Even A.I. Companies Aim for Fun Over Frowns

Madison Avenue tapped the brakes on most somber Super Bowl commercials Sunday night, with many trying to do something Big Game ads haven’t always done — make people feel good.

A dizzying array of spots featured famous faces in frantic, frenetic scenarios, including Ben Stiller and Benson Boone trying to out-flip each other for delivery-service Instacart while dressed in throwback musicians costumes. Andy Samberg cavorted on behalf of Hellmann’s mayonnaise, dressed as some sort of off-kilter Neil Diamond wanna-be. And a bevy of “SNL” cast members past and present appeared throughout the night — Ana Gasteyer and Kenan Thompson for Wegovy; Colin Jost and Michael Che for DraftKings; Heidi Gardner for Homes.com and Apartments.com. Meanwhile, Bowen Yang joined up with frequent “SNL” guests Scarlett Johansson and Jon Hamm for Ritz Crackers.

“The feeling is pretty damn joyful,” says Ellie Bamford, chief strategy officer of North America for the large ad agency VML. She felt the commercials struck the right note, moving away from sad stories and playing up fun and nostalgia. In past Super Bowls, “brands have gone with things that felt too heavy, too divisive,” she says. This year, she says advertisers “swung away” from moralizing and “telling people what to think.”

“We can’t ignore the absurdity in the ads this year,” says Erin Sarro, a creative director at Two Tango Collaborative, an advertising consortium based in Richmond. The Instacart ad, she says, “offered a fever dream” with Stiller and Boone looking like “an Italian mustache new wave duo.”

Other commercials played up the surreal. Liquid I.V., a hydration mix for water, unveiled a commercial filled with toilets and commodes singing a cover of an old Phil Collins song. Budweiser struck a chord Sunday night with a spot that told the tale of one of its Clydesdale horses growing up alongside an American bald eagle — all to the strains of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s classic “Free Bird.” Ben Affleck returned for his fourth Super Bowl effort for Dunkin’, this time luring Jennifer Aniston, Tom Brady, Jason Alexander, Jasmine Guy, Tom Brady and Jaleel White for a spot that evoked 1990s sitcoms.

The Instacart executive behind the company’s offbeat Super Bowl entry says consumers always appreciate “levity and joy” as well as “a moment of escapism.”

To be sure, several spots tried to make people ponder bigger issues. A commercial from Rocket Mortgage and Redfin showed viewers the story of two families — one white, one Latino — who viewed each other skeptically until the Latino family’s daughter finds the white family’s lost dog. Advertising agency executives praised the intent, and the decision to commission Lady Gaga to sing the “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” theme from “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” But they also suggested the spot skated past some difficult issues tied to race and class.

The sheer glut of happy ads may drown out some of the more serious or innovative creative choices. “We know what works in the Super Bowl,” says Omid Amidi, co-chief creative officer of McKinney, an agency based in Durham, NC. “It’s mostly celebrities, a music cover, animals and puppies. It just feels like we are really playing the hits, without taking any swings.”

Viewers were inundated with messages from a swell of A.I. companies. Amazon aimed for humor, with Chris Hemsworth expressing fear of what his new Alexa assistant might do to him. Anthropic threw a sharp elbow at rival Open AI with a spot that made fun of a decision to incorporate commercials into a tier of ChatGPT. For its part, Open AI tried to make people forget their worries about the technology.

“They are showing up as any industry that is so young would, and starting to figure out all the different places they might take,” says Daniel Lobatón chief creative officer, North America, for David, a Miami agency. “Some are more serious and earnest.”

Getting a Super Bowl ad to hit all the high notes is tough, says Rob Reilly, glolbal chief creative officer of WPP. “It’s hard to make these things. It is really difficult. There are a lot of people who are involvled in decision making, and a lot of cooks in the kitchen.”

Some executives wondered if the Dunkin’ ad, for all its celebrities, missed the mark. “It really didn’t quite pay off,” says Bamford. In past efforts, the company spent more time making sure its doughnuts and coffee got more screen time.

Balancing celebrities and marketing messages can be a difficult assignment notes Diane Sayler, a senior director at Mars Snacking who oversees marketing for the company’s salty snacks, during a recent interview. “In my opinion, one of the worst possible things that can happen to a Super Bowl marketer is they remember your celebrity or your song or your ad concept, but not your brand.” Mars’ Pringles tapped Sabrina Carpenter for its Super Bowl commercial, but played up attributes of the snack. In most scenes of the ad, the singer or other around her were seen eating one chip after another — a nod to a revived slogan, “Once you pop, the pop don’t stop.”

An unorthodox ad from Coinbase also spurred debate. The spot used very little in the way of glitzy production, instead giving viewers what looked like a karaoke screen in a bar, and spurred them to sing along to a Backstreet Boys song. In 2022, the cryptocurrency company ran a similar effort, putting a floating QR code on screen — and nothing else. “It’s their schtick,” says Bamford.

“Have we gotten to a point where we are over-celebriti-ed? I don’t know,” says Reilly. “It seems to be the thing people enjoy.”