I’m sure you were one of the 100 million Americans that watched the Super Bowl. For marketers it is also the championships of branding. With this years commercials there seemed to be an interesting theme, there was no sex. No Cindy Crawfords slurping Pepsi, no bikini wearing women handing out beer, no GoDaddy commercials making every parent wondering when the FCC is going to step in to stop the madness.
So why?
The American consumer has changed. The Great Recession and the growing influence of millennials has forced advertisers to change their strategies to continue to appeal to their consumers. The ads took a much more emotional and natural tone. They showed the true value of the brand to the consumers without excess. The Great Recession has many consumers looking for quality products that hold their value and the ads had to exemplify that consumer attitude. An ad filled with scantily clad women, and over the top production would have missed on the target audiences and been a huge waste of money. If an ad misses its target audience, consumers will perceive the brand as wasteful and not worth its value.
Advertisers also had to be even more conscientious of the influential millennial generation who is defined almost entirely by their diversity and their need to improve the world. Advertisers attracted millennials with ads that showed gay and multi-racial couples, diverse America, and experiences. These companies needed to show they were embracing of the new values, standards, and culture of millennials.
In the biggest stage, with the broadest audience, advertisers have to hit the true values of the nation and this year sex had to take a backseat to a natural values driven approach.
Nate Caruso 