Film Directors’ Big Game Showcase
The Super Bowl National Football League Championship’s live TV broadcasts, motivate an audience that averages a yearly world record of 110 million viewers of all ages.
‘The Big Game’ is a great opportunity for advertising agencies and their clients to showcase their brand affinity and kinship promoting advertising initiatives to counter the steady decline in brand loyalty.
For me the games are also an illuminating showcase of the filmmakers, and directors who expertly bring conceptual brand preference scenarios to filmic and enthralling life.
1. Jeep Gladiator, Groundhog Day Road Adventures
Advertising Agency: Highdive, Chicago, USA
Film Director: Jim Jenkins
The 2020 Jeep Gladiator Super Bowl commercial, stars actor Bill Murry who reprises his famed 1993 role as meteorologist Phil Connors in the box-office hit, ‘Groundhog Day’.
Filmed in Woodstock, the same location as before just outside Chicago, the commercial also features a cameo performance by Bill Murry’s brother, Brian Doyle, who also starred in the iconic movie comedy of being trapped in a recurring Groundhog Day ‘time-loop’.
2. Snickers, Fix The World
Advertising Agency: AMV/BBDO, New York, USA
Film Director: Lance Acord
The Mars candy bar commercial for their Snickers brand, won a Super Clio award as the best Super Bowl commercial of 2020.
Jurors applauded the campaign for addressing the daunting problems facing the world today in a compellingly fresh way with metaphorically dramatised humour.
3. Toyota Highlander, Heroes
Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Los Angeles
Film Director: Trent Opalach
Toyota’s action-packed 2020 Super Bowl commercial stars Canadian model and actress Cobie Smulders, as a superhero-mom driving a Highlander to rescue victims of various movie-genre dramas.
The filmic story ends with an amusing twist and plays out against a soundtrack of “Love is the Reason” by Jerry Burnham and Raun Burnham.
4. Hyundai Sonata, Smaht Pahk
Advertising Agency: Innocean, Huntington Beach, California, USA
Film Director: Bryan Buckley
The amusing play of words on Bostonian accent pronunciations, features Hyundai Sonata’s latest ‘Remote Smart Parking Assist’ innovation.
Paying homage to their beloved Boston in the ‘Smaht Pahk’ commercial, all the starring celebrities have deep Massachusetts’ roots.
5. Budweiser, Typical American
Advertising Agency: David, Miami, USA
Film Director: Kathryn Bigelow
The Drum advertising magazine’s online portal described the timely, and emotively impactful, Budweiser 2020 Super Bowl commercial as follows:
“The film features some of the most viral acts of humanity the Internet has ever seen, juxtaposed with some of the most common labels placed on Americans”.
“The shining stars are the people depicted in the real-life stories about community, ambition and progress that inspire and bring people together. ‘Typical American’ celebrates the best of the American spirit”.
6. Amazon Alexa, Before Alexa
Advertising Agency: Droga5, London, UK
Film Director: Steve Rodgers
Amazon’s 2020 Super Bowl commercial centers on their ‘Alexa’ voice interactions software that performs tasks or services for an individual based on commands or questions.
The epic film stars American comedian, show host, actress, and writer, Ellen DeGeneres, and her Australian-American model, actress, and wife, Portia de Rossi.
Aired shortly before the start of the Big Game, Google invited TV viewers to have some fun by asking Alexa; “what did we do before you?”
7. SodaStream, Mars Water
Advertising Agency: Goodby Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, USA
Film Directors: Bryan Buckley and Mexican Cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto
The amusing SodaStream 2020 Super Bowl commercial underscores their aim to eliminate 67 billion single-use plastic bottles by 2025.
The highly watchable filmic discovery of water on Mars, with a dramatic twist, features a cameo of the famously popular, bow tied scientist Bill Nye, at his Chabot Space & Science Center climate-change laboratory.
8. Little Caesars Pizzas, Best Thing Since Sliced Bread
Advertising Agency: McKinney, Durham, California, USA
Film Director: Frank Todaro
Little Caesars’’ 2020 Super Bowl commercial is about their new nation-wide delivery app available from all Little Caesars stores in the United States.
The humorous film entertainingly stars American actor, comedian, writer, director, and producer Rainn Wilson, as the hapless CEO of Sliced Bread Inc.
His company and his career, go disastrously downhill after Little Caesars begins offering delivery of online pizza orders, which customers declare as; “the best thing since sliced bread.”