This week's Super Bowl episode kicks off with a recap of the 2023 NFL Pro Bowl Games, the 2023 Grammy's, and the Kyrie Irving trade.
In the show's main segment, Professor Lewis breaks down what makes the greatest Super Bowl ads of all time so great - and what makes the worst so bad.
Watch/listen to the full episode here:
Transcript:
Mike Lewis 0:08
Hey welcome, everyone. Welcome to the Fanalytics Podcast, Mike Lewis Doug Battle brought to you by the Emory marketing analytics center. This week, Doug, we're going to actually do some hardcore marketing because we're going to talk about Superbowl advertising in preparation for, you know, the the big game coming up on Sunday. In the past, I've referred to this as almost like a marketing holiday. You know, this is the final spectacle, the final unified spectacle where the entire culture, you know, music, entertainment, sports, advertising, it all comes together. But before that, there's a bunch of other stuff happening in the world. So how are you doing today, Doug?
Doug Battle 0:47
I'm doing well, Mike. Yeah, it's getting hard to keep track of everything going on this weekend, we had the Grammys, we had a balloon fly across the country and make national news for the first time since Balloon Boy when I was a kid. I don't know if you remember that one. Do Q and C happen? Kyrie Irving being traded to the Mavericks has a lot of people scratching their heads, I think, and the NFL is new Pro Bowl format debuted this weekend. And so really like any of those things, I think in the summer, we would do a full episode on but it's Super Bowl week. And it's like everything happens at once. it's award season and the entertainment industry. Obviously football is in full swing and basketball is getting there. So Well, Doug, I don't speed ahead.
Mike Lewis 1:31
I don't want to do this to you. And we'll come back to this. But I've also heard that there's some leaks out of Disney, about what the next Star Wars movie is going to look like. And so that's our you. I'll talk we'll get back to that. But why don't we start with Kyrie Irving because you said to me that you hated the trade? And yeah, at least on one level, I love this trade.
Doug Battle 1:55
Of course you do.
Mike Lewis 1:58
You hate the trade. I hate it because
Doug Battle 2:02
I'm a I'm a look at Don sheets guy. I like Luca Don church, I want to see him win 100 championships. And I've, for years, it's been like he doesn't have talent around him. He doesn't have the right pieces around him. Dallas doesn't have enough cap space, whatever. And they've kind of been building and positioning themselves to to add a major player around Luca dodge. And for it to be a guy who seems to bring misery to every franchise, he goes to seems to spend more time researching the JFK assassination, or whatever the conspiracy theory of the week is then actually playing basketball. And who plays the same position as Luca Don church into the same team, another ball ball dominant guard, that's just not what I would ideally pair. I've wanted to see him with yoke edge I've wanted to see like he's a facilitator. And so as Kyrie Irving. It's the same type of role that they play. And so I'm not saying they're not going to be entertaining. I think it'll be very entertaining. It'll be interesting if and when Kyrie is actually on the basketball court. But as far as wanting the Dallas Mavericks to win championships with Luca dodge for me personally, it's hard to imagine a Kyrie Irving and Luca dodge lead team, winning the whole thing. I think there'll be very competitive, but I don't know that ultimately, this positions them for the kind of run I was hoping for. So we'll see how it plays out. I'll still be rooting for them. You know, just because I'm a Luca guy, but I don't know that in the long term, this is the best move they could have made.
Mike Lewis 3:44
Okay, that's all very fair. well reasoned. I mean, I'm almost, I'm almost speechless. Right. Because obviously, I was looking at it from a totally different perspective. Yeah. You know, because I agree with you. I, you know, here in Atlanta, I think there's always a lot of talk about, you know, Luca and Trey, you know, sort of going through in parallel. Yeah, I don't think there's much doubt in terms of Luca sort of being the dominant player out of that pair. I mean,
Doug Battle 4:12
it's fans hate that, but I think the rest of the world has accepted that for sure. Right.
Mike Lewis 4:16
And I get here locally, that they, they hate that they like the idea that it's kind of this these peers and this rivalry, but you know, I think Luca dancik definitely has the brutal the potential to be one of these guys to be the next face of the NBA. Exactly. I look at this trade, and I've been an outspoken and outspoken carry enthusiast. And, and so I see the narratives here. It's suddenly Yeah, this is this is great theater. You got this fall reason thing, it's like, maybe this is the wrong thing to do for that franchise. I don't even think you know, they still have to resign Kyrie after this so this is a rent up Yeah, as well. Right. it.
Doug Battle 5:00
Yeah. And it could be I remember when DeMarcus Cousins was signed by the New Orleans Pelicans, they paired him with Anthony Davis, and the half of the NBA community thought, wow, who's going to stop them in the paint when they have the two best bigs in the league just dominating getting every rebound and scoring at will. And the other half of the league thought, why would you pair Anthony Davis with another big who needs to have the ball in his hands when they probably should be acquiring a guard and that that relationship did not last very long. In New Orleans, it was short lived partially due to injury for cousins and Anthony Davis, partially due to the fact that they didn't reach their goals. And so maybe this is a trial run where it's like, well, the Mavs weren't gonna win the whole thing this year anyway, might as well just see maybe there's a 25% chance that there's Kyrie just works in Dallas, and they win the whole thing or something. And if not, they can move on and in have the same cap situation going into next year. So maybe that's what Mark Cuban and company are thinking, I'll say is this I'm such a Luca guy, I follow his career. You're such a carry guy. You love the controversy that he causes and how interesting of a finit thinker that is Mike's term for carry, and people like that. And so I feel like you and I will probably be discussing the Mavericks quite a bit more moving forward simply because it does at least interesting.
Mike Lewis 6:26
That's all I look for. And then you I mean, you through the third name into this mix of suddenly, Mark Cuban, Kyrie is now Mark Cuban's problem. Yeah. And that's that's a media spectacular, I mean that Cuban Cuban has just and I, you know, I don't know what his thinking is. But he is now he has just made Dallas the most interesting storyline in the NBA, probably through the end of the through the end of the Mavs season whenever that occurs.
Doug Battle 6:54
Yeah. And on the flip side of this whole story, is the Brooklyn Nets. A franchise that I went out on a limb I don't know if I think two years ago on this podcast, I came out and said I looked at the situation with with their roster and where they stood. And I was like, the nets are about to be the flashy team and the NBA, and Brooklyn and they're finally going to take that next step and be in the even be the dominant team in New York. They're going to be the team that's on primetime every week. They're going to be the team winning championships with MVPs to go from Kevin Durant. James Harden, Kyrie Irving all in their prime to now, Durant, but they might trade Ben Simmons, but is he doing anything Spencer Dinwiddie, Nick Claxton at center who's really good player, but it's certainly the enthusiasm has kind of been suffocated from that nets franchise, and that's where it feels like it feels like the Kyrie effect. I'm not saying that's all it is. But it seems like when Kyrie was in Boston, people were thinking this could be a dynasty. Look, they got Tatum, they got Jaylen Brown, they got Kyrie Irving, they have cap space, they have draft picks. And it was the same thing in Brooklyn. And so Brooklyn is kind of a classic story of like the clippers and that like that second team, that even when they have all the pieces to supplant, the top team in the city, it's like it's just the nature of sports that they will never be that dominant Alpha team in New York. And that's my take away in Brooklyn looking at that situation. I don't know what they do with Durant or how they move forward with their rosters. So that's something I'll be keeping an eye on as well. Well,
Mike Lewis 8:40
you know, it almost makes me think that you know, that there they are probably the best example of one of these failed, self constructed by the players super teams. Yeah, right. And me, maybe you could argue that Kawhi Leonard and Paul George or another one, but yeah, it's the Brooklyn Nets probably deserve a an eventual what's what's at ESPN series at 3430? Yeah, type of program. Yeah. Telling the back story on what happened there. Because it's
Doug Battle 9:14
almost it's almost impressive to not win a championship with the amount of talent they've had. And this isn't their first time building a pseudo super team and it failing dramatically. I don't know if you remember, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Deron Williams, Brock Lopez. That team, Jason Terry Jason Kidd is the coach like they Joe Johnson. That team they took every like veteran, former top 10 player in the league, put them all on one team made it to the second round of the playoffs one year, and gave up all their cap space for the next in all of their draft picks for the next 10 years to be able to do that. And the furthest they made. It was the second round. It was a quick exit and the NBA Playoffs. And now it's like the Durant teams. I thought they would at least make an NBA Finals. So not even make a finals with Durant and Kyrie Irving and James Harden as your core. And players like Nicholas Claxton players like Joe Harris, like they've had good role players too. So it's not one of those teams that just had three good players. And the rest of the team was a G league team. They have just underperformed dramatically. And you know, going back last year, I remember you were really critical of I don't know if it was Kyrie or Durant, who said they don't need a coach. But this is a classic case of the importance of coaching in the NBA and chemistry in the NBA, that we see. No matter who you have on your team, there's well coached and those teams that play together, tend to be the teams that have sustained success. We saw that with the Spurs, we've seen it with the warriors of late. And on the flip side, of course, teams like the Brooklyn Nets. And so again, Brooklyn, another failed experience for that franchise. I don't know how they rebound from this. I don't know how you rebuild the momentum that they once had. It's got to be tough for the for Brooklyn Nets fans out there.
Mike Lewis 11:01
Yeah, ouch. And as you said, the reality is, in that time period, where the where the Brooklyn has assembled two of these super teams, for lack of a better term. The Knicks have had one decent playoff run in that entire time period with you know, and the Knicks are still New York's team, right? Without question
Doug Battle 11:25
100% And if they, I mean, yeah, they're I think they're a better position, even though they don't have a Kevin Durant on their roster right now. I think they're better position moving forward to just because I think it's more attractive destination for players simply because of the history and the fandom and the marketing power. And I think that's the biggest Sleeping Giant professional sports. It's just a matter of time.
Mike Lewis 11:51
Okay, Doug, I'm a little leery for this next thing. Well, what do you what do you want to do? Let's talk pro ball or you want to talk Grammys,
Doug Battle 12:00
we are 11 minutes and we can go to the Pro Bowl, the Grammys, the bottom line, I'll run through that real quick. Beyonce set the record for most Grammys one by an artist also, the beehive thought she was robbed of best album to Harry Styles. And that's a story that I found interesting because Harry Styles when his album came out, that album definitely kind of shook the earth to its core in the sense of like, everyone was listening to it. And I don't know that Beyonce his album was as well received, but the beehive is such a passionate fan base. And this is a fandom podcast, that as soon as hairstyles one outrage all over the internet, people in the building, you saw reactions. And so I found that interesting, the Harry Styles fan numbers, the Beyonce fan, and a lot of criticism of Harry Styles are saying guys like me, don't usually win these kinds of things, or something along those lines. And so there was there was kind of a political undertone to the reception of some of the awards last night, as well as the reception to some of the performances I mentioned before the podcast that I saw people accusing Sam Smith's performance of being satanic or Satan worship and so fandoms whether political or have a entity and entertainment, they have that same passion, and that same level of bias that sports fandoms have. And so it is quite interesting to watch.
Mike Lewis 13:27
Well, and I'll throw in my two cents, and I didn't watch a minute of the Grammys I've watched you know what? A lot. I feel like I'm watching this stuff via Twitter at this point, right? You know, it's, it's this kind of the strange thing where people are essentially curating the key moments via and then it goes in, then it goes viral on Twitter, and you end up being seeing that stuff. I came away thinking, God, this programming is not for me. Yeah, this is you know, and I went in, and I looked up the viewership from the Grammys last year, and last year is about 8.8 million people. So again, about the same as a decent, let's say, NBA playoff game, right? Yeah. And so this is, so if I, so if I have the feeling, you know, in there, and again, you make the point that, like everything is political and everything is painfully political, right? Because Because now gender and race are completely correlated with politics. And so it's a help, it's a hopeless situation. But I you know, I watch some of this stuff. I see some of the clips I'm like, you know, I've made the point about fandom and this idea that fragmentation is occurring there. There is no mass market. That's what I came across from from the highlights I saw of, wow, they are not even making. They're meant not making the slightest effort to appeal to the suburban moms to put the Did suburban soccer moms to watch this? Are the older dudes right? It's just this their programming for themselves?
Doug Battle 15:08
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it feels like it is geared toward the actual artists and celebrities and wealthy people that are in the building. And so
Mike Lewis 15:18
I mean, throw on thing because you will live in this world much more. It feels like it's a marketing campaign as well, that hey, their biggest brands are Beyonce, Taylor, Harry. And so we're gonna give them a little award to you know, we're going to promote our stars, which, which is dangerous and an award show because it starts to make you feel like well, this is just all manufactured, you know, you almost imagined there's these some really talented under known people out there that really deserve awards. It's like now, one big name now the next big, better etc.
Doug Battle 15:51
Yeah, it's I think the criticism of award shows like The Grammys like the Oscars, like the Emmys is that it's a popularity contest. I don't personally know how they're decided and voted and how the voting committees are put together. I haven't done my research on that specifically, but I do know that there are artists last night on Twitter on Instagram, expressing their displeasure and the entire thing musical artists and years back it was, or maybe even last year, I don't remember. It was the weekend and his producer al Angelo weren't even nominated for Best Album. And I think they probably had the most influential album on the culture that year. And people just, you know, assuming looking at those situations, saying this is all political. It's, you know, who's who's getting the most money behind them? Yeah, and who's gonna bring the most viewership, all those types of things? And so I think those are the criticisms of those types of shows. And you know, I think a lot of a lot of television I think people watch sports that way. I think there's people that watch Alabama be Mississippi State and a tight game and there's a controversial call who feel like well, they need Bama in the playoffs SEC wants BAM in the playoff. And so they're they're moving their star forward, the one who's gonna bring the ratings,
Mike Lewis 17:07
I feel like you're taking a shot at me there because I went on this podcast and basically accused the big 10 of a conspiracy to allow Michigan to stay undefeated against my fighting alumni.
Doug Battle 17:19
Well, I know maybe it's true, but maybe it's true if the Grammys didn't like who Yeah, there we go. He's He's flexing his shirt for those you listening and watching but his ally Nice shirt. But yeah, so I think there's that same, I just see the same phantom tendencies across the board. And that was my main takeaway at the Grammys last night, as well as that same political lens that everyone seems to view everything through.
Mike Lewis 17:45
When you when you start to do that, when it all starts to be, you know, there's this famous and well, you know, this kind of important, you can't let your marketing show, right. If your Marketing Show, then it doesn't feel authentic. And I think that you and there's a lot of reasons why the viewership of the Grammys continually ticks down, right? But you know, you got Beyonce on your show, and you got Taylor Swift on your show, and you got 8.8 million people watching. That's, that's a B, you got to do something, you got to do something different.
Doug Battle 18:19
Yeah. And speaking of doing something different, the NFL decided with the Pro Bowl to take a very different approach this year. There were pros and cons, in my opinion. I think the biggest pro to me and the Pro Bowl was the NFL recognizing the power of the Manning brothers, the universal likeability of the Manning brothers, who we've discussed about week in and week out, and leveraging that toward drawing eyeballs and drawing audiences and engaging people with the promo which largely a lot of people aren't that engaged with. And from watching the events that I watched, I can see why. One of the biggest issues I had with this year's Pro Bowl when like when I was watching the quote unquote, skills competitions. You had quarterbacks supposed to be the top quarterbacks in the league. Some of the guys out there, Geno Smith, Tyler Huntley you know Joe burrow is not there Josh Allen's not there like where the stars were, you know, this, this could be a completely different product. If the stars were there and I've always felt like that with the like NBA dunk contests for example, when it's Aaron Gordon, and Zach Levine who have become stars in their own right as dunkers. But how much more engaged with the universal audience be had it been LeBron James and Steph Curry involved in these things? And so looking at the NFL
Mike Lewis 19:42
and let's let's be real, you know, you go back to when the NBA first started taking over their culture and those dunk caught contests. Larry Bird was in the three point shootout. And Michael Jordan dunk. Yeah, with Dominique Wilkins.
Doug Battle 19:55
Yeah, yeah. And so that's changed and I don't know specific, I guess injury with white burrow and Josh Allen. And of course, the biggest issue with the Pro Bowl is that it's the week before the Super Bowl. So the biggest stars who are having the biggest seasons on the most successful teams are not involved. And and the other issue is that it's we've talked a lot about how this is such a quarterback driven league from a marketing perspective, especially, those are the names that people know those are the faces that people recognize. And a large portion of the events are not around quarterbacks and then the ones that are this year just so happened to not really be top quarterbacks. It was kind of mid tier guys from Derek Carr. Like I said, Tyler Huntley, who's the backup to Lamar Jackson, Lamar Jackson is not there. And so having the Manning brothers, I felt like the main things carried it from a personality standpoint feel like those were the faces, people recognize. Those were the moments that tended to go viral on Twitter. Like you said, a lot of people are consuming these types of events through social media
Mike Lewis 20:59
say their first time because that's sort of uniquely NFL. Right The NFL is, you know, the NBA. Seems like everyone they'd seem to do this every year now, right? They're all star game is built around LeBron and some guy, right. O'Brien in Yiannis or run in that sky.
Doug Battle 21:19
What's the Kevin Durant Kevin Durant?
Mike Lewis 21:21
All right. Right. So they build that around here. I can't think of an occasion where the NFL like as you're talking about them almost building this around the Manning brothers. That's very different for that league. Very different.
Doug Battle 21:34
Very different. And like I said, I think it was smart on their part, partially because of the fact that you know, if burrows there and if Josh Allen's there if burrows there and Patrick mahomes, is there, like you build it around those guys. But when you're top quarterbacks, I don't think I mean, I don't, I'm trying to think of the top quarterback that I saw. And it might have been like, a number seven type court, maybe seven to 15 range in the NFL, so they didn't have those top brands. It's like if the NBA is biggest store of All Star Weekend was Jimmy Butler, or Paul George at this stage in their careers, where it's like, how are we going to build this, you know, engaged audience around these guys when you don't have LeBron out there. And so I thought they did the best they could with that stuff. Same with like, you know, I've been talking forever about the need to have a cat competition and much like the dunk contest. And I'll say this, you know, there was some spectacular catches. But Amman, Ross, St. Brown, and Diggs were the receivers in that. And of all the big stars in the league at wide receiver, probably not the two names, not to say they're not incredible athletes and made incredible catchers. But if nothing else, he only had two guys competing. And so and then some of those competitions where they're doing like water balloon toss or whatever. He's got all these offensive linemen and defensive ends and these guys who are great athletes, and for me, it was kind of cool to see them compete in athletic contests that, you know, see, like, Wow, these guys really are athletes. They're not just big guys, and but these aren't brands that consumers generally know like if it were Joe burrow, doing that same golf contests on the driving range, or throwing the water balloon or whatever. And so I think that was the challenge for the NFL this year. And like I said, I thought that bringing the meanings into the mix was certainly a smart move.
Mike Lewis 23:26
I mean, let me ask you this. I mean, you know, the Pro Bowl has always been this, you know, we probably have to adopt a history and historical perspective on this. Right. So the baseball had their mid season classic, right? The the all star game. That was when baseball was the only game in town. So it's sort of the stars of the sports world, or the American sports world coming together. And so the NFL probably feels the need to follow suit, right? So we gotta have an all star game because we got to give awards to these players, because we have to create this star system. The NFL does well, based on the spectacle. And so is there actually even a place for you know, from listening to you. And again, I sort of watched this event via Twitter does strike me as almost more like an amusing diversion? Yeah, not a spectacle, not creating stars. And so what what is the answer for the NFL? I mean, this sounds like it sounds like filler. And the reality is, look, Doug, the NFL is able to take a essentially a calisthenics exercise in terms of people going to Indianapolis, and running 40 yard dashes and cone drills and bench pressing wraps and turn that into something that captivates America. But this you know, maybe maybe it's a step in the right direction from you know, the the pro golf game out in, you know, Honolulu where I think it used to be, but compelling or just sort of an afterthought.
Doug Battle 24:57
Yeah, I certainly think it's an afterthought and I think I don't know if the NFL had a lot of hope I think they were playing from from behind and in the sense that it's hard to have moments with stars involved when your stars aren't there. And so you're gonna make a star out of Derek Carr or out of Geno Smith, or Tyler Huntley snapped at the at a flag football game. Or at a throwing contest, Trevor Lawrence, a guy who that's where you could build you know, where there's the potential to okay, we can start building this guy into a star because he has that ceiling. But with with the derrick cars and Geno Smith, these kind of journeyman quarterbacks? I don't know that they had much to work with. But getting back to the Manning's I have, I have a question like is Eli Manning a bigger star as a retired football player than he was as a player, it seems to me like this guy was the butt of a lot of jokes when he played he won two Super Bowls. There's still people who would discredit that due to the fact that he played on good teams or with the defense's or whatnot. And really lucky teams at that. He like self proclaimed himself as the greatest coach of all the Mannings after beaten paying Payton. down over the weekend in various events. Peyton had an absolute temper tantrum on the field toward the end of the flag football game. Peyton versus Eli certainly was the storyline that the commentators were sort of holding on to and you know, seeing Eli Manning at the Superbowl years back when he's not even in the game. With the best ad in the best commercial with Odell Beckham, Jr. Reenacting Dirty Dancing, one of my favorite Superbowl commercials of all time, so, and then, of course, Monday Night Football, the Manning cast, Eli Manning has kind of emerged as a star post playing career really an interesting situation because he was not a media guy during his he was not doing commercials or he wasn't particularly liked. And all of a sudden, he's like, the face of the NFL.
Mike Lewis 27:04
Do you remember? And gets, you know, because I think this goes back about 15 years when these first really hit Yeah, a Peyton Manning ads with Brad Paisley. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Doug Battle 27:18
Yeah, want to go on tour? And yeah,
Mike Lewis 27:21
I mean, the number of it's almost like a one of these, like generational things, you know, that they're really caught on of, you know, like, almost every dude in America has saying that little song of epic comeback starts right now. Right. And so, you know, paid and always had that kind of, kind of always had that glow, even going back to like Tennessee. And you know, where as this guy, and I'm old enough to remember that. There was a moment in the SEC, where Rex Grossman was a better quarterback prospect than Eli Manning. Right? I mean, it's yeah, it's strange is that is that sound. So Eli always had this kind of strange relationship with the media. And I think we're always supposed to think well, if you're New York, it'd be the media darling. I think being a new being in New York may have actually kind of hurt Eli in terms of that media glow, but I'm with you. We're seeing something very interesting happening with the man and cast the number of paid in an Eli advert advertisements that we now see their partnership with. Pepsi and Lay's essentially being the the team captains or the coaches for the Pro Bowl. You like I think I've set it out. I've said we've we've talked some about that Joe burrow might be seems like we could be the next sports magic sports marketing. I think we're wrong. I think we kind of overlooked these guys because they were retired. This kind of brother tandem. I don't know any. I don't think I see anything stopping them. And
Doug Battle 28:56
yeah, and it's just fascinating to me, because Peyton was always a media darling. He was always in the commercials for Campbell's soup or whatever it was. He was hilarious. Everyone that he was on SNL, everyone always loved Peyton. Eli always seemed kind of shy, kind of down on himself when he's performing not at a high level, not as well spoken, not as charismatic and you would hear some of the giant because I follow the Giants. You'd hear some of the giants players say Elijah, funniest guy on the team. He's a prankster. He's always doing pranks. He's always. So it's like, apparently, behind that shell there was this charisma that the world did not see from Eli Manning, until he had won a Super Bowl. And I'll tell one more Eli Manning thing I saw something this week about this is the legend of Eli Manning, where it's starting to grow. You know, it's a legend when nobody has any idea if it's true. There's the story going around that Eli Manning gave Tom Brady some like colored pencil drawings that he had drawn of like I think it was a bird or something after The Superbowl when the Giants beat the Patriots, and this is all over social media. And Tom Brady didn't take the joke very well, because he was upset about the game. And then he said that Eli texts him. This is in the according to legend that Eli texted him a couple hours after the game and said, I changed my mind. I want my bird drawings back. And then you said, and then in the meme that's going around, it says two years later, three years later, when they played the Super Bowl again, Giants beat the Patriots. And Eli shook Tom Brady's hand, significantly harder than Tom Brady thought he was capable of set in. He said, That's what, that's what you get for not giving my bird drawing back. And that's that's the story. Is there any truth to it? I seriously doubt it. But it's all over the internet. It's like people are just running with Eli kind of being this weird, but weird guy who doesn't take himself seriously, but is actually capable of beating Tom Brady in a Super Bowl. And he's definitely able to make fun of himself a little bit. And so he his emergence as a media star has been really fascinating to me in particular that I mean, it feels like this season has been the year where Eli went from Peyton's little brother to an equal with Peyton in the media landscape. way after his playing career, simply because of commercials and in the main cast.
Mike Lewis 31:28
Yeah. And I think you got to look at the Manning seems smart. They really do. Right. I mean, it's hard to gauge, you know, business acumen, but from everything they've done, and even the fact that they're kind of combining to do some of these things. That's probably the next sports brand to really, I mean, like, it's obviously enormous already. But the potential they could have is just through the roof. You know, because because what can't those guys endorse it? I mean, you know, as as the media environment becomes more fragmented and more distributed. There's no reason to think they can't and like they probably already have a massive podcast and if they don't, I'm sure they can. So massive social media tie in to tie into the the man and cast in terms of the broadcast of the football,
Doug Battle 32:20
and they both have the Peyton's places and Eli's places on ESPN plus, so they have their own programming. They've had their detail like film breakdowns on ESPN plus, so that we've got all kinds of media going on. And just maybe, you know, I think that a lot of people thought LeBron James would be the media darling of that generation. And it's like, somehow, Eli Manning and Peyton Manning has become let's endeavor in every commercial like Jordan was right. Like, you're like watching some of these Jordan commercials. And it's like, LeBron hasn't gotten that treatment. likability. Right. Yeah.
Mike Lewis 32:58
I mean it again, it's like people want to overly complicate this and bring other stuff into it. Michael Jordan, specially when he was a younger player, that smile, completely likable, right, the Manning's likable self effacing. Yeah.
Doug Battle 33:16
There's this, like, every man character is that they both kind of play especially Eli. Everyone views Eli as like, you know, the number of times someone's told me I look or sound or act like Eli Manning, and I've talked about that before on the show. But he has this air, it's like, he's just a regular guy. He's not like this big, but which isn't true. By the way, I've been in the same room as Eli Manning before and the guy is absolutely massive. And he looks he strikes you as this guy's a serious athlete when you're just looking at his physique, and you don't like television somehow doesn't convey that and so he has this everyman kind of thing, and it's a lot of it has to do with how he carries himself, his his demeanor, his mannerisms, and it makes him relatable to so many people and then he's likable and then he's been successful and now he's just having a good time and I think everybody enjoys it.
Mike Lewis 34:04
Okay Doug on the video element this week can you effort to put together something that has a picture of Eli Manning on your half of the page and Bruce Willis on my half
Doug Battle 34:15
we're gonna do a deep fake and the entire the entire podcast I can be Eli and you can be stylish or Mr. Clean whichever you decide.
Mike Lewis 34:24
You know, I you know, Miss missed it. This is a this is a deep subject, Mr. Clean has white eyebrows, so, okay.
Doug Battle 34:33
I got the light jersey on today, though, because it's Super Bowl week, and that's my favorite Super Bowl. Memories are.
Mike Lewis 34:40
Okay, so talking about the Mannings, and the great work that they do in commercials. One of the big stories of every Super Bowl is, like I said, at the very beginning, it's almost like this has become a marketing holiday. So it evolved over time to be the most watched television program in America. It's still is usually about 100 million people 100 and 10 million and good years, you know, 95 million and slightly off years. So it's the one time where everyone's watching. And so advertisers have noticed this, and they've always come together and put their, you know, he's gonna say put their best stuff forward. I don't know that that's actually you know, it best is such a debatable term. They've tried to make an impact here. And, you know, for a while, especially around, you know, when around the year 2000, I think it really became almost a thing where a bunch of people would say, Well, I'm not really interested in the game, but I want to see the ads. Yep. So it started to take on a life of its own, and you would see these, and you still see some of this stuff, this retrospective of who won the Super Bowl advertising war the following day. So we wanted to take a little bit of a look at some historical Superbowl ads. And even I'll even we can even mention a couple of the more anticipated ads. Now I will say this right off the bat, the, excuse me, the price for this year, has, I'll give you the price for the 32nd ad 2019 5.2 million 2025 point 6,000,020 21 5.6 million 2020 to 6.5 million 2023 7 million. So these price increases are actually kind of, you know, astronomical in terms of being beyond how the economy is growing or where inflation is for a product that is not reaching more people over time. So it's a curious situation.
Doug Battle 36:40
Yeah, maybe that's why all the crypto companies went bankrupt last year, because last year was the crypto bowl as far as advertisements, it seems like crypto.com FTX. Like all those big companies had half the advertisements, and they went bankrupt later in the year, or the large majority of them went bankrupt later in the year, of course, due to the economy in the market for that. But yeah, it is kind of precarious, that the price is going up. I mean, I don't know what it would be adjusted for inflation, because but nevertheless, there are high never been higher prices for something that I would imagine less people are watching in real time. It does that sound right?
Mike Lewis 37:23
No, I think that's true. I mean, I think, you know, Super Bowl viewership peaked a few years ago, but you know, probably peaked at about 115 million viewers, and we've been, you know, so we're down about 10%. It's still the, you know, it is still by far the most watched TV program, live TV programming. So it is your so it's a little bit of a strange situation, right? Where you could justify that the price is going go up, even though the audience is flat, or maybe shrinking slightly, because everything else is falling off a cliff even faster. Right. And so it's, it will always be this way. And I think we also have to be honest, there's like this kind of strange cultural moment, where there is always this hope that the ad not only the ad, not only Well, you know, maybe we should almost always say something. It's like, what is the purpose to advertising? And yeah, do you ever take an advertising class at?
Doug Battle 38:21
Yeah, yeah, I worked at ad agency, Mike. Okay. Oh, a hot second.
Mike Lewis 38:26
Okay. And so, you know, people will give you their theories about what advertising is supposed to do. The truth is advertising. You know, the goals are kind of simple. Maybe you want to build awareness, you want people to see your stuff, maybe you want to communicate a product benefit, you want to get people hyped up to see a movie, right? I mean, you know, academics can tend to complicate this stuff. But Superbowl advertising is a little bit different. Because beyond kind of those basic objectives, there's also this thing of, we're gonna get people talking, right, we're gonna actually have this impact on the culture, and we're gonna get people to you know, it's going to, we're going to spend $7 million. Sure, but we're going to get all this fleet, this free publicity in the lead up to the Superbowl. And in the carryover after it. Yeah,
Doug Battle 39:12
absolutely. And so I'm curious Mike to know, I, part of me wants to know, what are some of your favorite Superbowl ads, but I also want to know, which ones come to mind when you think of ads that were probably not a good investment for the advertiser for the company?
Mike Lewis 39:30
Well, he, you know, as we were talking about putting this episode together, and what I did was I went out and sort of looked at and Doug's gonna put in the video element on YouTube and Instagram, we're going to show some of the video from from some of these more prominent ads. But Doug, I'll be honest with you, I found myself kind of going, you know, I mean, you can find some badass like there was a, I think there was an oat milk or cashew milk,
Doug Battle 39:57
oat milk, oat milk,
Mike Lewis 39:58
then everyone was like, Well, what was The point to that kind of thing.
Doug Battle 40:01
And sometimes I wonder if they intentionally make it bad to get us talking because it's like, well, we wouldn't have talked about that otherwise would have been so spectacularly.
Mike Lewis 40:09
But we don't remember the brand, and we don't. But what I found myself thinking is is like, as you look through Superbowl advertising, it's almost like a history lesson for where America has been, and how it's changed over time. Absolutely. You know, like, a lot of the, a lot of the ads on that end up on the worst ad list are from GoDaddy. I mean, you know, me you remember the GoDaddy stuff, right? Yeah. For the 15 years ago, I think,
Doug Battle 40:39
yeah. So my side of that is I used to for my birthday, every year, I'd have a Super Bowl party, that was my thing we would host so you imagine since I was seven years old, having 30 Little boys, and then 3014 year olds and 16 year olds and stuff. And GoDaddy was always the one where the parents would would come in and try to turn the TV off or something. And I'm not gonna lie, Mike, I don't know that any of those GoDaddy commercials specify exactly what GoDaddy is services or what their product is. I thought it was a different type of website based on their advertising. And that that's my, that's my takeaway on godaddy when I don't know if that's what they wanted or not, but they certainly presented themselves in a way that would lead you to think that they were promoting something other than their products.
Mike Lewis 41:33
Well, in they were clearly out there for shock value, right. And so I on the list, one was, you know, one was one of their many, and it doesn't matter which one we pull it for a while. It was like GoDaddy and Danica Patrick.
Doug Battle 41:47
Yeah, there was one of her in the shower. It was always kind of like a strip tease.
Mike Lewis 41:50
Yeah, it was always essentially stretched it out sex appeal of Danica Patrick. Yeah. And, and then following that it was kind of Danna, Danica Patrick, in sort of weird situations with, you know, what was her name bar Rafi le or there's one called Lola. It was just okay, we've we've sexed up Danica Patrick. And now we're going to do different things as a playoff on that. The other one that you know, GoDaddy really gets hammered for was something called the lost puppy at
Doug Battle 42:19
where these that GoDaddy, I didn't realize that was
Mike Lewis 42:23
there are two, there are two sort of lost dog ads. There's an Anheuser Busch ad where a dog finds its way home. Yeah, and everyone's happy to see the dog. And then there's a Go Daddy ad where the dog finds its way home. And the breeder literally says to the dog. Oh, we're so glad you made it home, because I just sold you and shipped out.
Doug Battle 42:44
See, I like that. That's, that's the one Go Daddy. I like simply because it played on everyone's expectations. And it's kind of that dark humor that is going to offend a segment of people. And it's going to make a lot of people laugh.
Mike Lewis 43:00
But you know what's funny, because you brought it up, and I hadn't thought about it in a long time. Even the name of the company was basically just sort of the idea of let's let's get people talking. Let's be let's be semi scandalous, right? Yeah. internet hosting and domain registry service called GoDaddy. Yeah, I mean, it's the branding was all 100% out in terms of, we're going to be controversial. We're gonna get people to pay attention to us via sex. mistreating lost dogs, you know, they really were will do anything.
Doug Battle 43:33
Yeah, and I have to wonder, like, it must be successful to some degree as far as their metrics because they keep doing it. Or they did keep I don't know if they run ads anymore. But for the longest time, that was, you knew you were gonna get a Doritos ad and you knew you were gonna get a blood like Budweiser ad and you knew you were gonna get a godaddy.com ad. So I guess they had some success by their own metrics and managed to get people talking manager to get us talking about this on the podcast. I was always this like, I would imagine, I know that a lot of their campaigns would kind of end with a go to godaddy.com to see the rest. And I can't imagine what was on their website, but I never heard of anything super terrible. And so I don't know it seems like they might have had some false advertising on their commercials with Danica Patrick and company. So just I don't know if that upset people or if they got on there and we're like, oh, I want to start a website. This is actually exactly what I wanted even though it's not what I was looking for. So thank you GoDaddy for helping me find my what I didn't know I needed
Mike Lewis 44:45
and it can all say that. You know, there's almost a historical perspective of for like older people in terms of where the Go Daddy stuff was coming from. I mean, like through the 90s You know, anyone of a certain age saw endless advertisement. It's for like these videotapes that they would sell at night called Girls Gone Wild, right? And GoDaddy always had that kind of that kind of almost like softcore porn to it.
Doug Battle 45:11
I don't know that it's, I don't know, I don't know that that's certainly not the way Chick fil A has earned their reputation across America. But like I said, apparently, it's worked to some degree because they keep doing it. And it's hard to imagine spinning the kind of money it costs to buy a 32nd ad to do something that already failed several times before.
Mike Lewis 45:35
And like I said, I think this is why it feels like very much kind of almost all, you know, and it's like, it's for this kind of conversation is hard to figure out where to start and where to stop, because GoDaddy really feels like a cultural moment in you know, about the year 2005 through 2010, whenever, whenever they were really kind of hitting their peak. But so much of it is kind of like almost this like shock jock mentality, right? Where it's like almost Howard Stern like, right, it's so it's, it's kind of an echo of where society have been, now you play like a GoDaddy ad. And, you know, you don't even think the network's are going to are going to accept it. The other ad that I wanted to highlight in terms of this list, was something that truly encapsulates how society has changed, and how something that might have been acceptable. And a joke does not work at all. And that's a Bob Johnson holiday in it, I knew exactly where you were going, well, in the plot of this ad was holiday and had just put a bunch of money into making over their hotels, their lobbies and their rooms. And so as an example of someone else, putting a lot of money into making themselves over, it said, as a high school reunion, and Bob Johnson has become is transgender, and has transitioned into being a glamorous woman. And Bob is talking to one of his classmates who's trying to recognize them and slowly comes up with Bob. And just the idea of doing something like that in 2023, you know, completely completely unworkable, I don't think, I don't think it really worked for Holiday Inn at the time, right. And again, this kind of gets to the notion of what is the purpose of advertising, it's the community, and sometimes it's to communicate a benefit. But this was clearly trying to sort of make a joke, kind of a shocking joke, with the the communicating the benefit being a really small part of it. And so sometimes, you know, it just, it didn't work at the time. And now it feels like a hate crime.
Doug Battle 47:38
Yeah, and now, it's like, if you do an ad like that, your products gonna get pulled off of every shelf, they're not going to air stuff like that, though. I mean, I would imagine there's some sort of control over that, so that you can only be so offensive, but I wonder how much future proofing you have to do. And you're considering just humor changes to right. And it's like, it's just going to,
Mike Lewis 48:01
I don't think it was really viewed as offensive at the time, I think it was kind of viewed as like, going for a little shock value. Yeah, yeah.
Doug Battle 48:08
And I and that's what I mean by like, future proofing now, or they have to look back and say, okay, at the time, that wasn't offensive, but now it is, is the joke we're making today, we're going to get us cancelled four years from now, when people see that on YouTube, because it's once it's out there, it's out there. It's not just airing one time on TV, like they probably get a lot more views on social media and on YouTube, than from the actual game and these lists that accumulate over the years. So I have to wonder how much forethought goes into that. And on the to take it to an extreme. I wonder how much pandering we'll see from ADS this year that are really doing everything they can to not get their brand into trouble, whether now or in the future.
Mike Lewis 48:55
Well, talking about that in terms of how things can change, you know, one of the other one of the some of the ads that end up being typically on folks list of the best ads. Yeah, the ones that is viewed as truly iconic is the Cindy Crawford Pepsi ad from the early 90s. And so iconic, that essentially they did a tribute to it, by having Cindy come back, and I want to say was like 2017 or 2018 and basically reprise the role. And so the the original ad is basically Cindy Crawford, who at that point is at the height of her fame. She's one of the original. She's one of the original models that got the supermodel tag, and that was sort of in that candidate. There had been supermodel before but she was officially labeled a supermodel. I think she had some shows on places like MTV, so she was a male again a major cultural icon. And the the Pepsi ad from the early 90s is just straight out sex appeal. It Cindy drinking and ice cold pops up that's also a little strange with a couple of books. younger boys watching,
Doug Battle 50:01
I was gonna say the fact that it's little boys in that ad, I don't know that that would work now. I feel like that's a strange choice. But it certainly had an innocence in the sense of it kind of have that little rascals feel to it, where it's just little boys for the first time realizing that, you know, women are attractive to them. But, but like I said, I, the age difference between her and the kids in nowadays, with, especially like in Hollywood, the kinds of scandals that have happened over the last, however many years that have, you know, received publicity where that kind of thing could backfire real easily. And it's another one where it's like, I don't know, did they do in the second one? Did they use little kids again? Because I don't know that I remember the second one.
Mike Lewis 50:46
I don't recall this. I don't recall. But it's Yeah. And again, you know, it's the time and again, sort of this, this looking at, like how cultural exchange at the time, I think you'll look at those boys as a kind of it's, it's sort of an innocent thing of right. They're starting to look at, you know, attractive women. But yeah, it doesn't seem like that would work that that would work at all. And the, the revision of the ad probably cleaned up some of that stuff. Well, it's
Doug Battle 51:15
also like, you reverse the roles as far as gender and all of a sudden, it becomes a major issue. And so it's like, if it doesn't work one way, like, they probably want to do it the other way, just because like, like I said, it's your one big story. One big story comes out this week, or one big scandal happens, and everyone who sees that ad is looking at it through a completely different lens, and is completely horrified by it, or completely offended. And so that's the challenge. And I remember, like, a couple years back, they pulled an ad that had a helicopter in it, because it was like a couple of weeks after the Kobe Bryant tragedy. And so that's, that is like a really extreme case of what I'm talking about. But these things, the way that they're digested by audiences can change so fast, particularly in our culture, where it seems like the rules are of what's acceptable and what's not, are changing at such a rapid pace.
Mike Lewis 52:09
Well, and I think this is a valuable discussion. The, you know, the interesting sort of story, sort of background and all this is you can only think an argument that's really only the last five years where something like, you know, something that the lens has changed so dramatically. I mean, it clearly has, but, you know, watching some of these ads in the earlier time periods watching that Cindy Crawford ad in the early 90s. No one even blinked. Right. No one even thought about it. So it's, it's an interesting thing to watch other ads in this and I'll, I'll get to the the one that gets kind of the credit for kind of being the game changer last. And again, I think this was an early 90s ad, or late 80s ad, Jordan and Byrd for macdon. Yes. What do you mean, so this is before your time, the basically the way the ad works is bird is shooting around, Michael Jordan comes in with a Big Mac from McDonald's. And basically, there's a competition on of like, let's play essentially game a horse for it. Beautiful ad completely holds up almost like the blueprint for where a lot of this kind of celebrity based advertising went to iconic athletes. Perfect ad.
Doug Battle 53:28
Yeah, and I don't know why they haven't done that with Stefan curry and Damian Lillard or someone else, who's kind of thought of as that deep three ball guy, but only thing that could have made it better. To me it was the production quality as far as those guys can make. If you got them in the gym for a day, you can get some pretty spectacular actual shots. So they're making incredible shots, dude, perfect type stuff, and all of it which it would be one shot of them shooting, and then another separate, very obviously separate shot of the ball going in to the goal. And I don't remember if it was for like Adidas or Nike thing, where there was a video of LeBron James that went viral a couple years ago with him throwing full court passes, or full court shots and it looks like he's thinking them all on camera, and of course, it was edited. But that the viral potential those types of videos because there becomes a debate as to whether they're real or fake and, and then they I mean, they haven't a brand tied to those I think is really smart. And so I feel like there's a lot of potential in basketball with that kind of like trick shot thing that I'm surprised hasn't been leveraged with the number of prominent basketball players that are the faces of major brands, but nevertheless, of course, an iconic commercial and ironically, two super athletes guys who take care of their bodies at the highest level promoting McDonald's in that one. Okay as as their food of choice so might not make the might not make the Tom Brady diet.
Mike Lewis 54:58
I love that. I love that Because I think there's also and again, we'll sort of hold off on that we'll end with the ad that I think gets is the official game changer and all this stuff. But there's definitely some irony in that, too. Okay, so I'm looking at the clock, you know, we put a bunch of Budweiser stuff together. You know, I mean, Budweiser, everything from the frogs, you know, is the OG noises. The 2002 ad following 911, where it's essentially the most pro American ad with the Clydesdales of all time, again, sort of beautifully done stuff, sort of the the stuff that I think has actually sort of reinforced this notion of Superbowl advertising being something special, where they're kind of inspirational movies. But the one I want to key on is just, you know, Budweiser, one of the stupidest ads they ever did, which is a bunch of guys sort of sitting around, a phone call is made. And then suddenly, they've got all of America coming up to each other go on. For years.
Doug Battle 56:05
Yeah, that one is like, I don't know how I got approved, like, how they're like, this is gonna work, I promise. Like, that was not a foolproof plan, I could have gone one or two ways. And fortunately for them, seems as though the majority of American consumers, particularly football, fan types thought it was awesome. And why did it didn't start with him as either kind of on a phone call was like two guys on a phone call. And he's like, what you're up to, and he's like, having a bud watching the game. And then they just start saying what's up over and over to all their buddies. And I mean, it's like some of these some of these ads, you can tell it's like, they spend millions and millions and millions of dollars. It's like they have a whole year's worth of work from like, 1000s of people, which is an exaggeration, but to put together one advertisement, and some of them are so stupid, that you're just scratching your head, you're like, why would they? How is that what they came up with with all that money? And what's that ad it's like one guy was probably had a few too many Budweiser years. And he was like, Oh, I have an idea. And it actually just worked. So you never know, I don't know that the more money you spin, I'm not saying they didn't spend money on that ad. It just it's like you certainly could have done that on a low budget. And I don't know, the more money you spend guarantees more success, or sometimes the simple ads like that are what does, you know, do the trick. Yeah. And
Mike Lewis 57:28
I mean, as strange as it sounds might be the most, you know, the cultural impact of that is like I mean, I'm, I guarantee you, when that one came out, you were probably saying what's up to your friends in grade school, right? And Grammar School
Doug Battle 57:42
was I remember and, you know, of course, it wasn't leading us to consume Budweiser. But the fact that they created an incense like mannerism, that every time somebody said that it brought to mind, Bud Light, or Budweiser, and the only other ad I've seen do something like that was David harbor in the tide ads. A couple years ago, this one I was working in advertising, so I was really paying close attention. But they had it start like a traditional beer commercial. And then it would end up being like notice so everyone in the commercial shirts are clean. If it's you know, if it's clean, it's a tight ad. And then it made it they hijacked it. They did several ads like that throughout the Superbowl, but it made it so every time an ad started, you were wondering if it was a tight ad, or if it was going to turn into a tight ad. And so it's like your attention was constantly on tied for 40 commercial slots when they only had four commercial slots. And that way they hijacked the Super Bowl, I feel like what's up kind of hijacked us day to day interaction saying was up while they're you know, calling up their buddy,
Mike Lewis 58:47
some legitimate creativity. Okay, they're the one I've been alluding to that I think always has to be mentioned in discussions of advertising and Superbowl advertising is the apple 1984 ad. You go back and you watch this thing. And it's, you know, it's essentially set in this dystopian environment, everything is grayed out. And you have a a woman suddenly kind of enter in, you know, it's sort of like a Hooters girl is strangely dressed. She's dressed sort of colorful in her in her hair and clothing. So like this visual pop and is clearly that she's this disrupter or this innovator, and it ends with her swing, almost like a hammer throw in a jackhammer. Yeah, and shattering a screen with the idea being that hey, you know, it's it's almost like relevant to like the NPC meme that people talk about right now that Apple is going to disrupt this kind of grade pedestrian, everyone's the same authoritarian future. Hilariously, though, and you mentioned sort of the irony of all this. This is the company that basically Please business model evolved to having a device that we all carry around with us that allow us to act constantly.
Doug Battle 1:00:09
And it's a bit of a, it's the same in the sense, everyone kind of has the same phone, the same computer the same. So the comments on that ad, are almost entirely making fun of the irony that the most dystopian thing to happen in our lifetimes was the rise of some of these devices and how integral they've become to date and day to day life for everyone, and how there's the potential surveillance and the types of 1984. Orwellian themes can be associated with iPhones. And I know that Apple's made an effort to advertise their security and their focus on that or whatnot. But nevertheless, I think at this point, I don't know if they can redo an Orwellian ad without it being ironic, like, I feel like it would have to be intentionally ironic if they were to redo a 1984 ad, I actually think that would be great. But I don't know that that would be on brand for Apple at this point.
Mike Lewis 1:01:07
Okay. And, you know, at the very beginning of this, and I forget exactly were on, it was sort of like this notion that the worst thing you can do in marketing is let your marketing show through. And there's a famous ad, probably a little bit before your time for sprite by a guy named Grant Hill. And it was, you know, almost this kind of breaking the, what they call that breaking the third wall or the fourth wall, in terms of him talking directly to the audiences and saying, you know, learning that I'm actually selling a product to you kind of wink wink. And so, you know, and I think that's, you know, that there's sort of that play off on, you know, gets them a little bit towards having some authenticity, and it's like Grant Hill was this, it was sort of very kind of attractive figure sort of very well loved NBA player. But right now, I mean, I think that is potentially the problem when we look at Superbowl advertising. And what's coming. I've got a couple that I'll mention here, that some of the stuff that you mentioned, some of it looks like it's these massively massive spend in terms of like getting celebrities together, it feel very sort of forced very kind of what we're trying to make controversy. And that's, I think, when you sort of backed yourself into that position, it's like, that's where these things ended up being a disaster in terms of being very forgettable, or being stuff that people sort of groan about. So I'll give you I'll give you two. So there's a Michelob ad. I don't know if it's Michelob light or Michelob that basically takes on Caddyshack except now they've got Serena Williams and Brian Cox. And so Serena Williams is essentially playing the Rodney Dangerfield character, you know, the, the person's for from the, you know, the Brian Cox is playing in the country club guy, Serena Williams is playing the person that's sort of disrupting the country club. And a, they even have the old Caddyshack guy, the kid that played the caddy in their original, he's coming back and I think he's sort of in the background on some of it. And as I'm watching this, all I can think is, this is the most formulaic thing of all time, right? You've taken this Caddyshack this kind of iconic nostalgia effort, nostalgia effort, right? So you're using nostalgia to get everyone involved. you're updating it for more diversity and inclusiveness in terms of the casting. You've even gone to the trouble of again, like having the kid that played the original caddy. And I don't think it works at all. Obviously, you're spending a ton of money into it. But as I'm watching an ongoing as, okay, so they're trying to manipulate me by doing Caddyshack. But why is Serena Williams golfing? And it feels completely flat to me. Now, again, I will say this, maybe as a marketing professor, I'm viewing this stuff too analytically. And maybe some of this stuff pops. But I don't know.
Doug Battle 1:04:03
I feel like a lot of the modern ones. They're really trying to gear toward like the Tick Tock crowd, like they're very ADHD, there's a lot of stimulation coming at you from every side. And like, maybe that works for a different demographic than the one I'm in or the one you're in. But it doesn't that stuff feels cheap to me, even though it's expensive, if that makes sense. And I think that like a simple concept. dunwell is what has been tried and true. Like I think of the Darth Vader Volkswagen kid who uses the force like that is a very simple concept. It was a very, you could have done that on a low budget if you wanted to, right, just like what's up are some of these that we've talked about, and yet it sticks with you because it strikes a nerve. And it it you know, it's one thing it's very focused, and I think some of these ads now are so all over the place, and it's like, oh, there's 14 different celebrity cameos. This one ad, but I don't remember what any of them said or did or who it was for. And it was just a lot of flashing lights and noise for 30 seconds. And so
Mike Lewis 1:05:09
in to me, as long as I was watching the Caddyshack thing, I just start playing like this little game in my head of well, could I come up with an ad campaign, you know, and what I started playing around in my head was, well, let's take on a godfather theme. And let's have Zendaya play, I think as Michael Corleone, and she can kiss whatever, you know, whatever sort of old fossil you can find from the Sopranos. It's still around. And you know, that she broke his heart. Right. And so we'll we'll update it in terms of the demographics. And then, you know, maybe it's for beyond beyond burger, and it's sort of something you know, because he had used real meat in the hamburgers, right? I mean, it's actually kind of trivial stuff to come up with in terms of the formula. Let's get some nostalgia. Let's get some celebrities. Let's tell kind of a an easy joke. Bingo. It's like
Doug Battle 1:06:05
Mad Libs. And you can it's like Mad Libs, you can drag and drop different celebrities, different intellectual properties that are beloved from the past, and different products. And that's pretty much it for the majority.
Mike Lewis 1:06:17
In dog. It's almost worse than that, because it's almost like celebrity over 50. Right? And then celebrity under 25. Movie movie that appeals to a movie or song that appeals to Generation X, okay, the other one. And this one, I think really deserves to get take a lot of abuse, is that m&ms has a new it has an ad that's going to come out. And basically m&m For those of you that haven't been following this as involved in some controversy, because they've started to, I don't know, play with the gender of their candies, and, and then once they had gendered candies, then they ran into complaints about the shoe. And again, we could probably getting some of this wrong, ran into complaints about some of the shoes that the candies were wearing. Yeah, created a non binary m&m. And then was going to have a picture of the sorry, a package that just included the female and non binary they created. They created a problem for themselves. And so right there ad is going to have Maya Rudolph, right. And the proposal that they're gonna change it from m&ms to mas, and yas. Yeah, that's a pretty,
Doug Battle 1:07:34
I mean, my entire life, it's been those same m&m characters that are synonymous with the brand. So that's gonna be a tough shift. And I remember dos AQIS, man going from one dos ACC us man to another and it didn't feel quite right. But for m&ms to go from m&ms to these new characters played by Maya Rudolph, and I don't know who else certainly interesting, but kind of a classic tale of how they probably try, like Eminem probably tried a little bit hard, too hard to appeal to a younger audience or a modern audience in a way that offended probably an older audience and then probably over or over corrected to some degree, one way or the other, and ended up being in a spot where it's like, you know, they just be better off, they just got Peyton and Eli, let's be like, there's certain things that are just like, that's just gonna work. And I think they're kind of thinking that like, okay, let's just go with my Rudolph SNL. If people like her, she's, you know, she's not going to cause any problems for us. Well,
Mike Lewis 1:08:36
and I'll say, totally self inflicted wound, right? There was, yeah, we see that a lot. No reason for any of it didn't really get them anywhere. It's almost like they should go back and find whatever, whatever m&m Add, they showed in the 1970s, in sort of, you know, recast that reshoot it and just forget about it. Okay. We're a little bit over time, but I know you wanted to make a Super Bowl prediction. I don't even find myself able to make Super Bowl predictions. You know, I will watch this game with just an eye on, you know, Patrick mahomes, essentially taking the reigns over from Tom Brady as he's moved off on a second retirement, or Jalen hertz, sort of getting to that next level in terms of stardom of a guy that can actually win Super Bowls. Beyond that, so you know, very much storyline focused. What are you looking for in the game?
Doug Battle 1:09:28
I think the the perfect script would be, there's been a lot of jokes about the NFL being scripted lately. I think the perfect script would be mahomes and him kind of taking the reins and being that guy, but I think that Jalen Hurts and that you will spoil that script, and I don't think the NFL is rigged. I'm not saying it'll be rigged if the Chiefs win. I simply think that the Eagles are better football team and they're gonna win on Sunday. And I've been wrong so many times. I've been right sometimes. So we'll see what happens as far as ads. You know, I could make predictions. I'm sure they're all already on YouTube. I don't I'd like to spoiler I like to wait and watch him in real time during the Super Bowl so we can talk those next week, perhaps. But yeah, I like the eagles on Sunday. And I expect a lot of things on fire and people celebrating in Philadelphia.
Mike Lewis 1:10:12
Hey, Doug, one last question for you. You know, it's interesting, the Eagles actually always do pretty well in these in these fandom rankings. They usually hover right outside the top five of you know, the Cowboys, the Cowboys, Steelers, backers, patriots, you know, the they might end up being five or six. But I don't think that's what the numbers say. But I don't think people actually tend to put the Eagles into NFL royalty. Is this enough to legitimately start to move them to being one of those kind of elite franchises, that has a nationwide fan base?
Doug Battle 1:10:48
I don't know why that is. I think that this there's kind of this like blue collar association with Eagles fans of the Philadelphia Eagles where it's like, I don't know what they can do to become a premier, you know, to have the reputation of the Cowboys, even though they probably have more passionate fans than the Cowboys. And so I don't know that one Super Bowl is going to do it. Because I mean, they've been in several Super Bowls in my lifetime. Of course winning most recently with Nick Foles is QB one. And I think that I honestly think that having a dynasty, it wouldn't several would would go a long way for them. But I see Eagles fans everywhere I go. So it's not like it's not like they're hiding, but that they just don't have that reputation for whatever reason.
Mike Lewis 1:11:32
You know, maybe the story is you got to win multiple Super Bowls, but you got to deal with a dynamic superstar quarterback. And Ron George did it with Nick Foles. Don't get you there.
Doug Battle 1:11:43
And I know and I don't know if Jalen Hertz. He still has that kind of blue collar. Like we talked about that last week association with him where it's like he's a lunch pail guy. He's just out works the next guy and he's just a leader. He's not. He's nothing flashy. He's not mahomes He's not Josh Allen. So, you know, he could he could change that if you make some phenomenal plays to win a Super Bowl. I mean, this is where legends are made. But it's also like we've said all playoffs where people are quickly forgotten. And so I mean, Nick Foles became a legend but as a lunch pail guy, can Jalen hertz become that flashy superstar. I don't know that that's his style, but we'll find out. Always a
Mike Lewis 1:12:25
great you know, keto Super Bowl, always a great line of narratives and always something special to watch. Okay, everyone, thanks for listening more content@www.fandomanalytics.com
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