UNO Experts Discuss Super Bowl Commercial Hits and Misses

Over 100 million people tuned in to watch Super Bowl LII, and many of them did so to watch the commercials. This year companies had to fork over an astounding $5 million for a 30-second ad spot. We caught up with some of University of Nebraska at Omaha’s (UNO) marketing and public relations experts to find out which commercials made a splash, and which ones missed the mark.

Phani Tej Adidam
Chair and Executive Education Professor
Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship

First, I enjoyed the Chris Pratt and the Michelob Ultra commercial. It was full of light-hearted humor. In the same vein, the Doritos and Mountain Dew ad was also fun, especially the novelty of Morgan Freeman showcasing his rap skills.

What will stay with me? The audacity of the Tourism Australia and Crocodile Dundee ad took me a while to realize that this was not a movie, but a commercial! It was remarkable and hit the mark very well, in my humble opinion.

Another ad that was liked by the women in the gathering (of more than 20 folks watching it together) was the T-Mobile ad with the cute babies. The huge problem with that was there was very little connectivity between the creative and the product. Thus, I believe this was a missed opportunity.

I wasn’t a big fan of the beer companies promoting 'water' (Budweiser and Stella Artois). I find it hard to believe that there will be any upside for these brands.

Jonna Holland
Associate Professor
Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship

I think that Tide won the Super Ad Bowl this year with the unexpected nature of the commercials, using traditional Super Bowl ad tropes to its advantage. Proctor and Gamble was able to play off some of its other well-known brands to create the unexpected.

I especially liked Isaiah Mustafa on a horse, expecting the return of an Old Spice ad, I actually laughed out loud when it turned into a Tide commercial – with the visual twist of a double saddle on the horse."

Although I personally felt it was less entertaining, P&G also leveraged Mr. Clean for the same Tide surprise. Using this type of repetition throughout the Super Bowl was effective, although once everyone is in on the joke, the campaign will need constant evolution to prevent wear-out.

Yanhui Zhao
Assistant Professor
Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship

My favorite Super Bowl commercial this year was “Doritos Blaze vs. Mtn Dew Ice.” Doritos and Mtn Dew, with substantial overlap in their target markets, leveraged a unique co-marketing opportunity to promote new flavors. It is a brilliant idea to promote two complementary products together in one commercial. It also involved a strong humorous appeal by letting Peter Dinklage and Morgan Freeman showcase their rap skills. In addition, the fire vs ice concept surely resonated well with millions of Game of Thrones fans.

Melodae Morris
Instructor
School of Communication

There was a lot of cross-promotion between brands and causes this year. The Budweiser water commercial was a good example of this. The Tide commercials were well-done with a series of ads placed in recognizable ads from other brands like Old Spice and Mr. Clean. One of the signs of a good ad is to be memorable, but also surprising. Tide did that. The Amazon Alexa ad using celebrities also did very well. Although it was a promo ad, the NFL Dirty Dancing ad is getting a lot of buzz. Several brands used music that employed a nostalgia factor and this ad was an example of that. I wasn't a fan of the MM's ad, it was in poor taste. And yes, pun intended.