WHOLESOME: The 2018 Super Bowl commercials challenge normal standards with a more innocent approach to advertising compared to the past.
By Kelsey Chamberlain, Staff Writer
For 52 years, the Super Bowl has served as an evening of elation and anticipation for citizens across the country, bringing together families and comrades alike to curl up in front of the television for a few hours, munch on chips, and cheer on their favored team. Although the football game itself is certainly the star of the show, an unforgettable part of the evening will always be Super Bowl commercials. Major brands and businesses put their heart and soul into these advertisements, aired once during the game and never again, after still being seen by a majority of the country. According to Business Insider, in 2017 a 30 second Super Bowl commercial would cost a business a colossal sum of over $5 billion. At that hefty cost for a commercial aired only once, it is pretty obvious that any brand would want their advertisement to be clever and memorable in order to attract extortionate customer sales. Unfortunately, some brands attempt to stand out a bit too hard with their commercials, and this can attract negative attention and controversy. Typically, there are several advertisements that fit this category each year, but the 2018 Super Bowl took a much more wholesome approach to advertising.
What exactly makes a controversial Super Bowl commercial? There is no sole definition of what can cause controversy, but there are certainly numerous examples. Whether it is sexist and lewd like several Carl’s Jr. commercials or homophobic like the 2007 Snickers commercial that featured two men accidentally kissing and wanting to do something “manly” to redeem themselves, many Super Bowl commercials try so hard to be clever, funny, or just plain memorable that they end up putting the wrong message across. Probably one of the best examples of these controversial advertisements in 2018 was a Ram Trucks commercial. The commercial, running just above a minute, featured numerous scenes of people helping others with a Martin Luther King, Jr. speech in the background, with the text “Built to Serve” and the Ram logo flashing onto the screen at the end. It is highly disrespectful to use King’s speech, which discussed overspending on car sales, in order to sell cars. Ram’s commercial was probably meant to be positively influential and inspiring, but easily comes off to the audience as practically mocking King’s message.
Despite the disappointing aspects of the Ram Truck commercial, the remainder of Super Bowl commercials were generally positive. The National Football League (NFL) itself had a commercial featuring Odell Beckham Jr. and Eli Manning dancing to “Time Of My Life,” from Dirty Dancing, stating at the end “To all the touchdowns to come.” This serves as a positive way to combat fragile masculinity while creating some laughs. An advertisement for Jeep Wrangler vehicles uses the family favorite film Jurassic Park to attract attention to its car; it showed the famous scene from the film where the main characters were being chased by a tyrannosaurus rex. Instead of the car used in the movie, it was a Jeep Wrangler that escapes the dinosaur. One of the most touching commercials was from Budweiser in which viewers see a Budweiser factory switching gears into their emergency water program that cans water for disaster victims. Many viewers may not have been aware of this Budweiser program, and this commercial probably brought the company business as it persuades the audience that they are helpful and are giving back to the community.
Regardless of controversy in the past, this year’s Super Bowl advertisements were a lot tamer than expected. Instead of trying to be raunchy or inappropriate to spark attention, most of the commercials stuck to positive themes and good old-fashioned humor to appeal to a more lighthearted audience.