It is not surprising to us that marketers use whatever means necessary to separate us from our money. They would even admit as much. But it is surprising, at times, to see what depths they will sink in order to accomplish their goal.
The Super Bowl has long been marked as an American tradition, both for the game it represents and the marketing it provides. Ranked annually as the most-viewed television program of the year, there is no wonder Madison Avenue invests as much time into the game as the football teams themselves.
As somebody who has developed a great frustration over our consumer-driven culture, I often watch the commercials, not for entertainment’s sake, but to determine the underlying promises being offered behind the products. I am rarely pleased with what I find.
Often times, we discover marketers making promises they can’t possibly keep. Here were eight I noticed during this year’s Super Bowl.
8 Empty Promises in this Year’s Super Bowl Ads
1. An Automobile Can Make You a Better Parent. Hyundai.
Parenting is hard work. It requires intentionality, observation, wise counsel, strategy, and follow-through. And I get a little worried when a car manufacturer makes the claim that their vehicle can help me do it better.
Certainly, there is always room for new tools to parent better. But spending tens of thousands of dollars at a local car lot to buy a car I can track on my phone will never replace the parental impact of hard work, significant conversation, appropriate boundaries, and quality time.
2. A Television Can Prevent You from Missing Out. CBS.
I don’t know if there is any product in the world better at promoting its own self-interests than television. When we watch anything, we are bombarded with advertisements promoting other programs.
The networks, of course, are quite calculated in how they do this. Most often they feed on our fear of missing out by highlighting “This Year’s Most Watched Program,” “This Year’s Best New Series,” or “This Week’s Can’t Miss Game of the Year.” Each time, they subtly implant into our minds the false reality that everyone is watching. And with it, they include a promise they will never fulfill: the best way to never miss out on life is to spend it in front of a television.
3. A Candy Bar Can Give You Unparalleled Confidence. Butterfinger.
Over the years, I have noticed countless manufacturers promise their product will grant more self-confidence—cologne, cars, and clothing, just to name a few.
But this year, a candy bar made the same claim— that, somehow, chocolate covering a flaky, crisp, peanut butter-flavored center can make a person bolder than bold. This is a promise I may never understand—other than the fact that marketers routinely try to promise self-confidence packaged in their unique product.
4. A Body Spray Will Help You Discover Your Most Powerful Uniqueness. Axe.
Axe Body Spray is no stranger to attention and critique. Since 2003, they have made a name for themselves portraying various ways their products supposedly help men attract women. Teenage boys have worn their scent ever since.
This year, their promise was nuanced. While they did make a point to remind consumers that their product makes men irresistible to women, they also indicated their product will help wearers discover their most powerful uniqueness. How wearing the same scent as everyone else helps a young man discover his uniqueness, I’ll never know.
5. An App Can Get You a Mortgage (and all the stuff you’ve always wanted). Quicken Loans.
In one of the oddest commercials of the night, Quicken Loans promised its users quick, easy home ownership—mortgages seemingly available to anyone with a smart phone. And because home ownership inevitably results in more purchasing (lamps and blenders and couches), home ownership makes mortgages even more accessible to others as the cycle of demand increases.
I understand convenience is helpful and to a point, their premise is correct. Convenience and accessibility is a major driver in our compulsion to acquire. But the idea that making mortgages accessible to everyone is a smart move for our country fails to recognize the lessons we learned the hard way over the previous decade. I was glad to see The Washington Post renounce it so quickly.
6. A Watch Can Make You Stronger. Fitbit.
Our society loves shortcuts. And marketers love to manipulate this tendency whenever possible—especially when it comes to matters of health. The Fitbit watch advertisement is a good example. In this ad, consumers who wear the medal and plastic device around their wrist often display superior strength and health compared to those around them.
Fitbit had a strong Christmas mostly because of their subtle claims that wearing their product will get you into shape. Indeed, the watch may provide some helpful tools. But when it comes to matters of health, few things have changed within the human body. It still requires discipline and intentional effort—there are no shortcuts.
7. Watching Football Can Improve Intimacy With Your Spouse. Super Bowl Babies.
Certainly the NFL deserves credit for originality. Their internal data suggests Championship-winning cities see an increase in babies born nine months after the Super Bowl. Never mind the fact that “data suggests” is the strongest wording they felt comfortable using, they needed the studies to reinforce their promise: Football brings families together and may, if your team wins, result in more than your team getting lucky.
I won’t argue with their presumption because I haven’t seen the studies. And while the commonality of football may offer some bonding opportunities for families, I have a hard time believing football is an aphrodisiac in most interpersonal relationships.
8. A Fast Food Cheeseburger is Historically Delicious (and Healthy). Jack in the Box.
Fast food restaurants are not unique in making promises they can never fulfill. Chips, soda, and countless other processed foods do the same. Jack in the Box, perhaps with tongue-in-cheek, made the claim that their new Double Cheeseburger is “historically delicious.”
But this year, not only do they make empty promises concerning their burger’s flavor, they also make the claim that their new double cheeseburger is also healthy. Oh, they wouldn’t make the claim with actual words, that would be too obvious. Instead, they rely on image association. In their commercial, the new burger is offered to a healthy, fit, young jogger who gladly accepts the burger and proceeds to take a large bite out of it. The juxtaposition is clearly orchestrated and meant to instill a specific message and promise—this fried double-burger served with processed cheese and mayo is not bad for you. In fact, it is consistent with a healthy lifestyle.
As with most of the empty promises contained in this year’s Super Bowl ads, we ought to know better.
Cindy says
I realized just how much reading becomingminimalist has helped me see how much junk we all accumulate when I thought of minimalism during the rocket mortgage (Quicken Loans) commercial. Buy a home! Easy! Buy stuff to fill that home! Easy! Are we happy yet??
Laurie Burton says
The Super Bowl game is close to Valentine’s Day. That could explain the babies.
Jenn says
Probably the most likely cause of babies.
Tobi says
Valentine’s Day could be used as a correlation for an increase in all babies, but not if the uptick is only seen in cities where teams have just won the Super Bowl. Just, you know, logic.
ASJ says
I remember learning that Super Bowl was the highest night for domestic violence if the team the man wanted to win did not win. I wonder if that is true any longer?
Judy says
It’s true! And THAT’S why I found the Superbowl Babies ad offensive. Do we NOT see the reality of it?
Judy says
And throw in too much alcohol…not a pretty picture.
Chuck Murray says
As an advertising agency owner, it is important to note who the target audience is. I agree most of the commercials were horrible yet, some were very creative. The commercials my generation do not like, I am 54, are not targeted towards us. Ex: Doritos, Quicken, Axe.
I liked the Honda commercial with the sheep and Queen song. Got its message across, was entertaining and memorable. BAAAA
Judy says
I especially hated that one! And we are the same age.
dangilbertistheantichrist says
Hey Chuck, not for nothing, but I am *the* target demographic for the Quicken/Rocket ad: the upper end of the millennial generation in age, stable employment, and I have some assets. The absolute garbage message of that ad is easy for me encapsulate: it’s the classic “get on the bandwagon!” ad. The problem: the bandwagon is moving 100 mph into a brick wall.
What do I mean? After *just* clearing their balance sheets of delinquencies –through foreclosures, short sales, and the outright fire sales to the REIT’s– the banks are finally back in the mood to make loans.
In the leadup to the last recession, the people getting ripped off were the working poor Gen X’ers and Boomers who needed homes as shelter for families, but who were severely upsold into more house than they could afford. The tactics were artificially cheap teaser rates as well as propaganda about homes being an “asset.” That demographic has been gouged so severely, they won’t come back to the kind of usurious mortgages they were offered pre-Recession.
So now the targets are middle class millennials, and it’s easy to see the sort of desperate tactics the finance industry is willing to use. First, there’s the soft sell: a billion and one think pieces talking about how millennials aren’t settling down, having kids, and buying homes. Just look at the so-called “experts” that are quoted: half of them come right out of the same banks who were defrauding Boomers and Gen X’ers only a couple years ago. The other half are the court astrologers who do business as marketing consultants.
But now, with these ads, you see the hard sell. It’s aimed squarely at taking money millennials really ought to be using to create emergency funds and early retirement savings, so that they don’t spend the inevitable *next* Recession in even worse shape. Instead, the banks want them shoving that money into 15 and 30 year long mortgages (and the required down payments).
Is that because home ownership is so important? Or perhaps it’s really because there’s a *lot* more money for banks and brokers to either originate or service mortgages than there is in being the lowly custodian/fiduciary of a retirement fund.
So in essence, the bank and broker cartel’s pitch is, “get a mortgage, you lazy selfie-taking millennials! We don’t care if your parents are looking forward to cat food retirements because of ARM balloon payments, BUY BUY BUY. We don’t care if you’re still paying student loans (or worse, looking forward to the bomb of Income Based Repayment tax burdens)! MORTGAGE MORTGAGE MORTGAGE. And while you’re at it, BUY BUY BUY stand mixers and exotic looking furniture (with even *more* usurious consumer loans and store credit)! And if you care about your future, you’re a goddamned COMMIE who won’t make AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
And really, who needs that? Not me. And not America.
Elizabeth says
Wow, very well said. Perfectly on point.
Tamara says
So what’s the issue with the Doritos commercial? It’s your picture, but I don’t see an issue with it… It’s chips… Are minimalists allowed to eat spicy chips?
Judy says
A fetus…well did you actually SEE that ad? Horribly offensive.
alicia says
Why?
Judy says
I know I take things too seriously…but it’s a time when God is knitting us in the womb. I just feel a fetus should be off limits. That is why.
Brea says
Really? I thought it was odd and not very funny, but not offensive. Maybe that’s just me.
Judy says
Personally, I found the Superbowl Babies just stupid and somewhat offensive.
Rosanna says
We don’t watch the Super bowl here. We own a tv, but we don’t have cable/satellite/net flix. We do, occasionally, watch some shows online. Commercials are annoying to me. They tell us how amazing our lives will be, if we just buy another product. I don’t need another product to have a more amazing life. It is sad the depths of lowness we tend to see advertisers sink to for sure.
Thias @It Pays Dividends says
But guys – If you don’t all have a mortgage, how in the world are we suppose to get all the other stuff? Quicken said its how we keep America going!
Amy says
Personally I think the biggest offender was “Paypal is new money.”
But yeah, the Quicken Loans one was horrifying.
dangilbertistheantichrist@mailinator.com says
The game itself was a boring advertisement for over-the-hill Republicans using HGH.
That Quicken Loans ad was –by far–the most desperate and irresponsible consumption-for-consumption’s-sake advertisement I have ever seen. Its real pitch is, “Use Quicken Loans, get mass prosperity.”
If that were *ever* true, I suppose that the headquarters of Quicken Loans must be some kind of worker’s paradise right? Oh wait, it’s not. It’s friggin’ DETROIT, where a good half of the city is being demolished thanks to the kind of usurious loansharking of QL and its friends in the banks.
For the past couple of years, I snoozed through the actual NFL season without a television, and yet I tuned in to the Super Bowl online out of FOMO. Next year, I think I’m going to stick to my normal Sunday routine and turn it into a holiday dedicated to JOMO –the joy of missing out.
Helen says
Yeah for JOMO?
Thomas says
Hey Josh,
you watch TV? I thought a real minimalist don’t owns a TV?
Just for the fun…
With this changed perspective on advertisements, one will always find a promise that couldn’t be kept by the advertisers. Its good to look behind the scenes to understand the misleading message(s).
Well written article!
Anita says
Lighten up!! You are a crumudgeon. You can skip the ads. Or enjoy them for their creativity. No one takes them seriously.
Cris says
Sponsors would not spend millions if ads did not work. Mexican avocados, anyone?
Jay says
Yoire an idiot.