00:00:00
Right now, uh, you're seeing brands that are both, um, looking at advertising the
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AI technology itself. Think of like an open AI, uh, meta, right, with the Oakley glasses. And then you have ones
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that are actually using AI for the first time to create the ads. So, Zveca uh one
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of alcohol brands used it to create its femot and it actually used AI in the creation of the ad. So, you're going to
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see a bit of both in the way of both the creative itself and building that but then also in the actual technology being
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advertised. And today we are so happy to have with us the editorinchief of advertising age Janine Poi. Hello
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Janine, welcome to our show. Hi Jan. >> Barbara. Hey Marcus. Good to see you.
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>> Good to see you as well. Welcome. >> So as editorin chief uh probably the
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leading publication on advertising um I assume that given this weekend activity that you've been keeping busy. Is that
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true? >> You would assume correct? Yeah. Uh, our own newsroom is uh, >> wow,
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>> really staying on the pulse of every commercial coming out, every trend,
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every celebrity that'll appear in an ad. So, we're having some fun. >> Interesting. So, Jannine, it's like the
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war room. I love it. This is good. >> Oh, it is. It's a war. It's the war room
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over a course of a month. So, so tell us about this year, which I definitely want
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to hear. I I just want to make sure I'm right about this hypothesis. So when you
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do a Super Bowl ad, you're not just paying for the 15 30 seconds that you get on the Super Bowl. You are paying
00:01:45
for all the hype that goes in before. And I know some of the com some of the ads are showing us their ad. Like I've
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already watched some of the ads and some of them aren't. Like we had someone on a
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couple weeks ago or last week that just teased it and won't show the real ad
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until the game. And then of course we've seen some academic research about how
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what the afterlife is of these Super Bowl ads. So it's not just the hype but
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also the idea that you associate some of these products with games. And so whenever there's a big game it gets
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reinforced even if they don't necessarily uh so can you talk a little bit about that that about the life cycle
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of these advertisements more than just the 15 or 30 seconds which they pay obscene amounts of money for.
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>> Yeah. And aside from paying for like the actual media time, you're also paying
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for the director, the celebrities that are in those ads and all of that, like that's
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>> hefty hefty cost depending upon who's starring in your ad. I mean, you have
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George Clooney in an ad, you know, this year. You you know that that comes with a price tag, right? But yes, you're
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absolutely right. The life cycle of these is a long one, especially when you consider social media. you know, the all
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the brands are looking considering the cost. They're not looking for a oneand
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done. And it's been a while now that they'll either put out teasers, sort of
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like hyping up early interest in the ads, going on social, having their celebrities do little tweets and Tik
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Toks and going on, you know, YouTube to talk about these ads before they release
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any of the creative. And then, of course, the ads will run in other properties, you know, post Super Bowl.
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They'll live online post Super Bowl. So, there is a lot that goes into this.
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>> That's incredible. >> Okay. So, now we can't wait. I mean,
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we're supposed to like kind of build up to this, but I'm really excited to hear
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um what some of these big what's been going on in the war room. Like, what are
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some of these trends? >> Yeah, it's a really really interesting year as you can imagine given like just
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the uh climate here in the world. like there is a lot of consideration that goes into striking the right tone for
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the ads and a lot of thinking around you know the strategy of are we going to go
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funny are we going to go serious are we going to bring back nostalgia which is a
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fan favorite u so a lot of what we're seeing is sort of this like absurdist humor which is playing upon uh the
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interests of Jenzie who tend to like sort of the more obscure and uh odd creative uh So, we're seeing, you know,
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things like, this is a funny teaser, Manscape, which is its first time as a Super Bowl advertiser. They have a
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teaser out that sort of a little gross, shows hair trimmings on the floor of a shower that like sprouts eyes to come on
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like what that turns into. Um, but you have, you know, Pringles, which said that it is planning on bringing unhinged
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humor to its Super Bowl ad. Uh the ad star Sabrina Carpenter. Uh you have some of
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>> the ones I watched. Yeah. Yeah. You have some humor with like uh Ben Stiller and
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Benson Boon for Instacart uh doing a like sort of hair band spoof u which apparently seems to be a little bit of a
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theme this year. Keegan Michael Key and Danny McBride also do a spoof for State Farm singing halfway there with you know
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the full-on mullets and and the whole thing. Um, so there's just some like really funny out there humor, which
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makes sense for the time that we're in as you just sort of think about brands
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like >> wanting to play it as safe as possible. Uh, not want to be controversial in any
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sort of way. So, I expect we'll see as more ads get released more leaning into
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some of that kind of humor. >> So, that's interesting. I mean, in some
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sense, Janine, it's like you I mean, these terms you just used kind of just blew my mind, actually. Uh unhinged
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absurdest humor. That was the You said it. I didn't say it. That's what you
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said. >> Say it. And I was like, >> go on TikTok, right, and just look at
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what everyone's watching and take that and sort of like apply it to Super Bowl.
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>> Interesting. Super. I want to step back really quickly, Janine, and jump in on
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this as well, Barbara, because Barbara's always telling us >> that the context, Barbara always reminds
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us that there are very, very, very because of the advent of streaming, there are very very few things that
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happen where a bunch of people come watch at the same time. And so is what is how is that potentially raising the
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stakes with respect to >> let me just add to that because I you were caught on the unhinged and I was
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caught on her saying focusing for Gen Z because like to your point this is a massive art you know audience and the
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idea of focusing on Gen Z it could like backfire for some segments you know. Yeah, and I think that play it's an
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interesting point and you're absolutely right. It's one of the few places that
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still garners 100 million plus audience live watching something at the same time
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which is incredibly rare if not like non-existent you know these days. What I will say is yes I think we're seeing
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like more um opportunities and ways that brands are trying to connect with Gen Z
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such as bringing in like Mr. beast to help create an ad for Salesforce or leaning on some creators, but in the
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same breath, you're not really seeing those things stand on their own. They're
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always weaved in with >> a tie into a movie of a sense of nostalgia. Exfinity is leaning on
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Jurassic Park. You're leaning in, like I said, to like hair bands and songs.
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Sweet Caroline, a spoof on Sweet Caroline for Helman's. So, it may have some of that absurdest humor, but with
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elements that feel very nostalgic to some older audiences and some of more of the core demographic that you would
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think of. So, you're not seeing these things like live on their own. They definitely are layered in with
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celebrities that, you know, the traditional audience will know. >> Interesting. I mean, I think this is an
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interesting approach, Barbara and Janine, because one of the things that that I observed, my daughter, she is big
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time. She pulled me into the Stranger Things universe. Okay, I got pulled in and I fell in love with this thing
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obviously because I grew up in the 80s. But it's a really interesting when you
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see these examples of kind of my generation, her generation, and they love it. Like we love the same thing
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suddenly, which is kind of weird, but it is that for me it's nostalgia for her.
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It's like, well, that's just really cool. I mean, are we seeing some some
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sort of, you know, ads this year that are trying to kind of bridge the gap, let's say, between generations and like
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using nostalgia as the mechanism to kind of create that gravity or what what are
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there some examples that stand out to you? >> Absolutely. I think even just the couple
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that like I was talking about about like some of this uninched humor, they're not
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in a vacuum. So, like I said, like you know, the Ben Stiller and Benson Boon like really funny, a little bit weird.
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Like I'm not sure I fully get it, but it does like allude back to sort of like
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those hair bands. So there are, you know, you have Sabrina Carpenter in an ad alongside more traditional
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celebrities. So they are doing it in a way that's really smart and that it's
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not like just limited to those creators. So let's talk about some of these big
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trends you were talking about. Everybody's talking about AI. So tell us how AI is playing out in the Super Bowl.
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>> Oh man, you cannot escape AI this year. I'm sure that that is you know true of
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uh almost everything in this world right now right so right now uh you're seeing
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brands that are both um looking at advertising the AI technology itself think of like an open AI um meta right
00:09:30
with the Oakley glasses and then you have ones that are actually using AI for the first time to create the ads so
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Zveca uh one of alcohol brand used it to create its femot and it actually used AI
00:09:46
in the creation of the ad. So you're going to see a bit of both in the way of
00:09:50
both the creative itself and building that but then also in the actual technology being advertised.
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>> So I know Coca-Cola had been doing something with AI generated ads but I
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don't know that Coca-Cola is advertising on the Super Bowl this year are they?
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>> They don't have an ad in the Super Bowl. Um, and this is really the actually a
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use of AI to create the ad has been so like limited. It's really been more on
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the back end. This is the first time in the Super Bowl we're actually seeing an
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ad being created. >> Very interesting. But isn't isn't it true though that Pepsi
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>> is on the attack? I I don't know what this could be like false. This could be
00:10:27
this could not be real. I don't know because who knows what's real because I
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am on TikTok, you know, checking trying to understand so I can stay in the cultural zeitgeist. But I saw this polar
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bear like sort of Can you explain this? Are they I mean this is what are are the
00:10:40
cola wars back? Is that is that where we are? >> Yeah, they're uh using their polar
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bears. They're bringing back the polar bears that is known as a uh Coke icon,
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right? And they are uh bringing it in their ads. So, it's really interesting
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uh to see that play on uh an icon that has been so well known uh for Coke that Pepsi is using. It'll be interesting to
00:11:06
see because it's also an older reference to see which generations sort of get it
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right to our point of thinking about like Gen Z, millennials, boomers, and like what generations get these. Um will
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they get the reference to the polar bears? It's been a while since they've
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really been used in that capacity. So that will be interesting to tell. Given it's a broad um audience as we've been
00:11:30
discussing and one of the huge trends in marketing is healthcare, wellness, pharma, all of these new drugs. It is a
00:11:36
good opportunity for some of these companies to be on the Super Bowl. And we'd seen this in the past like I know a
00:11:43
couple years ago Dexcom, which is a glucose monitor, had its first um healthcare ad etc. So, I know that this
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has been a trend, but I would imagine with the GLP1s that that's another opportunity. And how do these kind of
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companies come on the Super Bowl? Are they funny? I mean, they're not really
00:12:00
funny topics. So, I find this trend really interesting because if you think back historically to Super Bowl ads,
00:12:08
food, junk food, right? Sodas, uh, pizza, like this, these are the items like we've associated with Super Bowl
00:12:17
for so long. Doritos, aocado, right? Like now to see this influx in like health care companies and it speaks to
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this wellness culture, right, that has really emerged over the last couple of years. You're absolutely right, Barbara,
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with the GLP1s. That's a huge huge part of this. We are seeing him and hers with
00:12:37
an ad uh democratizing health care and preventative medicine. Uh Novartis is doing a spot on prostate
00:12:45
cancer screening. Oh, that's a Super Bowl topic. >> No, really. I mean,
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>> wait, wait a minute. Hold it. Hold it. I mean, come on. Listen. I Barbara, I just
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want to watch the game. I don't need like, you know, medical anxiety in the middle of the punch.
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>> Well, so it's interesting like that's that's an interesting take on it, right?
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Because is this the um forum for these types of conversations? But if you think about, we just talked about 100 million
00:13:11
people watching the Super Bowl and you know to the point of like him and hers of democratizing healthcare like what
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better place to reach people about health, you know, and you know, diabetes testing is another one that comes up and
00:13:25
navigating high blood pressure. Um, and then they'll definitely be like Serena
00:13:29
Williams is in the row campaign uh during the Super Bowl. So GLP1, I think we'll see plenty of those during the
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game as well. But the the tone of the GLP ones, going back to Barbara's point,
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is not going to be absurdest unhinged humor. >> I will say the we don't need them yet.
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>> The plastic cancer one does have some humor in it and plays to some humor, but
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they are um very much talking about the benefits of doing these things. Some of them have a lightness to them to not
00:14:00
make it very serious, which I think is smart in this kind of environment. Um, but the Hims and Herses one, for
00:14:06
example, is like very straight and serious about like democratizing health care and how historically people of
00:14:14
wealth like had better access to medical care. So, they definitely take a more serious approach. Yeah.
00:14:21
>> Is Jesus back? >> Jesus Jesus is back. We haven't seen the ad yet, but Jesus is back in the rebrand
00:14:30
of He Gets Us. Uh, we'll see what they bring to the game. But Jesus has Jesus
00:14:35
has been in it for the last couple of years. >> Jesus is back in. Wow. I I thought you
00:14:38
were asking a philosophical question. This is like literally Jesus is >> backed
00:14:44
in Jesus's advertising campaign. >> It's always one that uh stirs up some
00:14:49
conversation. >> Yeah. But here's something that's super interesting. I don't you know our show
00:14:53
Janine is completely apolitical, but you know there's a lot of things going on
00:14:56
right now. There's a lot of protesting happening. Is is everything chilled to
00:15:01
the extent that no one is willing to come out and come into the ads and make any kind of statements about any of the
00:15:06
stuff that's going on? Is this like the insular like we just won our football
00:15:09
game, let's not in input any with well except for Jesus. Jesus gets a pass because Jesus is Jesus. But you know I
00:15:16
mean you know are we seeing anyone who's willing to you know do a bad bunny and
00:15:20
come out make a statement or anything like that? >> Very little. And that's I mean back to
00:15:25
the idea of humor really being like the driving force and theme in these ads. You know it's a safe place to be in. Um
00:15:33
no we are not seeing uh many at least right now we have not seen any that take any sort of major political or social
00:15:43
stance. There are a couple that are a little bit more straight and serious. Budweiser has its Clyde sale back. Oh.
00:15:49
>> Uh, this time if you remember puppy love back uh back some time now um of the
00:15:55
Clydesdale and the puppy. This time it's a Clydesdale and a bird of some kind in
00:16:00
the beginning that are not filine a baby bird. >> Okay. >> And then as the story line progresses we
00:16:05
actually see it is an eagle. So it's supposed to uh lean into the 250th anniversary of the country um and
00:16:13
playing on that a bit. Another thing you were talking about is celebrities. And one of the things that I've noted, and
00:16:19
this I haven't seen people talk about necessarily. I've just anecdotally
00:16:22
noticed that there's a lot more sports celebrities involved also. Um, and those
00:16:27
sports celebrities kind of play a different role. I mean, a lot of times they're football players or the Mannings
00:16:33
or the Kelsey's. I don't know if Travis is in any of these ads, but or Jason.
00:16:38
Um, but but it is kind of interesting to just think in general about celebrities.
00:16:42
And I guess um the sports celebrities make a lot of sense. some of the other celebrities are just attention or what
00:16:48
what's your observation about what what the celebrity advertising was? >> Yeah, that has definitely been a trend
00:16:53
over the last couple years. I would say you know if you think about celebrity uh
00:16:56
sports stars as more than just celebrities and really think about them too in their own right as like an
00:17:01
influencer and you like look at like how sports culture has really you know moved
00:17:07
onto Tik Tok and other social platforms. I think there is a different audience beyond just the sport itself, right, for
00:17:15
some of these celebrities knowing their uh backstory and sort of how they got there. Uh it's interesting too because
00:17:21
we're also at a time where we the Olympics are starting right right in the same time of the Super Bowl. We have the
00:17:28
World Cup coming up in the summer. So, it's a moment in time where sports and
00:17:33
if you think about reach and audience and where audiences are in like live entertainment,
00:17:39
>> it's sports, right? Whether it's, you know, women sports that are having a
00:17:43
bigger moment. Um, there's just a lot of opportunity there for brands to lean in
00:17:49
and connect with sports stars in a different way. >> Yeah, I think it's interesting. Here's a
00:17:54
question, Barbara, uh, and Janine, because, you know, there's there we one of the things we always think about,
00:18:00
Janine, is sort of the world is a is an interaction of sorts, right? Everything interacts with each other. So, I'm
00:18:06
wondering is there I I guess you can't plan with other things. But I'm I'm
00:18:09
wondering like the combination of humor plus serious. Is there weird things that
00:18:14
could well two two things. One is there's weird things that could happen, right? So, maybe the manscape thing
00:18:18
happens and it's like kind of gross and like here's the then the prostate cancer
00:18:21
thing, you know? I don't know. That's weird. You know, >> it absolutely could.
00:18:26
>> You know, I just wonder, do do they think about this? It's like, wait a
00:18:29
minute. Let me get a list of everything that's going to be out there and let me
00:18:32
at least understand how I can potentially >> Yeah. And the ordering of the ads, of
00:18:35
course, like when they >> order Yeah, exactly. That's that's exactly what I'm talking about.
00:18:38
>> Think about it. This these decisions are being made of just like at the same time
00:18:43
that Super Bowl ends this year, like they'll start thinking about what next year looks like. A lot of these
00:18:48
decisions are made so far in advance that that's like one of the issues, right? It's so hard to plan for where we
00:18:56
are as a country, right? The tone the tonality in that far in advance. It's hard to plan for what others might lean
00:19:02
into. It's hard to plan for necessarily like major cultural moments which is why
00:19:06
you know back to the beginning of this conversation where we were talking about like extending the life of an ad both
00:19:13
and after and why social plays such an important part because there's ways for
00:19:17
brands and they do this all the time now to be on social layering in additional like insights and commentary around
00:19:24
their campaigns that are more real time, right? to what is happening in the moment as
00:19:31
their ad is being >> well you mentioned in real time. I remember one of the things that Dolingo
00:19:36
did that was so cool is they had like a two second commercial but right after they ran their commercial they did a
00:19:43
social media outpouring to their whole um to their whole audience and and really really leveraged the you know two
00:19:50
seconds they paid for in the Super Bowl. So, so there's one thing before and
00:19:54
after. Then there's also this third screen that they may be connecting to. How much of that do are we seeing?
00:20:00
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. You can even think about brands doing local ads as the same sort of
00:20:04
effect like not paying the full price for a national 30 60C spot being in some key markets but then layering in with
00:20:13
social activations. We see that a lot. Uh extending putting those spots on social so it reaches a broader audience.
00:20:21
and also like focusing on some key markets. It's another way brands sort of do something similar to that.
00:20:26
>> That's interesting. I also wonder Janine and Barbara the idea of it's a big it's
00:20:30
a big bet in some senses, right? Because you could get like a super boring game and then with attention spans being so
00:20:37
low, people check out, right? Or you could get like this amazing battle into overtime and it's super close and
00:20:43
everybody's at the edge of their seat. So there all to Barbara's point there's
00:20:46
like all these unknown factors that you're managing and I think you're hedging the bet when you have other
00:20:51
things pre and post that can sort of smooth out the external shocks that could happen that are uncontrollables
00:20:58
that exist let's say in the context of the game. Do you agree with that characterization Janine? Oh yeah and
00:21:03
it's why you know oftent times there is more demand for that a slot you know the
00:21:08
first couple of spots in the first commercial break and they often you know garner premium more premium pricing as a
00:21:14
result. Uh there there is all of that. Uh but there could be just as much interest and planning around, you know,
00:21:21
plans in place. If a game goes into overtime, we will there's a couple of brands that know they might buy, you
00:21:26
know, time in overtime or brands that don't even appear in the game, maybe appear in pregame, but have plans if a
00:21:32
game goes overtime to buy those spots. Uh so there are various ways that already sort of media planners are
00:21:39
pre-planning to sort of make the most out of those opportunities. The other thing that we've seen historically uh
00:21:46
with the Super Bowl is whichever network is airing it uses it as a springboard for some of its programming. And I don't
00:21:52
even know which network is airing it this year. It's NBC. So NBC will have it. It will stream on Peacock, which is
00:21:58
another completely different opportunity of like the streaming opportunity and buying ads and streaming versus national
00:22:05
TV. And the Olympics are also airing on NBC. So it's a nice, you know, sort of
00:22:10
springboard of like connecting that all together. >> Yeah. I think that's been very lucrative
00:22:14
for the networks in the past. You know, a big thing that they could possibly get. And the last thing, well, not the
00:22:20
last, we could talk forever on this, but one of the things I did want to talk about, you kind of implied it, but I
00:22:24
kind of want to make it more salient is we talked about some of the new brands that are coming on. Um, but then there's
00:22:30
also the traditional, you know, beer, automobiles, financial services. Um, what's the story with all of them?
00:22:37
>> Yeah. So for autos in particular, I think you know for a while the auto
00:22:41
category has often been looked to as like the one of the bigger one that between that and like a a Bud Bud Light
00:22:49
and all of those. Um but it's this year poised so far for a down year in automakers. Uh right now we only know of
00:22:58
two brands, Toyota and Cadillac that are confirmed to uh run ads in the game. Uh,
00:23:05
you know, I think for the auto brands in particular, they're really kind of just
00:23:10
trying to seek more value with their media buys. Um, we're seeing that like,
00:23:15
yes, of course, so many people are watching the game, but only a fraction of those people they find typically are
00:23:21
actually in the market for a car. So, you know what they're really looking to
00:23:26
do is figure out better ways to more directly reach the consumers who are actually in the market to buy a car,
00:23:34
right? And because the rest of those are sort of wasted media so I think that's
00:23:38
what we're seeing for brands like automakers and why we've seen a pullback
00:23:42
in recent years and you know there are other factors bigger economic factors at play as well.
00:23:47
>> Yeah, that's interesting. I you know what Barbara when you said that this is
00:23:51
triggering my mind again and again I'm not trying to be political so I don't
00:23:54
want to be political I want to do I want to be the opposite of political I want to pull back from all the politics be
00:23:58
apolitical like Barbara always says Americans be apolitical yes but I'm wondering so Bad Bunny is doing the
00:24:07
I mean it's a >> have they put the contract on him and say listen bro like don't go out there
00:24:12
listen we're trying to cuz this could like it could go pretty sideways and and
00:24:17
yeah what you have to imagine when you make a decision like that, you know what could happen, right? And what the
00:24:25
backlash or the response could be. And I think when you make that decision, you're also making the decision that we
00:24:31
want to reach a different audience and we know this is the way to do it. >> Well, Janine, it's been wonderful
00:24:37
talking to you. We're all looking forward to the Super Bowl. Maybe we'll
00:24:40
have you on after and you can tell us like what happened after, you know. >> We'd love to. Thank you for having me.
00:24:46
>> Yeah. So again, Janine Po Poji, the editor-inchief of Advertising Age, thank
00:24:51
you so much for joining us today. And where can listeners go to to see all the analysis you guys do on the game? Yeah,
00:24:56
I mean adage.com will have our ad review after the game, which pretty much is our
00:25:00
take on every ad that ran nationally during the Super Bowl. And then we will be on LinkedIn, Instagram, all social
00:25:09
platforms during the game, live streaming, having conversations, talking about the brands, talking with the
00:25:15
brands in some cases in some fun moments. So, uh, stay tuned until you >> That's super interesting, too. Sorry,
00:25:20
Barbara. Really quickly, because that that's actually because being a part of
00:25:23
this from a journalistic point of view, Barbara, this is also like elevating and
00:25:27
continuing the amplification of these things. So, the brands are happy. They're like, "Oh my god, Janine's on
00:25:31
LinkedIn talking about our manscape, you know, or whatever." So, >> yes, they are.
00:25:38
>> Yeah, that's great. >> Great. >> Well, that's all we have time for today.
00:25:41
We'd like to thank our producers, Deion Simkins and Marissa Rena. Thank you all
00:25:45
for listening today. We'll be back next week. Till then, this has been Marketing
00:25:49
Matters on the Wharton Podcast Network. I'm Barbara Khan here with America's
00:25:53
Read.