Super Bowl ads toned down by Trump’s shadow? – USA TODAY

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Donald Trump appeared in a Super Bowl ad five years ago, where he was outsmarted by a Century 21 agent. This time you won’t find President Trump in the ads, though his unmistakable shadow will loom over them.

84 Lumber, a leading supplier of building materials, has a 90-second Super Bowl spot that will air just before halftime. You won’t see the original version unless you go online. M.J. Brunner Inc., the agency that created the ad, says 84 Lumber seeks to present itself as a company looking for good employees, no matter where they come from. The ad’s original imagery included a wall — and the agency says FOX asked it to go back to the drawing board.

Trump will have been president for little more than two weeks on Super Bowl Sunday, and ad experts say the mere fact of his administration will be felt in some of the pricey commercials, though in ways more subtle than the explicit example of 84 Lumber.

Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, points to a country that is polarized by a bruising election campaign and a simmering anger that lingers in the land.

“We are obviously in a very tense social moment,” Thompson tells USA TODAY Sports. “Most advertisers are not going to want to do something that could be provocative to a large part of a population that’s in an already provoked state.”

Some brands have released their ads early. None so far feature the sort of brazen, sexually charged vibe made famous years ago by web-hosting company GoDaddy, though some are mildly naughty.

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There’s a spot where a housewife lusts after a muscled CGI version of Mr. Clean — gyrating as he mops — but it soon develops her fantasy is really her rumpled hubby, made sexy by the mere act of housework. And there is a Yellow Tail wine spot, which will air in 85% of the country through local ad buys, that blends suggestiveness with playfulness.

In that one, a brand spokesman called Yellow Tail Guy and his animatronic kangaroo named Roo are at the beach where they run into Aussie-born supermodel Ellie Gonsalves in her white bikini.

“Want to pet my Roo?” the guy asks.

Tom Steffanci, president of Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits, U.S. importer and marketer of the Australian wine, believes the scene plays as funny without crossing the line. “We did think that the Super Bowl was a good stage for that line,” he says.

Political climate was never a consideration because the creative direction of the ad campaign was set long before election day. Steffanci says bigger brands with bigger budgets may be agile enough to make late changes, but his and others are not.

“I think there is some risk involved having a supermodel in an ad,” he says. “That’s going to be beloved by many and questioned by a few.”

Though Thompson wonders about predictions that “there’s not going to be as much frat-boy humor, with outrageous sexiness, this year. I have a hard time figuring out: Which side are they trying not to offend?”

TOGETHER APART

Shawn McBride, executive vice president, sports, at Ketchum Sports and Entertainment, says the tone of the times is often reflected in Super Bowl ads. Budweiser’s Clydesdales bowing before the New York skyline after 9/11 is a shining example. But in those days the country was united in its grief. Today it is deeply divided in its politics.

“I don’t think we’ll see ads as provocative as we’ve seen maybe years prior,” McBride says. “That’s just not the temperature of the country right now. You don’t want to come across as tone deaf to the audience you’re trying to reach.”

That doesn’t mean there won’t be loud, brassy ads, as per usual. But Tim Calkins thinks brands will try their best to stay on safe ground in fractious times, especially in an era when social media affords the offended a means to complain instantly and harshly.

“There is no question that Super Bowl advertisers are thinking about Trump and thinking about polarization,” says Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “All of these Super Bowl advertisers are trying to resonate and trying to break through, but I think they will work very hard to be safe.”

Deep Root Analytics, a media analytics firm, says its research suggests the best way for Super Bowl advertisers to appeal to the broadest cross-section of viewers is through what it calls Americanism — a focus on the USA. But even that approach comes with some risk these days, Syracuse’s Thompson says, given Trump’s cry of America First.

Budweiser will have an ad that tells the immigrant story of its cofounder, Adolphus Busch. When the ad’s Busch arrives in 19th Century America he hears catcalls in the streets. “You’re not welcome here! Go home!”

That offers echoes of today’s America. Side note: Trump’s grandfather Frederick also immigrated from Germany in the 1800s.

HUMOR HELPS

Super Bowl viewers who watch the ad for Avocados from Mexico may wonder if the guacamole they’re snacking on will soon cost more, as the Trump administration has floated the possibility of a tariff on imported Mexican goods to pay for the wall that 84 Lumber can’t show.

“We don’t get into those political situations,” says Alvaro Luque, president of Avocados From Mexico, who says the main goal of his marketing organization is brand messaging. This year’s avocado ad has Jon Lovitz; last year’s had Scott Baio, who’d later be notable as a Trump backer. Would Baio’s comic cameo have worked this time?

“No, probably not,” says Jay Russell, chief creative officer of GSD&M Advertising. “It’s a different year.”

Russell figures humor, always a go-to for Super Bowl ads, will be especially important this time. “I think you’re going to see a lot of pure, funny escapism,” he says.

Celebrities are usually a safe way to go, but not always. Tom Brady, who will appear in an Intel ad, says he is a friend of Trump’s, though he doesn’t want to talk about it. (“I’m not talking politics at all,” he said at Monday’s NFL media availability.) Lady Gaga is headliner of the halftime show sponsored by Pepsi Zero Sugar and will appear in regional Super Bowl ads for Tiffany’s; she famously held aloft a “Love Trumps Hate” sign outside Trump Tower after the election.

Michael Brunner, chairman and CEO of the agency that produced the 84 Lumber ad, says it respected FOX’s decision and restructured the ad, which he calls a launching pad for his client’s 2017 recruitment campaign.

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“The reality is we live in a very politically charged environment,” Brunner writes by email. “Because of that, brands are having to think long and hard about whether or not they want to take a side. I don’t think that means we should stay away from anything controversial, though. If everyone else is playing it safe, those that take a risk have an opportunity to stand out even more.”

Mark Tutssel, chief creative officer worldwide for Leo Burnett, thinks most companies won’t take such risks.

“I’m sure we’ll have one or two cases of people using that subject matter to create content,” he says. “But I think by and large the major iconic brands that play an important part in the Super Bowl will be on point and produce work that is worthy of the moment.”

Mercedes is one such iconic brand. Its Super Bowl ad, directed by the Coen Brothers, is an homage to Easy Rider, the counter-culture film that came out in 1969, at another time of deep division in America. Joe Namath’s New York Jets won Super Bowl III on January 12 of that year. Richard Nixon was inaugurated eight days later.

The spot is fabulously funny: Bikers in a bar, Born to Be Wild as the soundtrack — and Peter Fonda as the punch line. He starred as a shaggy antihero in Easy Rider, rebelling against a conformist, consumerist society in the Age of Nixon.

Now, grown old in the Age of Trump, he rides off in a Mercedes-AMG GT Roadster in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, the high holy day of American consumerism.

Super Bowl ads toned down by Trump’s shadow? – USA TODAY