{"id":1132,"date":"2021-02-09T13:40:22","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T19:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capertongillett.com\/blog\/?p=1132"},"modified":"2021-02-09T13:40:22","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T19:40:22","slug":"welcome-super-bowl-newbies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capertongillett.com\/blog\/welcome-super-bowl-newbies\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome, Super Bowl newbies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Possibly the world’s cutest baby. (MUNCHKIN courtesy of Huggies)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Super Bowl Sunday has traditionally been the Big Game for football teams and advertisers alike. And this past one, as\u2026 I don\u2019t know, some team faced off against some other team, was no different. In that respect, at least. But it wasn\u2019t entirely the same, in that it was the first Super Bowl to take place in the midst of a global pandemic, and thus both the cardboard-cutout-filled stadium<\/a> and the advertiser lineup seemed just a little different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year saw some really great ads<\/a> from fan favorites. (I have to call out Super Bowl-veteran Anheuser-Busch\u2019s \u201cLet\u2019s Grab a Beer,\u201d<\/a> because if anyone can make me nostalgic for being snowed in at an airport, it\u2019s David Fincher, Atticus Ross, and Wieden+Kennedy.) But it also saw a number of notable absences<\/a> \u2014 Budweiser, Coke, Pepsi, and several other big brands sat out this year, choosing variously to save money, redirect money, or just avoid the tightrope of coming up with a showstopping ad for a sporting event during a pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their place, however, came a lot of newcomers<\/a>. More than a dozen advertisers saw sufficient business success in 2020 that they decided the $5.6 million price tag was worth it for a Super Bowl ad. Brands including Indeed (finding work), Fiverr (finding work at home), DoorDash (delivering stuff to your house), Mercari (selling your stuff), and Huggies (pooping without getting up from your chair) made their Big Game debut on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Super Bowl ad during a pandemic is, indeed, a narrow line to walk. It\u2019s a sporting event, so you don\u2019t want to be a downer, but it\u2019s a pandemic, so you don\u2019t want to be inconsiderate of the plight of so many. And if you\u2019re there because, for the first time, you can afford to be, you definitely want to avoid any implication of \u201cThanks for a banner year, 2020!\u201d But to their credit, all of this year\u2019s first-time advertisers were able to make it happen. And five (or, technically, six) of them really stood out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Huggies, \u201cWelcome to the World, Baby\u201d (Droga5)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Even I, who am as terrified of babies as babies are of me, appreciate the adorableness of a baby gleefully losing their ish on one of those baby zoomers or snoozing on the potty. (My parents have a photo of me asleep face-down in a bowl of Spaghetti-Os that you will NEVER get to see.) So this ad already had a leg up in the adorable-baby-footage area. Bring in the jaunty editing and the inclusion of babies literally born on the morning of the Super Bowl<\/a><\/em>, and \u201cWelcome to the World, Baby\u201d is a winner, even for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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