The Power of the Ad

The power of the ad is incredible. The sights, sounds, and motions chosen to represent a brand in what is usually as little as 30 or 60 seconds (the Super Bowl is a unique circumstance) can have a significant impact on the potential buyer and those that may already be loyal users of the brand. Tunes and slogans can stick with people for years if they are catchy enough.

Dr. Chris showed us three Winston Cigarette commercials starring The Flintstones from 1960. He then prompted us to contact three people who were 50 years of age or older to see if they could finish the slogan “Winston tastes good…” My dad responded to my text immediately with “like a cigarette should.” My aunt and uncle did as well, and when I talked to my mom on the phone an hour after class ended, she sang it to me and clapped her hands! Winston sure did a good job of making their brand stand out, even over 50 years ago with the limited technology that was available.

 (VintageTvCommercials, 2009)

Last night was the Super Bowl, the biggest event for television ads of the year. According to Newsday, NBC charged an average of $3.5 million for each 30-second spot. That’s incredible, but the advertisers know it is worth it, as it is probably the only night of the year when people actually watch the commercials and don’t completely tune them out or change the channel to avoid them completely. Though countless of the Super Bowl commercials are always for cars and beer in order to reach the mostly male audience, some do appeal to women too through the sights, sounds, and motions used.

I am going to look at three here - three that differ from one another in the angle of their appeals. Two of these appeal to both men and women and one appeals solely to the male audience.

The first is a 60-second spot for Audi, entitled “Vampire Party.” Though the ad is for a car, just the use of vampires makes it appeal to women. The scene is set in a very “Twilight” and Edward Cullen way – it is dark out, the full moon is shining between the trees of the forest as indie music plays in the background, and we see vampires mingling around a campfire. Two even climb up a tree. Then it cuts to the hum of an engine as we see the Edward Cullen of the commercial speeding down the road with his O+ blood next to him on the floor. As he pulls up, we see from his perspective, all the other vampires bursting into flames and smoke as they scream and try to run away. Then, with a close up of the Audi headlights and some text to help, we realize the lights are so bright, they are like daylight, and thus burn the vampires to a crisp! This fate appeals to the male audience because the vampires do not survive and the focus is not on romance.

(AudiofAmerica, 2012)

The second is a rather long commercial (almost two and a half minutes), featuring actor Matthew Broderick and entitled “Matthew’s Day Off,” for the Honda CR-V. This is supposed to reference his 1986 movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” The commercial begins with a sideways view of Broderick in bed on the phone with what we can assume is his agent. He is coughing and has a raspy voice, clearly calling in sick. His agent, who is in the office, lets him off the hook, and that’s when things get wild. Broderick gets out of bed, pulls back the shades, and calls for his CR-V as we hear “Oh yeaaaahhh” in a man’s deep voice over and over in the background. As he drives down the perfectly paved street in his red CR-V, he is on his way “to live a little.” He goes to the amusement park where we see a roller coaster and hear the girl next to him screaming as it moves over the track. Later, when he is stopped at a traffic light and his agent pulls up next to him, the panda bear he won at the park blocks his agent from seeing him and the truth being found out. He goes to the Natural History Museum, where instrumental music plays and as he stares at a stuffed walrus; he does tai-chi on the beach; he goes to the race track and kisses a big African American woman sitting next to him as the crowd cheers; he goes to a Chinese street festival where the prominent color is red as the people march and dance through the streets. The message is then made perfectly clear with words: there are always things you have to do, but sometimes you just have to forget about them and “live a little.” Broderick even comes back after the viewer thinks the commercial is over and says, “Don’t you have something better to do? GO!” Again, the car aspect appeals to the male mostly, the celebrity appearance appeals mostly to the female, and the idea to “let go” sometimes can appeal to both sexes for sure.

 (Honda, 2012)

The third is a commercial for GoDaddy.com. This definitely appeals solely to the male audience, especially college-aged guys. It begins with two college-aged kids on a couch, one with a computer in his lap. He tells his friend he had a dream last night, and then we see that dream come to life. We hear an angel’s voice say “ahhh” in the background, and the guys are transported to “heaven” where female models await them. They are sitting on the “G” of GoDaddy’s Internet cloud and rock music begins to play (“Go Daddy” is in the lyrics). The main model tells them what to do to purchase a domain name as the mist from the clouds and light camouflage some of the other girl’s exposed bodies. After the guys ask if this is heaven, the model says “No, this is,” and she “exposes” herself as the angel voice sounds again, but the clouds and light block her nudity from view.

(i4unews, 2012)

I don’t believe these advertisements will have as much longevity as the Winston commercials of the 1960s because no real tune or slogan is established for the brand within them. Scenarios are built, but there is no tune that is used in them that might be used in the future or has been used by these companies in the past. There is nothing that is particularly catchy and would allow the viewer to remember the commercial and connect it to the brand it is associated with. These advertisements are all for good fun during the Super Bowl and are a competition for the most outrageous or most comical commercial in order to become one of the most memorable of the night, not the decade or the brand’s history.