Lesson: What Are Super Bowl Ads Really Selling and Who Are They Selling to?

Super Bowl 50 will soon be upon us. While baseball may be America’s pastime, football is king when it comes to media exposure and merchandising. Every year, the Super Bowl is the most watched event on American television. In fact, in 2014, Super Bowl 48 became the most watched event in television history. In the advertising world, this begets big opportunities for corporations to make their products visible to an enormous audience. The exposure generated by a Super Bowl commercial leaves many companies willing to pay astronomical amounts for 30 seconds on the national stage.

With so much money to pay, so little time, and so much to say in mere seconds, it’s truly a scramble for advertisers to get their two cents in during these commercials. The values companies hold and their marketing goals they wish achieve through highly targeted markets are not always examined, but an exploration of Super Bowl advertisements will likely be illuminating for your students. Combining teaching about advertising and persuasive communications with entertainment is a great way to generate interest in the classroom.

It’s never too early for students to learn about ethical issues and the Super Bowl presents a golden chance for you to open a meaningful dialog on this subject. By helping your students watch advertisements with a more discerning eye, they can be armed with the knowledge to defend themselves against negative messages presented in advertisements and to appreciate the positive ones. While it may be tempting to cast your own views into a lesson based on truth and ethics in advertising, it is important as a teacher to remain a neutral facilitator. Critical thinking skills, independent thought, abstract reasoning, and debating skills can all be explored and refined through these lessons.

If you want your students to learn about how advertisers target potential consumers and values promoted in commercials, basing a lesson plan around Super Bowl commercials is ideal. (Note: These lesson ideas are the most appropriate for grade 9 and up.)

Essential Questions

1. Do advertisers' end goals ever justify the means?
2. Why do advertisers appoint one set of people as an aspiration group and another as a group to avoid and view scornfully? What tactics do advertisers employ to set up these competing groups and what are the ethical issues surrounding these practices?
3. What makes a message placed in an ad "positive" and why might a company choose such a message while their peers would not?
4. How can we examine the balance between flash (and viewer count/ratings) and substance in a Super Bowl commercial? Should companies and advertising agencies choose attention-grabbing text and visuals over valuable product messages in order to get people to watch and comment on their commercials?

Article to Examine in Class

AdWeek: Notable Super Bowl 50 Advertisers and Tactics They Employ

To get the lowdown on some of the details of Super Bowl 50 commercials, AdWeek is a superior resource. Starting as a periodical magazine in the late 1970s, AdWeek focuses on contemporary issues surrounding the world of advertising and is recognized as an authority in the industry.

AdWeek has several articles concerning companies whose commercials will be appearing on Super Bowl Sunday. Some of the big names they’ve chronicled include Wix, Butterfinger, Avocados from Mexico, and Budweiser.

Most notable is their article detailing why there won’t be a sequel to Budweiser’s “Lost Dog” commercial as well as the commercial that they will be renewing. Budweiser will continue its “Brewed the Hard Way” campaign, which combines such advertising methods as using aspiration groups (and using hipsters as an anti-aspiration group), targeting a proudly American no-frills type of demographic, and unmistakably exuding confidence in the brand.

There's an assumption that most hardcore football fans aren’t likely to identify as hipsters. By showing craft beer as a hipster’s pursuit, the ad seeks to lessen the appeal of it and direct its viewers back to a tall, cold glass of good old fashioned Bud. Last year, this ad generated more revenue than the popular “Puppy Love” and “Lost Dog” ads that sought to build awareness and generate purchases by pulling at the heartstrings.

Through Butterfinger’s “Bolder than Bold” commercial, Avocados from Mexico’s “Always There” ad, and Wix’s use of slick Dreamworks animation, we see appeals toward confidence, security, and cutting-edge tech savvy for the little guy, respectively. These and several other advertisements detailed on AdWeek clearly demonstrate targeting techniques and emotional manipulation, opening the floor to class discussion. Have your students determine what each advertiser is promoting (more product) and how they are connecting it to intangible rewards (more friends, being attractive, being smart, etc.). A T-Chart can be created for this part of the lesson. You can also have students determine what the target audience is for each advertisement.

Article to Examine in Class

Advertising Age: Exploring Ethics in Super Bowl Advertising

Advertising Age is one of AdWeek’s top competitors. It debuted in 1930 and has been disseminating the top stories in the world of advertising ever since.

One recent Super Bowl ad was perceived by many to have employed decidedly negative ethics, namely coercion. Social media users were ripping Nationwide’s “Dead Boy” ad into shreds within minutes of it airing and several articles were penned about the ad. Nationwide used fear and guilt by showing a boy who never grows up due to an accident that wouldn’t have killed him had his family been insured.This was a commercial that tried to at worst appeal to the darker side of human emotion and at best tried to focus on a protective instinct.In reality, it was more the former and it did severe damage to Nationwide’s image.

Another Super Bowl commercial described in Advertising Age is an upcoming spot for Colgate. Colgate’s “Save Water” commercial is based on an earlier ad shown in Peru. This commercial endorses positive messages about water conservation and environmentalism and is already being lauded both in social media circles and within the world of advertising journalism.

The stark contrast between these two ads and their results provides solid subject matter for a meaningful classroom discussion on advertising ethics. Task students with trying to find effective, socially responsible ads that aren't solely focused on pushing a product. You can also have students create socially responsible ads that address concerns that they have. This is a great way to allow students to use their smart phones to record video and have them work in groups. They can use iMovie, Final Cut, Vimeo and YouTube to display their commercials. A critique session should be part of the assessment.

The following resources allow for the creation of additional lesson plan ideas to continue the focus on the subject of Super Bowl advertising beyond the first day of discussion.

Resource: New York Times: "Commercial Success?"

Objectives: For students to share their opinions on the tones, messages, and values of Super Bowl advertisements and to aid in presenting their own advertisement critiques.

Use: This lesson, courtesy of the New York Times, will help to cement concepts learned in the class discussion. Students will have the opportunity to actively present and argue their convictions.

Extension:  Apple's Famous "1984" Commercial

Description: As an extra credit assignment, students may do a research and observation project regarding Apple’s famous “1984” Super Bowl commercial. Students will explain its cultural significance and why its staying power illustrates its continued significance to society today.

Various essay assessments and in-class discussions can be assigned that allow students to examine the four essential questions that were previously stated above. Additionally, teachers might want to set up an in-class debate with students taking various competing viewpoints. 

By Scott Kalapos, Education World Contributor