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Super Bowl XLII brought some of the tamest offerings from advertisers in many years. Stuart Elliot at The New York Times sees this as a turning down of insult and crassness overall, while the good folks at AdAge decry broad failures up and down Madison Ave. Indeed, the tone of our social dialogue has changed this year, and it is also true that agencies are struggling to move beyond the pablum of the broadcast spot.
Something else is going on as well, though. The consumer is redefined – or undefined, in flux, perhaps. In an effort to connect to this moving target, last year brought a host of consumer-generated content plays and efforts to take the Big Game buzz online. Typical of both corporate and ad world cultures, these were quick jumps and darts to catch up to change. Most seemed as smooth as step-dads signing up for MySpace.
This year, the ill-thought quick fixes – thankfully – were gone. In their place was a seemingly genuine grappling with the new state of the marketplace. Take away the details of YouTube and texting and social networking, and we are left with the unsettling and exciting reality of a consumer empowered by new kinds of technology and new levels of control over media. Generally, they want connection, content and meaning – and on their own schedule and terms. What to do?
With the offerings this year, the broad answer seemed to be "show them we can change, too." Advertisers needed to prove they weren’t standing still, stuck in the muck of irrelevance, even if they didn’t know exactly where they were going yet (what with that pesky consumer leading the way). It was a year of definitions and redefinitions -- of malleable brands.
The effort to define began with the opening of the game: the Giants were defined by "resiliency;" the Patriots by "teamwork." Audi, in one of the strongest spots of the night, redefined a modern notion of luxury. Budweiser boldly defined itself as "the great American lager" while using rich emotion and heroism to rekindle the pride we are to feel for the champ of the beer battles. Dell awkwardly tried to define itself around design and social causes, bringing too little, too late to these discussions; window-dressing is not enough.
In one of the most elegant brand extensions ever, Gatorade introduced G2, defining it as the drink of choice when off the field – while validating us with visuals acknowledging that real players are always in the game, wherever they may be.
Sunsilk defined itself as the shampoo for any woman who means to make her mark and be remembered for her hair. Sunsilk, like Coca-Cola, also pushed away the notion of any one spokesperson, choosing instead a cast of characters that represent the various moods and potential dramatic fuel of the brand.
Make no mistake: this year was not about brand promotion, or stunning displays based on existing brand equities. We were getting entirely new ideas and signals about the roles these brands play in our culture – new reasons to believe, not just new campaigns. Super Bowl XLII revealed brands in flux – being defined, redefined, adjusted – hoping to be at once as free-form as the new consumer while still staying true to some core idea. The notion that a brand is one concept or one story seems to be fading, replaced by a more malleable sense of identity and a richer notion of narrative – a lesson learned and a viewpoint taken directly from the new consumer. It is no accident that so many this year were story-driven spots.
The right to morph, to tell new stories, to take on refreshed meaning, to play a new role in our lives: this was the big news of the night.
Perhaps the most interesting effort at redefinition and narrative participation came from the NFL itself. The NFL means many things now: great football, the host of show-stopping advertising, and as of last night, the human stories inside the league that make things "super." The NBA could learn much from the NFL just now.
The trick going forward will be to keep the spirit alive and manage these brands as malleable properties that stay in – and stay affected by – the conversation of the marketplace. After all, the definitions we put out there can build momentum (as did "resiliency" for the Giants) if we stay engaged, or come back to haunt us (as did "teamwork" for the Patriots) if we lose focus. It is a good sign that some advertisers and agencies seem intrigued again by finding new voices, new ideas and new meaning – not new tactics and quick fixes. The consumer has led us somewhere complex, difficult and worthwhile. Let the stories continue.
Full disclosure: Anheuser-Busch and Budweiser are clients of Patrick Davis Partners, publishers of Unbound Edition.
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The best example of brands that don't get the new game was probably Claritin with its Carl Edwards NASCAR spot. We get it - you've paid for his car and now he likes your product. Yawn.