Eyeball Hunting

By Aria Novosedlik

It’s been a couple weeks (an eternity in Internet time) since the 60th Super Bowl, also known as the most coveted and expensive media event that money can buy. The news cycle, which begins about a week before showtime and ends a week afterwards, has made its analysis of and comments on what worked and what didn’t and what it all means. 

Here’s our take: 

At 124.9 million viewers this year, numbers only slightly fell from last year’s 127 million, regardless of the divisive media attention it garnered when Bad Bunny, this year’s halftime show performer, announced his decision to perform completely in Spanish. Because of this, a larger Latin crowd was expected to attend this year, and there was real concern Trump would jump on the opportunity to station ICE agents just outside the stadium. Luckily, no such plan was necessary. To retaliate, the MAGA-verse held its own halftime show, featuring Kid Rock and Brantley Gilbert. So there.

Considering the inescapably politicized nature of the halftime spectacle, it appears that advertisers this year opted to play it safe. Online, people ranted about how it felt like most of the commercials were for AI products, and that most were AI slop. Other popular objections included overuse of celebrities, too much ‘bro’ humour and too many irrelevant storylines. 

We made up our own, rather idiosyncratic categories and winners, based solely on our highly unscientific qualitative research.

Brand Course Correct (a little to the left): e.l.f.’s Telenovela Spot As I wrote here not too long ago, e.l.f. caught a lot of heat for their tone-deaf ad featuring manosphere sweetheart and ‘comedian’ Matt Rife. In an attempt to repent, they created ‘Melisa’– a spot that, while only aired on streaming platforms, was the most favoured. It features a white woman (Melissa McCarthy) transitioning into a telenovela star with the help of e.l.f.’s lip gloss and a sexy Latino coach who falls for her as she learns to roll her r’s. McCarthy’s ability to get away with anything really was critical in making this spot work. It’s campy and light, while subtly highlighting Latin American culture and giving a bit of ‘FUCK YOU’ to MAGA.


Brand Course Correct (a little to the center): Bud Light’s Tumbling Keg
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Shane Gillis has emerged in recent years as a comedian that transcends the binary American political system. He’s neither left, right, nor centre—just logical, and therefore the perfect guy to star (alongside Post Malone and Peyton Manning) in Bud Light’s spot. Of course, after their ad featuring trans woman Dylan Mulvaney and the chaos that ensued afterwards, Bud has desperately released a bunch of ads that skew heavily to the right. For their Super Bowl spot, they understood the assignment: be as apolitical as humanly possible. Gillis and friends attend a wedding, Bud keg in tow, atop a hill. Their prized keg takes a tumble, and guests dive to save it in similar fashion to the UK’s famous cheese rolling contest. It’s kind of like the figure skating programs at the olympics where you’re just relieved the skater didn’t fall, regardless of the performance being forgettable.



>Cringe<: Instacart’s campy spot with Ben Stiller and Benson Boone likewise harkened back to the 80’s with its fuzzy picture and tacky aesthetic, but by being way over the top and leaning hard into physical comedy, they didn’t need to explain that their ad was a joke beforehand. That’s where Dunkin’ and Affleck went wrong—along with being too self-referential. 



Pt. 1: No One Can See This

Most >Cringe<: Dunkin’ Doughnuts. Too Many Major 80s and 90s Sitcom Stars
 — This one is a two-parter, as many of this year’s Super Bowl ads were. In the first part, Ben Affleck tries to convince Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, and Jason Alexander that their Super Bowl commercial (which we’ve yet to see), isn’t a total cringe fest while throwing around meme terms like ‘6-7’. Jen’s not convinced and requests that ‘nobody sees it’. Of course, we get part 2 later, which is some sort of mash-up of all the biggest 80s and 90s sitcoms, with Dunkin’ Donuts standing in for sets like ‘Central Perk’ and Seinfeld’s diner. 

 Pt. 2: Good Will Dunkin'

Notably, AI and CGI were used for part 2 in order to reverse-age the stars. Here’s the thing: just because you acknowledge the cringe, doesn’t make it any less cringe-y. It’s as though they got cringe mixed up with camp. 

As the ultimate celebration of capitalist excess, Super Bowl advertising is an ad for advertising itself. The game seems like a sideshow compared to the extravagance of the commercials. In terms of financial impact, the only other event that beats it is Christmas. 

In terms of political impact, Super Bowl usually leaves Christmas at the one-yard line. Super Bowl LX did not disappoint. But aside from Bad Bunny’s celebration of Hispanic America, e.l.f.’s ‘Melisa’ Telanovela spot, and Bud Light’s overzealous efforts to make us forget that whole Dylan Mulvaney episode, the absence of political messaging was itself a political message. 

Aria Novosedlik is a Toronto-based designer, writer and researcher.