I’m doing the hard work today – and all for you! I’m couch bound, laptop and beer in hand, here to bring you all the automotive commercials from tonight’s Super Bowl LI.
I’ll update this post, quarter by quarter, with every relevant commercial – after the jump!
Overtime – End Of Game
Hyundai
Shot during the thrilling overtime win by New England, Hyundai had a few extra minutes to finish it up.
Fourth Quarter
Alfa Romeo
Mozzafiato? A cheesy Fiat?
Mercedes-AMG
Born to be wild, indeed.
Third Quarter
Alfa Romeo
More Alfa. My God, what a beauty.
Kia
Melissa McCarthy, tree hugger.
Audi
Controversy, thy name is A5.
Second Quarter
Lexus
Very flexible people dancing. Despite that, an awesome car.
Alfa Romeo
OMFG Alfa Romeo.
Weathertech
Floor mats. Made In America. Laser Cut. Eight pages of ads in every car magazine ever.
Honda
The power of dreams. And the power of animating awful yearbook photos.
Buick
Superstar athlete, supermodel. Rinse, repeat.
First Quarter
American Petroleum Institute
OIL!!!
Michelin
Michelin continues to pull at the heartstrings with a not-so-subtle implication that your loved ones will die if they don’t have Michelins.
Ford
Right after the coin toss came Ford’s commercial.
Ford wants to sell bicycles now?
“Mobility solutions.”
Oh, my. I used to cringe when I saw a local dealer’s sales manager doing commercials: “Here’s a nicely equipped unit.” Now I’m trying to envision a customer in a Ford dealership saying, “I’m looking for a mobility solution that seats five and can handle a child’s car seat.”
So now the Super Bowl has been fully politicized. No longer a place where a few hours of respite can be enjoyed.
I miss the Budweiser frogs.
>So now the Super Bowl has been fully politicized. No longer a place where a few hours of respite can be enjoyed.
You can thank the WWE…err, I mean NFL for that.
I have to say this was the first time I have ever enjoyed a Buick commercial. Maybe GM got a new ad agency, as the normal one for Chevy at least, blows.
Does it make you want to go out and buy one? If not, the boys and girls in Marketing didn’t succeed.
God’s honest truth. I bought a Buick Lacrosse 1/31/17. 2014 though, Love it.
Here in the third quarter, NFC team I don’t care about is up 28-3 over the Deflators. Barring an incredible comeback, the bell has tolled for the storied franchise; the air has been let out, as it were.
Dude, seriously you need to shut up…
Them deflators still might win, dang it anyhow.
And they did.
That was crazy. By mid third quarter, I had pretty much given up on the game and was already hitting the thirty second skip every time a Falcons play ended with time still running.
Was the HD video quality good on the U.S. feed? My Bell feed had a lot of visible digital compression. I’m wondering if CTV is doing that when they take it over for the Canadian feed. Maybe the quality is being downgraded to try to sell us on the whole 4K thing. The SD channels got a lot worse after HD became common. Some are equivalent to a 240p Youtube video now.
My bad, I take complete responsibility. Since everything else is fake these days, #fakesports.
You forgot the goat was playing, lol.
I’m not a huge football fan but it’s nice to see a Michigan alum do well. Tom Brady’s success is also a comment on how poorly so many NFL teams evaluate talent. Every team in the league passed him by 5 times in the draft and even New England, which clearly has it together in terms of identifying talent, waited till the 6th round.
The NFL is in trouble and Brady is about the only good story they have. When Roger Goodell went to award the trophy to Mr. Kraft, the stadium filled with boos. There were people on camera right behind the podium booing him. Then, Kraft dissed Goodell and the league in his acceptance remarks, without getting specific.
Watching Goodell give Kraft the trophy reminded me of David Stern reluctantly giving the Bad Boys era Detroit Pistons the NBA trophy, or when Al Davis’ Raiders won the Super Bowl.
NFL would have been wiser to rig the playoff games for a better matchup, perhaps Dolphins-Packers (although in fairness to the NFL the Steelers had no business being in the playoffs and KC played pretty terribly too in the divisional game I saw so its not like there was a monster AFC team worth watching by the divisional round).
“Rigged” games? Not everything has to be a conspiracy. Sheesh.
$95 billion will change hands between NFL and college football. But, it couldn’t ever be rigged in any way, no ref could ever be influenced, and no player could be convinced to drop a pass or blow a play, right? Simply unpossible.
http://www.ibtimes.com/legalized-sports-gambling-americans-bet-95-billion-nfl-college-football-season-mostly-2089606
Tom Brady’s success is also a comment on how poorly so many NFL teams evaluate talent.
Yes a 1000 times yes. Every time some idiot spouts off with “But Team X has to take a (Insert Position Here) in the first round!” I think: “Why? They’ll likely turn out to be a bust who’s out of the league in two or three seasons.”
to be fair, MOST players in the NFL are gone in about three years. The father of one baseball prospect was a former NFL player who had played three years, and he urged his son to go with baseball because a star gets more money, and plays longer, and isn’t crippled at age 45.
He told his son outright: “NFL means not for long.” The father had been dropped in favor of a college kid who was a couple tenths faster in the 40, though by the time he learned how to evade tackles, HE’D be gone too.
Yeah the Giulia is beautiful, but such a huge question mark in the American marketplace. Will the brand still be in the market in 10 years?
I promise you they will.
Somewhere, in 10 years, some ductape and a safety pin is going to get an Alfa home. When the driver pulls out on the road after 3 hours of “mending”, he won’t be able to wipe the smile off his face.
That in mind, did Alfa ever REALLY leave us?
Or, did we leave Alfa?
Okay, I’m done, but the Giulia is pure sex running around on four rubbers. So, who cares? Ha its worth the risk.
Would love the manual here in the States, but we need regulations to keep us from hard stuffs, so… there’s that.
@John
No offense but you sound like a guy who has an untreatable STD and says: “But I got it from a supermodel! Totally worth it!”
:-P
Feels like Superbowl commercials jumped the shark a few years ago.
That was the first Super Bowl I’d watched since the 49er’s-Raven’s played like 4 years ago, and I can’t say the commercials were as good as I remembered.
Besides the first Busch Light commercial I’ve ever seen that showed off their new cans(hell yeah, that’s big deal in these parts! haha), and Alfa Romeo having what seemed like at least 20 commercials I pretty much remember nothing else. I hardly even remember some of the commercials up there.
Kia had the best commercial. 2nd place goes to Mr. Clean.
I agree. Everybody watching at my house busted out laughing at the whale and the tree segments.
My wife missed it, so I was describing it to her. I realized that although I remembered the setups pretty well I didn’t actually remember what the brand was.
Looks like Audi is having to backpedal on the “equal pay” ad and make justifications for why their male employees are paid more.
http://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2017/02/05/super-fail-audi-accidentally-debunked-their-dumb-super-bowl-ad-on-pay-equality/
Im sure it’s every other business that’s the problem. Or bogus stats used for political gain.
It’s hard to believe people still buy into the liberal wage gap nonsense. Most numbers do not account for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure or hours worked per week. Show me a woman making less than a man who is in the exact same position, with the exact same education, with the exact same experience, the exact same job performance, and the exact same salary negotiation skills.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html
Sshhh, your gonna anger the conspiracy theorists on here with all your truths.
audi completely blew it. But that should be expected from a company that forged emissions tests for years.
PS you dont or shouldnt judge a persons worth on what they are paid.
C’mon, man… how many Super Bowl ads have cello music in them and evil fat boys losing to a girl?
I seriously wonder about your priorities.
Audi goes with political correctness and ends up offending just about everyone (it’s folks on the left pointing out Audi’s all-male board). Meanwhile Sergio lets the Alfa Romeo marketing team go with sex in two out of three of their ads. There’s a lot of thigh and some very high heels at 0:13 of the “take your breath away” ad, and the second ad is a play on a Dear John letter from a woman who has found a better lover.
Sex sells.
For Alfa’s sake, lets hope so.
Audi blew the opportunity to present a heartwarming story with an on-the-nose and laughable voice over when, once again, you simply ask Audi to show proof of how they do (don’t) live up to the advertisement’s message.
At least Alfa knows what they’re selling.
All those legs brought to my attention was how little leg room there is in the back of an Alfa sedan. Her knees were right up against the driver’s seat. Unless she just happens to be freakishly tall, Alfa’s got a problem. We’ve seen how well the market responds to sporty, high-priced sedans with no leg room.
This is a conundrum. All those sexy models have long legs – they don’t have to be tall to make rear seat leg room look bad. They should use 13 year olds dressed to look older. One comedian noticed that about dating: “If she says she’s 21 but looks 18, she’s 13. “if she says she’s 21 but looks 21, she’s 50.”
Can anyone explain who the audience is for the American Petroleum Institute ad? What was the point of that? And will anyone be swayed by it?
Oil investors.
Please don’t leave us for solar and wind!
That ad was the first of a series of pro-oil ads in a campaign to put petroleum in a better light with the public. The industry has finally realized they have to counter the left’s demonization of oil. It’s not as snappy as the college kids chanting “burn calories, not oil”, but it’s a start.
Oil: You need it. Sponsored by Petroleum Producers and Refiners Cartel, er Association.
Melissa Mc Carthy totally nailed it, just like she did last Saturday on SNL. The other ads were just so incredibly booooooring. Still want that Giulia, though.
….and a Korean company did the most pro-American ad…
I just tried to build a Guilia with the V6, does that SOB really start at $75k? For $75k the engine better be a large V8 or a V10/V12.
No way I’m reading this right. I don’t see how the V6 could be more than a $1,000 option over the 4, neither engine looks good enough to sell for over $40k.
In defense of the Quadrifoglio it is quite fast, sounds powerful, and the V6 that Alfa uses has much better Ferrari credentials than the Pentastar Parmesan used in the Maseratis.
My bigger issue is that there is no in between on the Guilia range. You either buy a 280hp turbo-4 or spend the big bucks to get the 505hp cloverleaf. They really need a ~380hp in between somewhere.
Pentastar Parmesan…
Can I get a Caesar side salad with that?
That’s basically the M4/AMG competitor. The regular Giulia will be as sad looking as an Infiniti with its 17-inch wheels.
Interesting choice of car for the F-150 to pull out of the snow…