Bryan Earnest (Host): We're back with a new episode of the AMP UP podcast and our first vodcast. I'm Brian Earnest, your host, here with my cohost, Rachel Holland. So, what are we talking about today, Rachel?

Rachel Holland (Co-host): Well, you know, it is the day after the Super Bowl, so naturally, we should talk about the Super Bowl commercials, which brands scored a touchdown, which brands fumbled, what was T Swift doing, all the things.

Host: Well, not only is it obviously the biggest football game of the year, but it is kind of the Super Bowl of advertising. It's certainly a highlight for our industry to talk about what big brands are doing, what they're saying, what they look like, because obviously lots of brands across the country take their inspiration from the Super Bowl ads. You know, it's pretty expensive to be in the Super Bowl, right? Is it worth it?

Co-host: I don't know. Some of them were, I think. We were just looking up, on average, one spot was $7 million. So, define worth it. What's the return going to be?

Host: Well, it's a big investment, but it's also a really big audience. Stats I was reading yesterday looked at close to 200 million people were going to be tuning in, adults, I'm sure there were a lot of kids because Taylor Swift was on there, but big audience. More than 200 million adults watching it, you know, so sponsorships and advertising within the super bowl are certainly a big deal. You know, from a sponsorship perspective, were there any sponsorships that stood out to you?

Co-host: There were a couple. Dove was in there, which I just really liked maybe because I have a young daughter, and that message really resonates and also Hard Knock Life was like my jam growing up. So, that hit the right spots.

Host: I think, you know, matching up, I always think from a sponsorship standpoint, matching up content with your sponsorship. And I think Apple Music sponsoring that halftime show the last couple of years, certainly a perfect place for them. They're on all 13 plus minutes that Usher and crew were on. So, that's a great sponsorship opportunity. And obviously, the host network gets huge mileage out of it. CBS and Paramount were all over that. Not only their television content, but certainly a lot of Paramount movies coming out this next year. So, you know, why don't we welcome in our guests we have with us today? Amperage's Creative Director, Sarah Pauls, and video producer, Bob Waters. Welcome, guys.

Sarah Pauls: Hi, guys. Thanks for having us.

Bob Waters: Thanks for having us.

Host: Absolutely.

Co-host: Sarah, let's start with you. So, brand storytelling, you do a lot of this. Bob, you too. I would love to hear both of your perspectives on what brands did a really good job of telling a story. Bob, if you want to kick us off.

Bob Waters: Sure. Well, my favorite, I have two big favorites, and of course, I'm a big fan of kind of emotional storytelling a little bit. I love comedy too. But emotional storytelling is great. And my two favorites were the Google Pixel Ad, where they spoke to basically the sight-impaired community of having on your phone telling you if the camera's lined up with faces, which I thought was really good and spoke to a lot of people that you wouldn't think of, right?

I also enjoyed the Kia ad, which was there was a father, his daughter was in a figure skating competition. You see the competition, then they get in their car, like they're leaving and go up the mountain, get in their Kia, and then that transports them to a lodge where it was obvious the grandfather was there who could not make it to the competition. So, the Kia allowed him to see his granddaughter ice skating on a frozen pond, and I just thought it was really powerful and emotional. And, you know, the Kia was the vehicle, so to speak, to get them to tell that story. So, I thought that was really strong.

Host: You kind of touched on this, Bob, but 30 seconds isn't a very long time. So in a television spot, how do you tell a story? What are the keys to telling a great story in a spot?

Bob Waters: You break it down to the fundamentals, right? It's a three-act play. So, you have to do the first act to set up the second act of getting you to where you need to be in the third act to really bring the message home. So, you kind of condense it a little bit. You can obviously always make it a 60-second spot because there's probably a lot of other storytelling you could do to make it that, but in the Super Bowl, you have 30 seconds. So, to be able to tell that story in that amount of time, you boil it down to what are the most powerful moments to be able to tell that story. And I thought they did a great job with that.

Host: That's great. Sarah, you saw a lot of different ads. If you watch the Super Bowl, there's some good, some bad. Talk a little bit about the approach that you saw these advertisers take.

Sarah Pauls: Yeah, I think that something to always keep in mind when you're watching Super Bowl commercials is they really are about brand-building and brand identity almost all the time. You're not hearing a lot of cost benefits or you're not hearing about where you can go buy this product. A lot of it is just about taking a brand and thinking about that brand's expression and then creative ways that they can tell that and that's going to pay off in different ways, necessarily products flying off the shelf. It's going to, you know, pay off in ways of like people thinking about you more, people, you know, investigating your product, maybe Googling you after the show or like next time they go to the store, thinking of you and making a purchase. So, that's what I was seeing a lot. And that brand storytelling, or like that brand expression, is getting broader, it's getting more exciting. It's just one thing I really love about Super Bowl ads is that it's a space where they've really prioritized that kind of creative work. So, I've always really loved that about Super Bowl ads.

A few of them, you know, visually speaking, where they maybe had some interesting things, weren't always brand wins for me. The prime example for me was the Pluto TV couch potato. We were talking a little bit before we jumped on here today, and I almost would describe that one as a car accident. It was so engaging, and pulled you in, and you couldn't look away from it. But at the end of the day, I don't want to be a couch potato. I don't think anyone else does. And so, I felt like it was almost like talking down to consumers or like our content's going to turn you into this instead of our content being meaningful in your life. So for me, visually interesting, swing and a miss in that brand building arena.

Co-host: Which brings in that humor piece, which can be really hard to do. Bob, I know you like, you know, pulling at the heartstrings, but were there any brands that did a great job with actually being funny?

Bob Waters: Well, it's super difficult, because if you think about most of these ads will be used again, right? So if you do a funny spot, that still needs to be funny the 5th, 10th, 15th time you see it, and I think of the Progressive ads with the how do you turn into your parents, right? Those always get me. So, it's a fine line. So, I really like the the Dunkin' spot with Ben Affleck. Ben Aff-leck, I should say. I always call him Ben Af-fleck. And Matt Damon and all those guys, really funny, jennifer Lopez. You know, you had some star power there. It's always going to be funny ,because they just went over the top.

 But there were ones that didn't hit. I did not quite understand that the Pringles, Chris Pratt ad where Chris Pratt had a mustache and then, there's a child with a mustache. I mean, it's funny when you see it for a second and then I didn't understand. I mean, the Pringles guy has a mustache, okay, I get it. So, it didn't quite resonate with me and it definitely won't stick around for me.

I also didn't understand the Popeyes ad. I love Ken Jeong, and it had funny parts to it, but I don't think they based it in reality, which was to tell people that Popeyes has wings now. So, I still don't understand the base of the spotlight. Was he living under a rock? And then, it sounded like he wasn't present.And then all of a sudden he came into the present. And it just did not work for me. As funny as he is, it just didn't resonate.

Host: In humor, supposedly Bob, for Gen Xers like us, 69% of Gen Xers are most interested in funny ads within the Super Bowl, or I guess within all of advertising. So, humor really has to land if it's going to, you know, make any kind of impact on the audience. And I love what you said about it, it has to do it not only on the night of the super Bowl, but maybe for weeks to come. So like Dinah and Mita, they were funny running through. But after you see that three more weeks of Dorito ads, are you going to go, "Okay, I've seen it. I'm done."

But yet babies, we know babies and puppies always seem to make it, so tennis or pickleball-playing babies for E*Trade certainly was one that made me smile, and I'm sure will continue to make me smile as we look forward.

One of the brands that really was kind of unique visually and had a lot going on, Sarah, was Poppi. You and I were talking about this a little bit beforehand. Talk a little bit about what you saw in Poppi and what were they trying to do?

Sarah Pauls: Yeah. Poppi, I think, is not talking to me, they're talking to a generation behind me, Gen Z, and maybe even Gen Alpha a little bit. They were very much about just saying we are cool, we are an engaging brand, we're different, that we're not Pepsi, we're not Coke. And so, they were kind of just really getting in there, I think, and kind of using very Gen Z aesthetic on all of their talent and the way that the graphics moved across the screen. I noticed that they were bento boxing all of their content, and there was video content within the bento boxes and they moved across the screen. A lot of the photography was really high-end looking, very product photography focused. And, you know, then the little things of the talent or the way that the nails were done on the model hands was also very specific and very catered to the audience. And I think it was just kind of a good moment to debut themselves and like say, "Hey, we're a stark contrast to the sodas of yesterday and we're going to be different going forward." So, that one is really interesting. I thought they did a great job of speaking specifically to their audience and just kind of being very creative in their expression and making sure stylistically they were talking to that audience.

Co-host: And you don't see a lot of that, talking to that target audience. But I went to a party to watch the Super Bowl, which made it hard to listen to the commercials, so I did have to re-watch them a little bit last night. But there were a ton of kids there, high schoolers that were watching, people who will ask their parents to go out and buy the product, right? So, I thought that was well done and unique, I guess, to what you usually see.

Host: So speaking of well done, what's your favorite? Do you have a favorite or maybe if you don't have a favorite, what was the one that just was the biggest swing and a miss? What about you for you, Bob?

Bob Waters: Well, I think I talked about it earlier. I really liked the Kia ad. I also liked the Reese's Caramel Cup ad that was introducing a new product, but it kind of toyed with the emotions of not only the viewer, but the people in the ad too. So, you know, it also, to me, that Reese's ad was another that speaks to what their brand is, right? They have had that bold look and sound and the narrator of Will Arnett, they've had that for years. And it just took it to another level and it's one that I'll remember, right? Because it's a Reese's ad. It's a caramel cup and it's funny. So, I really enjoyed the Reese's ad a lot.

Co-host: Will you go out and buy one?

Bob Waters: Of course, I will. Yes, I might buy more than one.

Co-host: So, that was maybe worth it, right?

Bob Waters: Absolutely.

Host: Yeah, that would be worth it. Rachel, what about you? Did you have a favorite or a swing and a miss?

Co-host: I loved the T-Mobile auditions. I was recently binging Suits, so that probably plays into it. I thought it was really funny. I also thought it was well done how they had their name on the screen the entire time for that brand recognition piece. It wasn't their logo, so it wasn't like ad-looking. You know, it had kind of like the funky lettering with auditions. So, that was my favorite, I think, by far. How about you?

Host: Good stuff. You know, for me, I think my favorite was the Dove Girls Sports Empowerment. And I think one of the things I liked is they've been consistent with that the last few Super Bowls. So, you kind of expect that storytelling and I learned something. I didn't realize that the takeaway for me was that the biggest reason that girls give up on sports somewhere in junior high or high school is because of body image issues. And I thought so there's a little bit of social awareness there. And we do a lot of impactful storytelling in the work that we do. So, it really spoke to me how they did that, because it was kind of fun and bouncy and then it got real serious and then it kind of wrapped it up to your part, to your point, Bob, you know, kind of three steps to that storytelling.

And maybe the one for me that just swung and missed was homes.com. They went really big. And if you just take the spot alone, I kind of went, "I don't quite get it." But maybe over the course of seeing those two or three times and in a series, it'll start to make some sense. But I kind of got lost in all of the chaos of those spots. Sarah, what about you? Any, any last thoughts on spots from you?

Sarah Pauls: Yeah, you bet. Bob mentioned this earlier and I'm just going to second it, but the Google Pixel ad. That one was just beautifully put together. It's a love story. It's emotional. It's engaging. But some things that they were doing really interesting, in my opinion with it ,is that they were kind of putting their stake in the ground for AI and accessibility. Two things that are very big right now and are really important. And they did it in a very human way. So, that's really what I appreciated about it. They could have created content, you know, AI content, or AI graphics, or AI art, and done something with that. But instead, they're like, "No, this is how we're going to use AI. We're going to use it to better humanity, to better people's experiences, make our products, and make the world more accessible to people," which I think just really touched my heart and was, you know, an emotional spot and stuck with me the most.

Host: You know, speaking of AI, I think we're going to see a brand that was introduced last night that we'll see for some time, Copilot from Microsoft and what that'll be all about as that story unfolds. Well, great discussion today. I think we could probably talk about Super Bowl ads all day, have a few laughs. We probably have to work Tom Brady in at some point like all the other ads did. But I love the terrific banter about Super Bowl ads.

Great job guys. Good stuff. Thank you. So, thank you, Sarah, thank you, Bob, for joining us. And as always, thank you, Rachel.

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