I'm not just going to put them in S tier, A tier, B tier, because if that was the case,
they would all be in F tier. Hi. Welcome back to me and talking about whatever
I want. Today I want to talk about how terrible the Super Bowl commercials were. The 2020
Super Bowl gave me mixed feelings. I enjoyed the halftime performance, I thought the commercials
were atrocious, and I don't know how football works. So I don't really care who won. For
me, the highlights of watching the Super Bowl has always been watching the advertisements,
because this is the time of year when advertisers put in their biggest budgets, their best plans
and their greatest commercials. And that's why I'm saddened to find out that they've
just been getting worse and worse every single year.
But, before I dive into those, of course, I'd like to do a comment shout out from last
video. "Theory: D'Angelo is a secret government spy." Well, unbearable human, if that's the
case, this channel has been doing so well that 64,000 people now know my secret identity,
so... Suffice it to say, I am the worst secret government spy to ever exist. All jokes aside
though, the channel is doing super well; I'm always appreciative. I actually love doing
these daily uploads, and I guess I'm just more surprised that you keep coming back and
watching them. But hey, if you're here, I'm here, and unfortunately, so are these terrible
Super Bowl ads. So my brilliant idea is to create a tier list
where I rank every single Super Bowl ad, or at least all the ones I could get my hands
on. Now, some commercials ran more than one advertisement, so I'm just going to pick one
from each. But the thing is, I'm not just going to put them in S tier, A tier, B tier,
because if that was the case, they would all be in F tier. They were just all bad, okay?
All of them. Instead, I've designed my own tier list.
So, as you can see, we have C, D, E, F. There's no A or B because none of them are that good.
But these are not just letter grades. I discovered upon rewatching the ads that they all fit
into four categories: cinematic, dancing, emotional or famous people. So the cinematic
ones are just movie parodies or commercials where they try to make it look like a really
high budget thing, when it's just a commercial. The dancing commercials are pretty self-explanatory.
For some reason there's a lot of dancing during these Super Bowl ads. The emotional commercials
are my personal least favorite. Basically, these ads are taking a bunch of emotional
music and emotional topics and manipulating you into feeling a certain way, and then once
you're in your feelings, it's a car ad. And then the famous people section are the ones
that are just not interesting, funny, or remotely entertaining, but they have famous people
in them, so I guess I'm watching them anyway. The fact that I'm going to pretty easily be
able to fit all of these advertisements into just four categories, really speaks to the
fact that advertisers have basically given up. There is so little originality, humor,
charm, life, dare I say, in these Super Bowl commercials, but if I had to sit through them,
so did you. People tell me that people aren't ready to
have a woman lead, but these guys have been learning from women their whole lives.
So here we have a dramatic ad about women's empowerment. So go ahead and take a wild guess
about what this ad is for. Microsoft. It's a computer advertisement. So this is easily
going in emotional, because what does this have to do with computers?
Kick back and be totally comfortable in my own skin. You know what I'm saying?
Okay. So that was a horrifying advertisement from Rocket Mortgage, in which we find Jason
Momoa shedding his muscles. That definitely goes under famous people, but now that I'm
looking at this, I realize I should have added another category for nightmare fuel, because
what on Earth? My therapist: "Skinny Jason Momoa can't hurt you." Skinny Jason Momoa.
We need backup. Oh yeah.
That's not what I meant. Okay. So this largely incoherent Procter & Gamble
ad just had a bunch of celebrities in it. This is a real example of how people just
give up once they finally get the celebrities to sign the contract. They're like, "Phew,
we don't have to write or come up with ideas now."
(Singing). So that Porsche commercial was a Fast & Furious
parody, making it our first cinematic category. You're going to notice as time goes on that
I get increasingly frustrated with the car commercials. I don't know what it is with
car manufacturers specifically, but these ads are just way too serious for no reason.
Fix that for you! From ho-hum, to so yum!
That made me want to quit this video right now. So a Pop Tarts ad featuring Jonathan
Van Ness easily goes in famous people because that commercial is literally just Jonathan
Van Ness being Jonathan Van Ness. (singing).
Dancing. There's going to be a lot of dancing. In fact, that was a TurboTax commercial. So
if anyone wants to explain what that has to do with a dance party, I'm all ears.
I don't know where we parked. I was following you.
Now, I don't know where to put this Bill Murray ad for Jeep, because it was half and half.
I could easily put it under cinematic because it's a parody of Groundhog Day. However, it's
also Bill Murray, so I could put it under famous people. I think I'm going to go with
cinematic though. Are you starting to notice how all of these advertisements are just bizarrely
similar? Target has been acquired.
They have water. It's water! This changes everything.
It's a water commercial. I think I'm going to put it on cinematic, because they made
it look like The Martian. Then again, they also had Bill Nye there, randomly, saying
two words. You know what? I'm going to stick with cinematic, because trust me, there's
going to be a lot more famous people ads, like this next one.
You can't touch this. All right. So I'm going to cut that off before
I get copyright claimed. Here we have MC Hammer randomly showing up in a Cheetos ad, because
Cheetos get your fingers dirty and then you can't touch things, and MC Hammer's signature
song is Can't Touch this. Honestly, I feel like they should just let me write these advertisements,
because if you want to not try, I'm pretty good at that, okay? You could be paying me
Super Bowl commercial salaries. Oh, you know when you should do that? Later.
Oh later. Yeah.
Well, when is later? Now, the issue with Tide is that there were
three or four different Tide commercials. They invested their Super Bowl budget in this
MCU of Tide commercials. It was really annoying, but they primarily marketed it as a cinematic
thing. This just in. Is Jonah Hill going to flake
out on Martin Scorsese? The world wants to know.
The only thing the world wants to know is why Jonah Hill and Martin Scorsese would be
in the same room together for any reason, other than a Coca-Cola advertisement. So obviously
that's going to go under famous people.
Dancing. Now, I do appreciate that that commercial had Missy Elliott, because anything involving
Missy Elliott is going to be amazing. But honestly, dancing to a Pepsi commercial is
really the last place I wanted to see her. Engage the glutes.
We should go. Jimmy Fallon and John Cena exercising together
in a public gym. You know, celebrities are just like us. They definitely don't have private
trainers. Anyway, this was a Michelob commercial. I think I said that right. And that of course
goes under famous people. Head in the sand.
That's offensive Trish. Yeah Trish.
You're from another planet? I honestly couldn't tell if this was supposed
to be a Men in Black parody or if it was just supposed to be weird. I'm serious, I really
needed to make a nightmare fuel category, but since I don't have one, I'm just going
to put it under cinematic. Also, this commercial was for something called Reese's five in one,
and the whole premise of the commercial was that nobody in that commercial had heard of
it, which honestly, same. Literally, what is a Reese's five in one bar? I barely trust
Reese's to get peanut butter and chocolate right, I'm not going to go ahead and add three
other things into the mix. Today Olay launches its very first space mission.
Who has the keys? Wow. Lily Singh in an unfunny comedy sketch.
I didn't expect to see that at the Super Bowl. No really, I didn't expect to see Lily Singh
at the Super Bowl, I'm actually kind of impressed at how far she goes in her career, despite
me not knowing anybody in my life who finds her funny, but that Olay ad of course goes
under famous people. Guys, guys, we're incredibly rich. Let's get
both. I'll get both.
Post Malone buying beer from a convenience store. You know, I think that's the reason
I don't like these famous people ads. This is not how rich people act. It's like they
even acknowledged in this ad, "Guys, we're super rich," but you're still at a convenience
store. Post Malone ordered over $40,000 worth of Postmates in a year. He is not leaving
his house for food. But nevertheless, this Bud Light commercial goes under famous people.
Dancing. Though I have to say, Sam Elliott out danced Lil NAS X, which I did not see
coming. Nevertheless, hearing the song Old Town Road in a Doritos advertisement played
during the Super Bowl felt like a fever dream that I am incapable of waking up from.
Show me photos of me and Loretta. Bro, it's a Google ad. It is not that serious.
This goes under emotional. I can't decide which one of these categories I like less,
but I'm leaning towards emotional because all this drama and music, when it's from these
unethical companies trying to pretend like they're human. The only thing that these companies
hold dear to their heart is their bottom line. That's the best thing since sliced bread.
We got a problem. There's a new best thing. Rainn Wilson from The Office. This Little
Caesars ad obviously goes under famous people. By the way, the whole premise of that ad is
just gratingly unfunny sliced bread headquarters, because it's the best thing since sliced bread.
It's like so many of these commercials hinge on very thinly working puns. I did not expect
that to be a theme of the Super Bowl 2020 commercials, but unfortunately it was.
What is happening? What is that?
Is that a baby nut? So after all this controversy, after my whole
video about Planters, the best thing they could come up with after that train wreck
of a Super Bowl ad was baby nuts. That's the worst thing I've heard in my entire life.
I'm going to put that under emotional though, for them trying to pander to that same crowd
that thinks Baby Yoda is the best thing since sliced bread, no Little Caesars reference
intended. Here we have Heinz going way too hard because
it's literally just ketchup. Going to put this in the cinematic section. I guess the
theme of this commercial was everyone uses ketchup, which maybe I would be more sympathetic
to if I did use it. But I hate ketchup. It's that I'm a cancer survivor. Had a tumor
on my heart and only a 1% chance of survival. Holy crap. This emotional manipulation. What's
more heart-wrenching than a sad dog? A sad dog with cancer who almost didn't make it.
If this WeatherTech commercial doesn't go under emotional, I don't know what does.
You're going to fix the world by feeding it hyper-concentrated sugar. I would feel better
about this advertisement if Snickers actually were fun to eat. They are so sticky and get
stuck to the back of your teeth. You know, feeding the world Snickers might actually
accomplish world peace because no one would be able to speak. Going to put that under
emotional for that little kumbaya moment they tried to have.
If you looked at America like a bird, and that was all you knew-
America. Families, wide sweeping shots of rural are... It's like we get it. Going to
go ahead and put this Walmart ad under emotional. I don't appreciate a company as gross as Walmart
trying to pretend like they're for people. Imagine using the word family at all, when
you typically don't pay the average worker there enough to even support a family.
No, I don't... No! I don't know what that gasoline commercial
was, but obviously that goes under cinematic. Typical American lives. Like this typical
American, showing off his strength. Oh my gosh. We get it, I'm in America. Maybe
I'm just not patriotic enough to understand these ads, but using the word, "America,"
does not make me more likely to purchase something. Nevertheless, Budweiser still came through
with that emotional approach. By the way, how in the world have I already done half
of these and none of them have been outside the four categories?
How much do you think Pringles paid these people?
Hardly anything. I work really hard to not watch Rick and Morty.
I don't know who asked for them to be in a Pringles commercial, but there they were and
now I've consumed Rick and Morty content. I feel like I should be able to sue.
How about Dorchester? Parked it.
Foxborough? Parked it.
The Garden? Parked it.
Saugus? Parked it.
Swampscott? Revere?
The harbor? Are you kidding me? I parked it, and then
unparked it. You unparked it?
Wow. Chris Evans using a Boston accent is the whole premise of this commercial. This
goes under famous people. Maybe it would have been better if that was like at least a decent
Boston accent. But hey, I guess you get what you get. At least he was showing more emotion
than his entire performance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
John! Where were you? It was supposed to be a thing and you made it not a thing.
I think we all want to roll the window up on Chrissy Teigen. This Genesis commercial
obviously goes under famous people. It's got pictures on it.
I like pictures. Yeah, me too. That's why I'm making it.
It's Winona Ryder sitting outside of Winona, the place. So... By Squarespace, apparently.
Obviously it goes under famous people, and I think this is the third or fourth pun that
we've encountered so far.
I'm sorry. Did Hummer just say zero emissions? When I think pollution and carbon footprint,
I literally think Hummer. I guess they realized that single-handedly destroying the atmosphere
wasn't a good look for them. So now in 2020 we get a more eco-friendly Hummer. It's literally
like setting something on fire and then saying, "Oh, I'll put it out."
Hey mama, what's up? Did you switch my service from Verizon to
T-Mobile? Anthony Anderson and his mom. You're right,
I should switch from Verizon to T-Mobile. As if Anthony Anderson is the one managing
his mom's cell phone service. If I was that rich, I would pay someone to help my mom with
her technology problems. Okay, I do have to give Amazon props for these
visual effects. This advertisement goes under cinematic. However, they also threw Ellen
DeGeneres in the beginning randomly. So I could just as easily put it under famous people.
It's like, you know what? If the Game of Thrones aspect doesn't work, we could just go the
late night television route. Actually, is she late night or daytime? I don't even own
a television. Josh. It's going to be hard growing up homeless.
But you got to believe in yourself. Bro, this is literally a Kia ad. Hey, you
know what's really going to sell cars this year? Homelessness. That's all I got. That
goes under emotional. There are actually way more of these emotional ads than I thought.
I feel like at this point in time, people look past this stuff. You know, I think it
takes more than waving around a dog or a sad story or some loud piano music to get someone
to buy your product. But if that's working well enough to get them to the Super Bowl,
I need to get a dog because I have merch coming out.
Here's Mountain Dew Zero. I am thirsty.
Here we got a classic movie reference. That ad was almost good, but it was wasted on Mountain
Dew. I don't know if you've ever had Mountain Dew, but it tastes pretty much the way it
looks. I hope this doesn't give me helmet hair.
I don't know who they were supposed to be, but I'm assuming they were famous, so I'm
just going to put that under famous people. Critter's got an ugly mouth.
That's not its mouth. I just had this washed.
Another car commercial. I'm looking at the ones I have left and I have, yet, another
car commercial coming up. Don't let them in-
Oh heck no, lady. You're not about to get me copyright claimed. She literally sings
Let It Go, just in the middle of traffic. If that is not supposed to be an emotional
ploy, I do not know what is. The only emotion traffic makes me feel is regret, I think,
for leaving my house. Is that an emotion? And here we have the last advertisement for
Avocados From Mexico. Remember, your avocado is worth it. Shop now
and we'll throw in Molly. Wait-
Shop now and we'll throw in Molly. They said that on national television. So this goes
under famous people because I could've just sworn I've seen that lady somewhere, but I'm
just not remembering where she's from at this time.
All right. So we have three under dancing. I guess there was fewer dancing ones than
I thought. Then again, three is altogether too many. 10 ads under cinematic, because
when in doubt, just increase your budget. 10 ads under emotional, because home is where
the heart is and the heart is the fastest path to the wallet. And then we have 16 under
famous people, because that one's pretty self-explanatory. So altogether, I think that's about 40 Super
Bowl ads, and not one ounce of originality. I just saved you four hours. Trust me. I think
the reason it makes me sad is because as a kid, I would just be so into watching the
Super Bowl for the commercials. But now I'm starting to wonder, was I just bad at discerning
good media? Maybe Super Bowl commercials have always been bad and I just didn't know it.
But you know what? I'm sure these companies' bottom line probably doubled overnight, so
ultimately who cares?