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Time to celebrate America, undiagnosed head trauma, and the greatest marketing teams in all the land on Sunday night with the fifty-fourth chapter of The Big Game.
It’s an excuse to eat and drink to excess — but many people don’t need an excuse. More, it’s the one time per year where most people won’t be waiting for commercial breaks to get up and pee, since the commercials are often the best part of the night.
As I have no rooting interest in the game — I’m from Ohio, which means the only truly professional team here isn’t eligible since it plays in the NCAA, and my Wisconsin roots are disappointed in the Packers — you know I’ll be hitting pause on the DVR to re-watch the greatest short films trying to sell me something. And I’ll have my laptop at the ready, posting new commercials as they appear.
So be sure to come back Sunday night and keep me company as I (sorta) liveblog the Super Bowl automotive commercials. Many of them have already hit the virtual airwaves, so here’s a pregame rundown:
Porsche
Porsche returns to the Super Bowl for the first time in many years with a long spot highlighting its electric Taycan, making the EV sedan look as fun to drive as the company’s heritage cars — including the epic Penske/Donohue 917-30.
Hyundai
Hyundai clearly was betting on the Patriots to make it to the big game this year, as they’ve enlisted Boston-area stars to highlight the Smart Parking feature on the new Sonata. Excuse me: Smaht Pahk.
Audi
Audi triggered parents with kids of a certain age (those who blossomed around the time Frozen became available on BluRay) with actress Maisie Williams singing Let It Go. I’m reminded of a combo birthday/Halloween party for my youngest where we had roughly a dozen Elsas singing this all damned night. I’d have gotten in an E-Tron and driven away, too.
Chrysler
Kathryn Hahn reprises her role as snarky, Pacifica-driving mom — though if you read between the lines, it’s not completely clear that Chrysler plans to show this during the game.
Kia
Kia focuses on the problem of youth homelessness by highlighting Josh Jacobs, a first-year professional running back who occasionally had to live in a car with his dad as he grew up.
I’m including a second video here — a brief documentary about Jacobs’ young life.
GMC/Hummer
As Chad pointed out yesterday, Hummer is back — as an EV pickup under the GMC umbrella. They’ve teased the reveal with a couple of brief spots:
This is all that’s hit Youtube as of publication. Check back Sunday night, and I’ll post videos as they appear during the game.
God help us.
I am here at your service. What do you want?
GM is using Mustangs to sell electric Hummers?
Imagine devoting any second of your life to purposefully watching, or being excited for commercials.
Imagine devoting any second of your life to purposefully watching, or being excited to watch sweaty men run into each other at speed.
That’s exactly right. I still cannot understand it. But I watch Soccer World Cup every 4 years.
ROLO
RIGHT ON
C Tonn
YES.
Book ‘Against Football’ by Chris Almond
Hehe, the Sonata ad made me laugh, helps that I like all three actors. The Porsche one was a good concept but I found the juxtaposition of American accents and very Germanic setting jarring.
The Porsche one also requires a heaping suspension of disbelief that;
– A Taycan could be driven from the dead of night through mid-morning without depleting the battery (even at normal speeds, let alone what’s being shown)
– Health and safety would allow anything to be stored indoors with more than a gallon or so of gas in the tank
– That the Porsche museum hires exclusively professional grade drivers to work as their security team, as none of the cars (even the old 930) were written off by someone getting in over their head
– That absolutely no one around has a camera phone that could’ve gotten the lot of them fired.
Yes, get off my lawn while we’re at it.
Porsche was dreadful. Not befitting the highest level of auto dom. Just crap.
I think i ll skip the game.
Between this one and what do I tell my daughter, does anyone actually enjoy this preachy, condescending crap Audi put out?
I remember watching the first one on a small b&w tv in the basement of our fraternity house in Michigan. Apparently the only recording of this game is in private hands and not available to view.
Literally every other car in that Audi commercial are more attractive than those E-Trons.
A moron is born every minute. Grats on being the target audience for this idiocy. Thank God I don’t HAVE to watch the commercials, I can get the feed that goes to the company logo during them, which gives me time to tab out and do something else.
Here’s an article about the upcoming Jeep spots which riff on Groundhog Day.
I grew up near Woodstock, IL where much of the movie was filmed. The locals were excited to have Bill Murray back in town.
http://www.motor1.com/news/396211/jeep-super-bowl-commercial-teasers/
http://www.facebook.com/thethoughtfulnessshop/photos/a.10155707222450294/10163229771015294
LAME
Best ad is going to be the WeatherTech ad featuring Scout and the University of Wisconsin’s veterinarian program…a rich guy using $6M of his own money on an ad to promote their program. I just ordered a mat set for my wife’s car and made a donation to the program. Good move WT…
The automotive industry spends about $18 Billion a year on U.S. market advertising. That’s roughly $1,060 for each new vehicle sold.
If you bought a new car in the past year, did you get *your* money’s worth for that thousand bucks? Enjoy the commercials.
In roughly 20 minutes, the first Pre-Pre Game Show starts; a mind and butt numbing 6 1/2 hours before Kick-off.
Apparently, I’m in Akismet Moderation.