celebrity gets paid to do an ad for a product. It really doesn't piss me off or bother me (aside from Melissa McCarthy putting her husband in just about everything she does!). What bothers me is the lack of creativity in these commercials. Will Ferrell driving around in a GM electric vehicle for 60 seconds is okay but essentially that ad boiled down to 'Oh, look. Will Ferrell's in Squid Games and Stranger Things! Isn't that different!' It feels like the ad agency people who create these spots START at 'well, let's get Ben Affleck for a commercial.' and THEN the idea comes to them for the creative angle on the spot. When I did a morning radio show it was always preached that your first idea is just a starting point. If you actually stewed on the ideas you'd probably have something golden by the 4th or 5th idea. And THAT was what you put out over the airwaves (debatable as to how successful we were, but I digress). It feels like anymore that these ad agencies rely on 'celebrity appearance shorthand' when coming up with Super Bowl ads. That said, there's a lot of stuff I don't know. Like maybe the CEO of Dunkin (Donuts?) is insistent on a celebrity appearance in their ad. Maybe the star's reps came to the agency with an idea (a new form of PR management). Also, it's easier to know how the audience is gonna react when you have a well-established star on board. Jesse and Walter White for our potato chip commercial? Sure, people know what to expect with them for the most part. It's more risky for a company that's spending millions of dollars on a spot to do it with an unproven/unique creative idea than it is to just throw Melissa McCarthy into 4 wardrobe changes. Sidenote: We hear a lot of talk about how much it costs to advertise during the Super Bowl but what people forget is the budget of the CREATION of the spot. A high end commercial with an established director, crew and all would (guessing here) alone be about $500k-$1million. That's BEFORE the ad buy which is about $6million for a 30 second spot. Can you imagine the pitch all those years ago from the ad agency to the executives at careerbuilder.com? "Okay, so we open on a conference room and there's a bunch of monkeys..." Those executives must have been figuratively crapping themselves before that pitch meeting was over. It's probably just easier to say 'We'll pay Ben Affleck $200k to do the hidden camera drive-thru thing!' "YES! LEZ DO IT!" Now, is that inherently wrong? No. Not necessarily. But it's another example of the continued rot of creativity in advertising. The ads I remember and that 'stick' more are the ones that have a fresh approach to selling me a product. That have a new voice or feel to them. That have pushed boundaries and challenged us to wrap our heads around it and remember it. They put us to work and ultimately it's worth it because the message is so satisfying. Like we're in on it. Of course, I'm not losing sight of the fact that these are just commercials trying to sell me a product. They're NOT some discourse on the state of America or some Shakespeare masterpieces that were unearthed from behind a wall. I get it. It's just a car commercial. But aren't the car commercials better when they're new and inventive? I think so.