The Real Super Bowl Competition

At LHS, there’s a pretty even split between those who watch the Superbowl, those who don’t, and those who only watch it for the Halftime Show. My family is one of those that make the day a holiday, orders a bunch of spicy wings, and watches the whole thing through from kickoff to postgame: four playing quarters, the Halftime Show, and, most importantly, all the commercials. We sit and lean towards the TV during game breaks, chowing down on wings and ranking all the commercials (chuckling at the good ones and cringing violently at the terrible ones).

I enjoyed the game—we were rooting for Brady, by the way, since he’s middle-aged, an ex-Pat, and has four more fingers left for Super Bowl rings—but the thrill I got from watching Gronk make two touchdowns in a row was nothing compared to the thrill of horror that some of the commercials sent shooting down my spine. 

For starters, the Oatly commercial. I had to research this because I’d never heard of the company before, but Oatly is a dairy alternative producing company based in Sweden. Oatly purchased a $5 million 30-second commercial slot--and what did they fill it with? A video of Oatly’s CEO playing the piano on an empty landscape and singing about “milk, but made for humans.” For thirty seconds. The camera angle didn’t even change! It was a one-man-acapella show, with some piano sprinkled in. We just looked at each other after it ended, unable to speak; none of us sure whether it was from pent-up laughter or straight-up confusion. Maybe we were creeped out. I mean, seriously, Oatly paid $5 million for that! If you haven’t seen it, you really should--you can find it posted all over the internet. I do have to give Toni Petersson, Oatly’s CEO, some credit, though. He looked like he was really into his song, which is now being called “Wow no Cow.” And besides being odd, the commercial did (sort of) accomplish what a commercial is supposed to do--it drew a ton of attention to Oatly…mostly because people are posting jokes about it all over Reddit.

And then there was that really what-the-heck Alexa commercial right at the end of the game. To put things bluntly, it was a minute of a woman hitting on an Alexa android in the form of Michael B. Jordan, in essence, cheating on her husband with him. The commercial spent more time making uncomfortable jokes—I mean, seriously, my ten-year-old sister was watching—than actually showing how Alexa could be helpful, fun, or anything else useful about it. You should take a look at this one, too; I believe it’s called “Alexa’s Body.” Cringe. I guess at this point, Alexa hardly needs a good Super Bowl commercial to be sought out—but, still. Come on, Amazon. You can’t take over the world with controversially suggestive android commercials. Then again, you might just be having fun making random, mega-expensive ads, just because you can. 

I’ll admit that there were many commercials I really did enjoy—say, Will Ferrell’s GM ad, where he, Awkwafina, and Kenan Thompson drove all the way to Nor—I mean, Switzerland, to prove they could crush Norway with GM’s new Ultium battery; Matthew McConaughey’s flat Doritos commercial; and Tracy Morgan’s Rocket Mortgage “Certain is Better'' commercial. But of course, the worst ones are the funniest ones to talk about. I had a good time this year ranking commercials and watching the Super Bowl with my family. Seeing Brady and the Buccaneers win was a big plus. If you have time next year, I would definitely recommend you watch the Super Bowl with your family—it’s a good time, and you can get in a healthy dose of some fabulous commercial-cringing that you can’t get anywhere else.

by Haley Creighton