Super Bowl LIV Commercials: Keeping Things Light

An audience expected to be around 100 million. Big companies paying as much as $5.6 million for 30 seconds of advertising time. In addition to deciding the National Football League champion, the Super Bowl is the biggest event of the year for TV commercials.

Some companies opted to place pregame ads on Fox, the big game’s broadcaster. A spot from McDonald’s, which runs through a series of famous orders, name-dropped Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, Magic Johnson and even some fictional celebrities like the Big Bad Wolf. A commercial from Secret about female football players urged viewers to “kick inequality.”

The first of two 30-second ads from President Trump, which together cost his campaign more than $11 million, aired at 6:55 p.m. in the first commercial break after kickoff. The spot focused on Alice Marie Johnson, a woman who was serving a life sentence in federal prison on charges related to cocaine distribution and money laundering when her case was brought to Mr. Trump’s attention by Ms. Kardashian West, the reality television star. Mr. Trump commuted Ms. Johnson’s sentence in 2018. Over black-and-white footage of her release, the Super Bowl ad noted that “thanks to President Trump, people like Alice are getting a second chance” while adding that “thousands of families are being reunited.”

This is the first Super Bowl to feature national ads from two presidential candidates — Michael R. Bloomberg, a billionaire Democratic candidate, will have a spot about gun control later in the game. The political tone of the ads will most likely stand out in a broadcast filled with companies trying to avoid sensitive topics the day before the Democratic caucuses in Iowa.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/business/media/super-bowl-LIV-commercials.html?emc=rss&partner=rss