Live at 6 | Super Bowl Ads

By Nicole DeMentri in Syracuse, NY (CitrusTV) – Super Bowl LII was certainly a game to watch.  The Philadelphia Eagles came out on top in a hard-fought game against the New England Patriots.  While the total viewing audience of more than 103 million people may have been the smallest since 2009, the advertising space scored.

“I think overall they were very entertaining.  I think there were very few duds in the overall game,” Beth Egan, Associate Professor of Advertising at the Newhouse School, said.  She credited that success to commercials tuning into what the audience wants to see and hear.

For USA Today’s Ad Meter, Amazon’s Alexa spot took first place averaging a 7.1836 rating.  Just edging into second place was the dirty dancing spoof with the New York Giants Eli Manning and Odell Beckham, Junior.  That ad scored 7.1777—only a .0059 difference.  

“I think they did a very clever job of sort of just making fun of themselves.  We’ve all had those crazy Alexa experiences…The other thing that was really interesting…they had to do some back-end maneuvering to make sure that everyone’s Alexa’s didn’t go off in the middle of the commercial,” Egan commented.

Teraiz Pitta, a resident Eagles fan for the evening, thought the best one of the night should have went to Manning and Beckham.  Regardless, she thought this Super Bowl lacked memorable commercials.

“Usually I have more than just one or two I can remember off the top of my head, but not this year,” she said.  

Oakland Raiders fan Abraham Odom felt the Meter had it entirely wrong and the number four spot, “Doritos Blaze v. Mtn Dew Ice” should have been first.

“I liked it because it was funny.  Morgan Freeman was rapping Missy Elliot—pretty crazy,” he said.  

In dead last was Diet Coke’s “Groove” rating only an average of 3.78.  Egan thought Weathertech totally missed the mark and it’s rating reflected that scoring 4.83 making it to 49th place.  

“Weather Tech completely missed the mark on what they we’re trying to do…To take such a subtle little stance with the American angle I thought was a huge, huge risk for them and I think it’s gonna not pay off for them,” she said.

Dodge fumbled with their Ram commercial after it sparked controversy online.  The ad showed scenes of people helping others in various situations with words from Martin Luther King, Junior’s “Drum Major Instinct” sermon playing over the scenes.  Intermixed in the commercial were shots of their product.  

Both MLK, Jr.’s estate and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles defended their decision for publishing the ad stating that they worked closely together before official airing.

Twitter, though, almost immediately lit up with outrage.  One person tweeted, “Not sure MLK’s dream was to drive a Dodge Ram.”