The Theme of This Year’s Ads: "The Super Bowl of Nice"

After spending months immersed in everything surrounding this year’s Super Bowl ads, I’m seeing a very clear theme emerge.  The ads you’ll see Sunday night will be nice. 

Gone are the cliff divers, chainsaw hitchhikers, rock throwers and robot suicides of last year.

Here’s what you’ll see:

Worthy Causes

• Dell’s ad will support AIDS relief in Africa (donating money to Bono’s RED charity)
• Pepsi pregame ad to support hearing impaired (60 second silent ad filmed completely in sign language)
• The White House Office of Drug Control will alert parents about a growing problem of prescription painkiller abuse among teens
• Budweiser will run an ad for responsible drinking
• GM originally planned to feature a Chevrolet ad, but they’ve decided to feature an ad for an environment-friendly hybrid vehicle

Personal Improvement

• Sunsilk is inspiring women to live life to the fullest (they’ve created an online community for women to share their stories)
• CareerBuilder is motivating you to take control of your life and create better career opportunities for yourself.

Family Values

• The Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” songs are about love (2 of the 3 finalists are soft heartfelt songs)
• Toyota said their ad for the Sequoia will be "more emotional and family focused"

Friendship

• The Budweiser Clydesdale ads are always feel-good stories. The teaser we’ve seen indicates that this year will be no different.
• The NFL SuperAd is about a player motivating someone he meets at a supermarket to try out for the football team… and he goes on to becomes an NFL star.

Even the Bud Light ads are toned down. Stuart Elliot of the New York Times said this year's Bud ads have a “back-to-basics approach, concentrating on its two top brands in humorous commercials that take a cheery, feel-good tack”.  These dozen or so spots (many are 60 seconds long) represent a big chunk of the game’s ad time.

Today, Stuart Elliott wrote about this theme in his article “This Year’s Super Bowl Ads to Be Gentle and Sweet”.  In the article Cymfony CMO Jim Nail says:

    “So many advertisers are promising to show their soft, friendly side,”

    “Maybe it’s because people are getting their fill of blood and guts in political advertising.”

Now the obvious question… why the change heart this year?

MSNBC had an interesting article last week about how Super Bowl ads reflect the culture and economic sensitivity of the year.  They claimed that the best, most memorable ads in history occurred during boom years and the dullest and least memorable ads occurred during tough economic times.

So with a war waging on in Iraq, a serious mortgage crisis on our hands, and a threat of a recession looming over our heads, should we expect to be disappointed with ads Monday morning?  Will the Bob Garfield’s of the media world refer to this the Dud Bowl?

I don’t think so. Of course the punch-drunk and the drunk as a skunk will be outraged by the lack of outrage, but they’ll still be something for them.  Bridgestone is threatening to run down Richard Simmons, Justin Timberlake will crash through windows for Pepsi, and you can count on GoDaddy to “shock and awe”.

Advertisers have realized that they can have a powerful Super Bowl ad without having to smash you in the mouth.

Comments

[David]

The actress in this ad is Christa Woomer. I've seen her on stage in LA and this girl is so talented. The ad is great. Can't wait to see the whole thing