WASHINGTON — Skittles, avocado toast and a dose of humor offer a taste of what to expect in this year’s round of Super Bowl ads.
Fox is set to air the game on Feb. 5, when the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons will face off at NRG Stadium in Houston.
But the big game has also become a defining moment for ad makers, who plop down millions of dollars for mere seconds of screen time. Companies have already started to float their ads on social media, where they’re already beginning to build buzz.
Kia’s 2017 Niro’s “running” joke ad with Melissa McCarthy has already started trending YouTube. Skittles also went the funny route for its “Romance” spot, as did the TurboTax ad featuring Humpty Dumpty, better known as “the fool that was on the wall.”
Lexus tapped Lil’ Buck, the guy from Apple’s AirPod TV commercials, for its LC 500 ad. Wix.com’s minute-long, action-movie spot featuring Jason Statham and Gal Gadot has already topped a million views on Facebook.
The Super Bowl is high-stakes for advertisers because it offers product makers a rare chance to flash their wares in front of TV’s biggest possible audience. For context, the 2015 Super Bowl between New England and Seattle drew 114.4 million viewers, the biggest audience in television history, according to most news accounts.
But the ads don’t always go over well. Nationwide Insurance’s 2015 ad about a kid who died in an accident, for example, did not garner many fans.
The weirdest ad among this year’s early crop comes from Avocados From Mexico, which posted a 30-second teaser featuring John Lovitz. The comedian is featured holding avocado toast, with swirls of green and yellow twisting in the background. He is trying to hypnotize all the moms and “hipsters,” because “everyone loves guacamole.”
