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20
Feb

Super Bowl Ads and Social Issues: Can They Co-exist?

Every year, millions of Americans gather around their televisions for a night of friends, food, and football. Yes, it’s time for another Super Bowl. While sports fans spend all year rooting for their team to get a chance to play in this event, others who are less interested in the sports watch for one other reason: the advertisements.

Super Bowl advertisements are seen by millions of viewers, making them worth millions of dollars. In fact, a 30-second ad for this year’s game cost $5 million.

With that much being spent on advertising, it’s no surprise that companies are releasing the ads ahead of time.

“They really want to get as much publicity for the ads as possible,” explained Advertising Age media reporter Jeanine Poggi.

According to Poggi, viewers will see plenty of humor in this year’s advertisements. She also said that a lot of the companies are choosing to “steer clear of talking about politics or social issues.”

During last year’s Super Bowl, there was a time of political upheaval and a lot of the advertisements showed this sensitivity. However, this year is expected to see less politics due to the vulnerable position that puts the company in.

Big time advertisers have to put a lot of thought and care into their ads. Not only are they spending millions of dollars, but they’ll have millions of people watching and judging their commercial. Not too long ago, America witnessed huge companies like Pepsi and Starbucks get major backlash for their misuse of a social message.

But not all companies fell short of promoting a strong message. Audi featured an advertisement targeted towards fathers of daughters, asking if a father should expect his daughter to accept lower wages than men. The ad’s message was clear and powerful, unlike a few other ads they tried too hard to hit their target.

There were some hard-hitting political advertisements, too. An advertisement from 84 Lumber featured a Mexican mother and daughter walking endlessly, only to find a recently build wall at the American border. While this advertisement received a combination of positive and negative feedback, it sure had a strong message.

It is important to remember that companies advertise all year long and spend mass amounts of money to stand out among competitors. In fact, it’s expected that over $330 billion dollars will be spend on digital advertising spots before 2021.

Advertising is crucial in order to have a successful business. So while America is unsure of what’s to come with this year’s Super Bowl advertisements, those companies better make it worth the money they spent.

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