February 15, 2024 • 25 mins
We head into overtime to huddle up on Schwarzenegger, Walken, and whether throwing famous faces into Super Bowl commercials still scores with viewers.
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #SuperBowl #Commercials #BigGame #Ads #simplify #popculture #walken #Arnold #StateFarm #BMW
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #SuperBowl #Commercials #BigGame #Ads #simplify #popculture #walken #Arnold #StateFarm #BMW
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Speaking Human. Today, on SpeakingHuman, we head into overtime to huddle
up on Schwarzenegger, walking and weatherthrowing famous faces into Super Bowl commercials still
scores with viewers Speaking Human. Welcometo Speaking Human, where we simplify the
(00:32):
world of marketing for humans. I'mShad Calmly and with me is my co
host Patrick Jebber. Now, Patrick, we've been watching and talking about Super
Bowl ads together for over a decade. Now, how do you think this
year's crop of commercials compared to otheryears? For you? How do they
(00:55):
stand? Where do they rank?I think this year the commercials didn't have
enough panache. Yeah, I meanthis is also a downside of you know
what we do in the fact thateach year we kind of bibe all these
ads and then we're like always alittle let down, you know. We
come in, we're like yeah,and then we're like, I don't know,
(01:19):
but I don't know. This yearin general just felt lazy to me.
It felt like autopilot. I didn'tfeel like anybody was really interested in
taking a big swing. I didn'teven see like a killing mister Peanut,
which we talked about in the past, and we're like, yeah, okay,
well, at least somebody was doingsomething. I didn't feel like there
was a lot of act going on, so it was pretty low for me.
(01:42):
I don't know, even in thebeginning of the game, when I
usually feel like it's it's kind ofthe big guns are coming out with the
ads just kind of fizzled. Iwas like, where's the pop? You
know, is anybody even like tryinganymore? Everybody just like throwing down their
money and being like, here's ourad. We're here, we're advertising,
We're doing the thing. No needto you know, put too much into
(02:05):
it, no need for too muchpanache. Yeah, I agree. I
agree with that. Like we've talkedabout in the past, in the past
ten years, we've had this conversation, which is the change in the way
in which we consume the ads.The ads come out early online. You
know, you get teasers and thenyou get the full ad. It's like
by the time the full ad comesout, you're like, okay, you
(02:27):
kind of seen it, so itfeels familiar, doesn't feel as special.
I felt the same way, youknow, lack of cleverness. You could
feel it. You could feel it, and I think to make matters worse
for me, as a big moviefan. We were short on movie previews
this year. They were down thisyear. I even did the count last
year. If you remember on Moviesand Marketing, we did a ranking of
(02:52):
every single Super Bowl movie trailer.Remember when I made you do that.
We had thirteen. This year weonly had nine, and half of those
weren't even like they were only partialtrailers. We got shortened versions where at
the end they were like, ohand go online and watch the full trailer,
like Kingdom of the Planet of theApes. So they were like partials
(03:13):
that you only got there. Sothat kind of was a little disappointing to
me and also spells a little bitof trouble I think for our summer movie
draft. So that was like anotheraspect of just like where I think the
ads were kind of you know,something was something was lacking there. Yeah,
the movie trailers. It's funny.We had that conversation my family and
I watching the Super Bowl about themovies, and it makes sense. Super
(03:38):
Bowl commercials are so expensive now.They don't want to play a two minute
trailer. You're blowing a lot ofmarketing budget on the Super Bowl for that
movie, and they don't want todo that, so they're like, give
us ten fifteen seconds, you justgo watch the rest of it online.
But I mean, how many peopledo it though? Even if you get
(03:59):
like safe fifty percent, Yeah,that's fifty million versus one hundred million people
that you have right there. Yougot a point. But I get the
point of the marketing. But yeahtoo too. Like I say that,
I say that without having to putyou know, seven million dollars down per
minute. But I do feel likethe abbreviated versions leave a lot to be
(04:20):
desired when watching the actual game.But that's not why we're here completely,
you know, that's just an overview. I think what we really want to
talk about today is celebrity ads.A couple celebrity ads specifically, but you
know, a bigger question about celebrityads. Do they still have you know,
(04:40):
steam are they still worthwhile? Alot of celebrities this year, A
lot of celebrities. I didn't getthe official count. I didn't count that,
like celebrities this year versus celebrities lastyear. But Beyonce, Ben Affleck,
Jennifer Aniston, Chris Pratt, Judge, Judy, Danny DeVito, Ice
Spice, Bradley Cooper, Aubrey Platz, a Kid in Play, Tina Fey,
(05:02):
Lionel Messi, Jeff Goldbloom, justa handful of the celebs who appeared
in Super Bowl spots. You couldkeep naming them. They go on and
on and on and on and onand on. Does it matter anymore?
I don't know the impact of these. Well, we'll talk about that a
little more. I think first weshould probably talk about a couple of ads
(05:24):
that featured a pair of speaking humanfavorites. We'll call him. These are
people we talk about time and timeagain, celebrities that have had their own
episodes devoted to them at one pointor another. Well, you're clearly talking
about Arnie our Man, Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know how I'm dogging about really
(05:46):
horrible impression, but you still gotit. Still got it? Uh?
With State Farm he had a StateFarm ad. And Christopher walkin with BMW.
Wow wow, Chris, you hearuh? Two of my favorite commercial
(06:08):
I did you love these commercials?Let's take them on a one by one
basis. Okay, all right,let's you know, let's let's not let's
not group them together. They're individuals. Okay, So let's let's start with
let's start with Schwarzenegger and State Farm. Did I love it? I did
not love this commercial. I'll tellyou. I was very excited to see
(06:30):
Arnie. It made me happy,and then seeing Arnie and Devido. Spoiler
alert if you didn't see the commercial. Yeah, the twins are reunited.
Their mother is very happy. ButI was a little disappointed by the whole
concept or joke around this one.The best thing we could come up with
in a twenty twenty four Super Bowlad with Schwarzenegger is making a joke about
(06:54):
how Arnold talks is pronunciation. We'vebeen doing it out on this show for
years and it doesn't cost us sevenmillion dollars. That was the best they
could do. I thought, youknow, they just he can't say the
State Farm tagline. That's it.I was like, that was a real
fizzle for me. I was.I was let down by it. Sorry,
(07:15):
Arnold, I'm glad you got paid, but thumbs down to State Farm.
We talk about not being that clever. I thought this was not that
clever. No, I mean acounterpoint. You may not have liked it
for that reason. I think Ikind of liked it for that reason.
I didn't think I was gonna likeit, because I'll tell you I saw
the teaser for it and I thought, this is weird. I didn't like
(07:38):
it. I didn't like the teaser, so I didn't think I was gonna
like the full commercial. But thefull commercial was actually at least entertaining.
There weren't a lot of these commercialsthis year, and I will tell you
this one at least took, youknow, something that we know to be
true, which is Arnold says words. He says words in his own way,
(08:05):
and I think it was familiar andsort of jokey, fun like.
I liked the lightheartedness of it.It wasn't didn't take itself too seriously.
It was a little different than thenormal state farm commercials, and I liked
kind of the jokes that were init, you know, like Naba Choppa,
are they overdone? Of course they'reoverdone, and that's sort of the
(08:28):
humor. To me, that wassort of the humor in it, so
I was okay with it. TheDanny DeVito thing was a little thing that
caught you off guard and you're like, oh hah, that's pretty funny,
not like drop dead this is thebest commercial ever. But I appreciated it.
In a very limited, non cleveryear of commercials, I thought that
this one was you know, itwasn't like it was clever, but it
(08:52):
was entertaining anyway. I definitely agreewith you. It was very entertaining,
and I would have I would haveloved this commercial nineteen ninety seven when it
should have aired. Yeah. Yeah. I liked little things about the script,
like when he's like, look,we're going to do a script rewrite
and he's like what the director interactingwith him was actually probably my favorite part.
(09:15):
I don't the director's in the commercialis like nobody, He's just some
guy. But I liked his likeit's it's neighbor and he's like, that's
what I said, neighbor, Imean to me. Their interaction was kind
of funny, you know, Idon't know. That was my best Arnold
by the way. Yeah, sothis guy, this director, completely unfamiliar
(09:41):
with the work of Arnold Schwarzenegger beforecoming into this gig. Yeah, that's
that's I mean. The comedy ofit is like this guy and I know
who Arnold is, Like, whydoes he seem upset? I knew?
He said? Neibor. Neibor Idon't think this man should be hired for
this job. Yeah. Anyway,so what walk in and BMW? This
(10:03):
one. You know, there wasa time when when Christopher Walking was this
semi obscure kind of actor and onlypeople who are kind of like, you
know, in the know knew himand kind of joked about the walking voice.
Man of those days long gone.We've got the the sn L parodies,
(10:24):
we've got so many comedians doing thevoice. And of course we've done
walking more times than I can't tocount. That being said, the BMW
Super Bowl ad is like a walkingexplosion on the earth. It's like walking
(10:48):
eating itself. Yeah, it's whenyou know you've conquered the world and all.
This one, I loved. Thisone just completely worked for I mean
not just for the walking, whichis great, is just seems super cool
in this The impressions are terrible andfunny. You know, this one had
me laughing throughout. But it's alsogot an actual like concept and message behind
(11:11):
it. You know, they putsome they said, Okay, we've got
Christopher Walking, let's kind of matchthat with what we're trying to say,
And so they did. There's onlyone Christopher Walking and only one ultimate driving
experience. The rest are just imitations. I like they actually put something together
around the actor that they had,so it all worked for me. Yeah,
(11:35):
going back to clever, that wasa clever message and you could really
use almost any celebrity that has thatsort of stature, but Christopher Walking made
it. It made it work,and his delivery in this is what sort
of endearing about the whole commercial tobegin with, is like, these people
are all doing impressions of him,which would I mean, maybe that's maybe
(11:56):
that's flattering, but I feel likeit would be super annoying, and you
know, he sort of plays offannoying in a way that is like,
you love this dude. I reallylike at the end he's like, come
on, are we done here?You know, like you know, but
he's he's having fun with it,and the execution is just it's very good.
It's very good. Little not offto the the ending where he sees
(12:22):
Usher and the guy, even theguy like it was cool the way they
sort of work that in He's likeyeah, and then you know, he
says yeah yeah, like the Ushersong and then Usher's there. I thought
that was kind of fun, andthen he does the the walk and sort
of dance move from the Fat BoySlim video. Mm hmm, yeah,
(12:43):
so yeah, some nice touches.Threat. Do you think there were other
actors they Do you think they triedto get like an al Pacino? There's
only one al Pacino. I justsad. I don't know if it would
work, don't. I don't thinkit would work as well either. You
know, I could think of abunch of people they could have done it
with, But this is really itseems tail to walk And that's why I
asked that question. It's it's alot like what we just did. You
(13:05):
know the episode about Snoop Dogg,Right, it's about a type of person
that has a persona that is verywell known but also that is very well
loved, and Walkin just seems likehe's in that classification, right. Snoop
is like kind of a beloved character. Walking has that too. Paccino probably
(13:28):
does, but I don't know ifhe comes off that way, you know
what I mean, Like he I'mnot sure if everybody loves him in the
way that it's like I want tohug this guy. Yeah, and you
don't you don't know him, He'snot he doesn't have that uniqueness enough,
you know what I mean. Mmhmmm, He's just not enough of a
character. It's definitely true. Sothis one was a whim. This is
(13:48):
exactly what I want to see frommy li like celebrity infused ads. I
want to see that infusion, youknow, really taking place. Yeah,
these were definitely my favorite, thoughby biased. Yes, for for all
the reasons that we've already described werefans, which you know leads us into
our next question, our big question, Patrick, what is that? Well
(14:11):
we started to touch on it.Yeah, do celebrity Super Bowl ads still
make an impact or have we beenjust so oversaturated with them that they don't?
Or put another way, if atree falls in a forest of falling
trees, does it make a soundthat's deep? That's deep, man,
(14:33):
but true. It's almost like itwas written for me. It is,
isn't it. Somebody's feeding you theselines, these nuggets of wisdom. I
think you probably know where I'm comingin on this. I think we've talked
about this before. There there wasa time where a lot of big celebrities
didn't do commercials. So that wasa big deal when that kind of somebody
(14:54):
crossed that threshold, right, youwere kind of like, whoa, this
is mind blowing this somebody of thiscalibers in a commercial on my TV.
Those days are long gone, andI get it. There's a reason,
you know, companies go to thecelebrity, you know, especially with a
Super Bowl ad, the's automatic attention. People know this person, so they're
(15:15):
like, Okay, I know thisperson, I trust this person. I'm
gonna listen to this person. Youknow. It stirs up nostalgia and all
these other emotions because you're already havethis attachment built in, so it makes
sense to do this. But man, have we just like fallen back on
this over and over again, andnow it's just like, hey, just
sprinkle a celebrity in there, saythe message, or sprinkle five celebrities in
(15:39):
there, doesn't really matter what we'resaying. Just have a celebrity, get
our brand out there. That's it. You're right, I mean, the
evolution of this has caused this celebrityfatigue. There's no doubt about it.
You know, going back to thebeginning, when we were young, it
was very rare to see a moviestar, a movie celebrity in a television
(16:07):
show. When you saw it you'relike, oh wow, that's crazy.
Movie stars did not go on TV. Sports sports stars and TV stars went
on TV, and there was alittle like, uh stigma. I think
they avoided it like the plague.And then you know that slow shift to
(16:29):
now where you see movie celebrities,movie stars doing television television series, whole
series, and it has become sonatural to see them on TV, and
then the progression of them doing TVcommercials to now a super Bowl commercial doesn't
(16:51):
feel that special when you see acelebrity. I mean you you've come to
expect it, and that expectation isalmost like almost like this form of entitled
we have, right, We're likewhat, like I want more? Like
where is it? You and Iare going that's not very clever. Our
reaction right now is a culmination ofeverything that has come before, where we're
(17:12):
just like so oversaturated. We're disappointedwhen we see Arnold in a state farm
cred like what you know what Imean, Like we would have been blown
away at one point in our livesif we would have seen that, But
now we're like, eh, showsyou where we're at? Right? Yeah?
Yeah, I mean oversaturated would bethe simplest form of what we feel.
(17:34):
The fatigue is there though, andyou can picture from the agency side
why this is happening. It's like, Okay, we've got the celebrity.
They can only come in for aday. We just got to get them
somewhere, get them to say aline, and then we'll figure out kind
of what to do with it.We'll figure out how it works, just
kind of put a spot together.And this is kind of why I feel
(17:56):
like we're seeing a trade off betweencelebrity he's in creativity at some point.
I think so many ads are justreally lacking that creative structure ideas that we've
seen in the past. You know, ads where you're like, oh,
that's good. You know, that'sa really good execution. But this goes
probably for anything in advertising. Theconcept is always going to be what drives
(18:19):
the whole thing. Can you comeup with a good concept to what we
talk about with editing right anything,If you do it right and conceptually the
idea is solid, then the executionwhoever that's by can be powerful. You
know, it doesn't have to beeven a celebrity in those cases, but
(18:40):
the concept has to be there.And I think when they're relying solely on
the talent to be the driver ofthe message. That's where it struggles,
I'll tell you. You know,as much as I didn't like the execution
the Duncan thing with Ben Affleck,I thought it was an interesting play because
(19:02):
it's sort of poking fun at thiswhole thing. I feel actually kind of
sad when I watch it, butthey're sort of playing the fact that Jlo
is like I told you not todo this, you know, almost like
this parody of the celebrity who haslike fallen into this hole of what you
(19:25):
see in front of you. Ifyou watch the Duncan one, you'll,
I mean, which everyone probably hasis watched the Super Bowl commercials. You
see it like it's sad. Andeven Matt Damon, you know, his
best friends like, remember when Itold you that I'd do anything? This
is anything? Yeah, you know, I mean, which is all jokingly
(19:45):
played, you know, in thissetup and stuff. And I actually think
that was one of the the bestcelebrity ads of the Super Bowl because it
was almost almost felt like a parodyof all that stuff, like it was
it was played up so much.The brand message is probably a little weak
on that one too, but therewas an ongoing, you know, kind
(20:06):
of brand story there. It's almosta sequel to the ad they ran last
year in a way. But Ithought it was really funny. I thought
it was well put together. Imean, the brand's obviously front and center
with the tracksuits they were wearing andeverything, and the fact that they just
layered on you know, they hadAffleck and j Low and then they throwing
Tom Brady and Matt Damon and itwas just like so over the top but
(20:30):
also pretty well put together. Tothat one actually I connected to pretty well.
I liked, like I said,I liked the part where it was
playing up this sort of like almostsadness of a celeberty falling into that.
That part is what I liked aboutit. I don't really like the message.
I don't think it aligns to thebrand at all, But again,
(20:52):
I don't even know that there wasnecessarily like a brand message to it.
That's the thing. I think itwas more just like like shilling a brand.
Yeah, there's a lot of theseads where it's just like, here's
a sketch sponsored by a brand,almost, and that's kind of what that
one felt like. I'll tell youwhat I thought was the best, Probably
my favorite ad of the commercial ofthe Super Bowl did feature a celebrity,
(21:18):
and that was Sarah Vay with MichaelSarah. Oh yeah, I did like
that one a lot. That oneI thought was hilariously funny. Obviously the
celebrity pairing with the brand there makesmakes a lot of sense. I thought
they did a good job kind ofputting that together. The jokes just kind
of inherently ingrained. There. Hecomes on and he talks about this is
(21:41):
why I developed this lotion, andhe's like, you didn't know, goes
into a whole thing. You know, there's a scene of him massaging himself.
It's all play played pretty well andvery funny, and you know it
kind of ends with them saying,you know, developed by dermatologist not Michael
said, yeah that I liked thatone a lot too. Out of the
(22:03):
I think those were probably my topthree. I did like one that I
don't think anybody on earth. Yeah, anybody on Earth probably thought, uh,
I can't wait to hear what thisis. It was Silk with Jeremy
Renner. I didn't even see this. I mean it was towards the end.
If you know the story of whathappened to Jeremy Renny, which I
(22:26):
feel like many people do. Itwas sort of shocking. He is in
his kitchen in this ad and hestarts singing, I feel good. No
no, no, no no,and he just starts dancing, jumps up
on his counter. He's doing likekicks where he's kicking things, and I
(22:47):
mean, is this czi? No, this is him and it I mean
my wife obviously was like that theythat's special effect, I said, or
stunt double and I said, no, it's not. I'm pretty sure that's
him. I mean it was likea year ago he got ran over,
run over by a snowplow. Yeah, and so like I something about that
(23:08):
commercial. I was like, gaveme hope in this world that, you
know. I mean, this guywas almost dead dead, never was gonna
walk again, let alone. Healmost died and here he is doing a
commercial where he looks like his oldlike better than he was prior. So
(23:29):
uh anyway, and it was areal short commercial, but he you know,
silk makes you feel good kind oflike the whole got Milk. I
would say, I don't know whatthe actual tagline was, but you're like,
man, I need to start drinkingsilk because this is if this is
what he's drinking. And I thoughtthat was a great brand alignment. This
dude who is almost dead now he'sdoing kicks. He's throwing spatulas through his
(23:52):
silk milk jug. So yeah,something about that one. Yeah, Yeah,
understandably. I think that's even whenwe talk about kind of these best
ones, when we talk about likewalking and Michael Sarah and Jeremy Renner,
these all these commercials, you know, I try to think of, like,
what are they have in common?What makes them good versus the ones
that are not? And you know, to me, it comes into how
(24:15):
you kind of integrate the celebrity inkind of a like you mentioned, a
unique, surprising, memorable way whereit doesn't just feel like insert name of
celebrity and script, you know,where it could be anybody. Yeah.
With in the case of Jeremy Renner, you're like, his story plays a
role into how you reacted to thatad, right, Yeah, where if
(24:37):
you put Arnold Schwarzenegger in that place, it plays much differently. Yeah,
So if you haven't checked out theseads, you can. You can find
them on Speaking Human. You know, we've got a lot of these ads
from the super Bowl on there,and uh yeah, check out. Tell
us what your favorite is, letus know. That's it for this episode.
(24:59):
You and find current past episodes ofthe podcast on Speaking human dot com.
We'll be back in two weeks withanother episode of Speaking Human. Catch
you then humans Speakcking Human. Iguess you never said that's it for today's
(25:22):
episode. Did you want to saythat? Yeah, check it out,
blah blah blah, and then Isay that's it for this eh, cut
reset, get Arnold in there,quiet on the set, camera, speed
audio, speed action. That's itfor today's episode. You can find currant
(25:48):
past episodes of the podcast on Speakinghuman dot com. Cut Brent, that's
a keeper.
Speaking Human. Today, on SpeakingHuman, we head into overtime to huddle
up on Schwarzenegger, walking and weatherthrowing famous faces into Super Bowl commercials still
scores with viewers Speaking Human. Welcometo Speaking Human, where we simplify the
(00:32):
world of marketing for humans. I'mShad Calmly and with me is my co
host Patrick Jebber. Now, Patrick, we've been watching and talking about Super
Bowl ads together for over a decade. Now, how do you think this
year's crop of commercials compared to otheryears? For you? How do they
(00:55):
stand? Where do they rank?I think this year the commercials didn't have
enough panache. Yeah, I meanthis is also a downside of you know
what we do in the fact thateach year we kind of bibe all these
ads and then we're like always alittle let down, you know. We
come in, we're like yeah,and then we're like, I don't know,
(01:19):
but I don't know. This yearin general just felt lazy to me.
It felt like autopilot. I didn'tfeel like anybody was really interested in
taking a big swing. I didn'teven see like a killing mister Peanut,
which we talked about in the past, and we're like, yeah, okay,
well, at least somebody was doingsomething. I didn't feel like there
was a lot of act going on, so it was pretty low for me.
(01:42):
I don't know, even in thebeginning of the game, when I
usually feel like it's it's kind ofthe big guns are coming out with the
ads just kind of fizzled. Iwas like, where's the pop? You
know, is anybody even like tryinganymore? Everybody just like throwing down their
money and being like, here's ourad. We're here, we're advertising,
We're doing the thing. No needto you know, put too much into
(02:05):
it, no need for too muchpanache. Yeah, I agree. I
agree with that. Like we've talkedabout in the past, in the past
ten years, we've had this conversation, which is the change in the way
in which we consume the ads.The ads come out early online. You
know, you get teasers and thenyou get the full ad. It's like
by the time the full ad comesout, you're like, okay, you
(02:27):
kind of seen it, so itfeels familiar, doesn't feel as special.
I felt the same way, youknow, lack of cleverness. You could
feel it. You could feel it, and I think to make matters worse
for me, as a big moviefan. We were short on movie previews
this year. They were down thisyear. I even did the count last
year. If you remember on Moviesand Marketing, we did a ranking of
(02:52):
every single Super Bowl movie trailer.Remember when I made you do that.
We had thirteen. This year weonly had nine, and half of those
weren't even like they were only partialtrailers. We got shortened versions where at
the end they were like, ohand go online and watch the full trailer,
like Kingdom of the Planet of theApes. So they were like partials
(03:13):
that you only got there. Sothat kind of was a little disappointing to
me and also spells a little bitof trouble I think for our summer movie
draft. So that was like anotheraspect of just like where I think the
ads were kind of you know,something was something was lacking there. Yeah,
the movie trailers. It's funny.We had that conversation my family and
I watching the Super Bowl about themovies, and it makes sense. Super
(03:38):
Bowl commercials are so expensive now.They don't want to play a two minute
trailer. You're blowing a lot ofmarketing budget on the Super Bowl for that
movie, and they don't want todo that, so they're like, give
us ten fifteen seconds, you justgo watch the rest of it online.
But I mean, how many peopledo it though? Even if you get
(03:59):
like safe fifty percent, Yeah,that's fifty million versus one hundred million people
that you have right there. Yougot a point. But I get the
point of the marketing. But yeahtoo too. Like I say that,
I say that without having to putyou know, seven million dollars down per
minute. But I do feel likethe abbreviated versions leave a lot to be
(04:20):
desired when watching the actual game.But that's not why we're here completely,
you know, that's just an overview. I think what we really want to
talk about today is celebrity ads.A couple celebrity ads specifically, but you
know, a bigger question about celebrityads. Do they still have you know,
(04:40):
steam are they still worthwhile? Alot of celebrities this year, A
lot of celebrities. I didn't getthe official count. I didn't count that,
like celebrities this year versus celebrities lastyear. But Beyonce, Ben Affleck,
Jennifer Aniston, Chris Pratt, Judge, Judy, Danny DeVito, Ice
Spice, Bradley Cooper, Aubrey Platz, a Kid in Play, Tina Fey,
(05:02):
Lionel Messi, Jeff Goldbloom, justa handful of the celebs who appeared
in Super Bowl spots. You couldkeep naming them. They go on and
on and on and on and onand on. Does it matter anymore?
I don't know the impact of these. Well, we'll talk about that a
little more. I think first weshould probably talk about a couple of ads
(05:24):
that featured a pair of speaking humanfavorites. We'll call him. These are
people we talk about time and timeagain, celebrities that have had their own
episodes devoted to them at one pointor another. Well, you're clearly talking
about Arnie our Man, Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know how I'm dogging about really
(05:46):
horrible impression, but you still gotit. Still got it? Uh?
With State Farm he had a StateFarm ad. And Christopher walkin with BMW.
Wow wow, Chris, you hearuh? Two of my favorite commercial
(06:08):
I did you love these commercials?Let's take them on a one by one
basis. Okay, all right,let's you know, let's let's not let's
not group them together. They're individuals. Okay, So let's let's start with
let's start with Schwarzenegger and State Farm. Did I love it? I did
not love this commercial. I'll tellyou. I was very excited to see
(06:30):
Arnie. It made me happy,and then seeing Arnie and Devido. Spoiler
alert if you didn't see the commercial. Yeah, the twins are reunited.
Their mother is very happy. ButI was a little disappointed by the whole
concept or joke around this one.The best thing we could come up with
in a twenty twenty four Super Bowlad with Schwarzenegger is making a joke about
(06:54):
how Arnold talks is pronunciation. We'vebeen doing it out on this show for
years and it doesn't cost us sevenmillion dollars. That was the best they
could do. I thought, youknow, they just he can't say the
State Farm tagline. That's it.I was like, that was a real
fizzle for me. I was.I was let down by it. Sorry,
(07:15):
Arnold, I'm glad you got paid, but thumbs down to State Farm.
We talk about not being that clever. I thought this was not that
clever. No, I mean acounterpoint. You may not have liked it
for that reason. I think Ikind of liked it for that reason.
I didn't think I was gonna likeit, because I'll tell you I saw
the teaser for it and I thought, this is weird. I didn't like
(07:38):
it. I didn't like the teaser, so I didn't think I was gonna
like the full commercial. But thefull commercial was actually at least entertaining.
There weren't a lot of these commercialsthis year, and I will tell you
this one at least took, youknow, something that we know to be
true, which is Arnold says words. He says words in his own way,
(08:05):
and I think it was familiar andsort of jokey, fun like.
I liked the lightheartedness of it.It wasn't didn't take itself too seriously.
It was a little different than thenormal state farm commercials, and I liked
kind of the jokes that were init, you know, like Naba Choppa,
are they overdone? Of course they'reoverdone, and that's sort of the
(08:28):
humor. To me, that wassort of the humor in it, so
I was okay with it. TheDanny DeVito thing was a little thing that
caught you off guard and you're like, oh hah, that's pretty funny,
not like drop dead this is thebest commercial ever. But I appreciated it.
In a very limited, non cleveryear of commercials, I thought that
this one was you know, itwasn't like it was clever, but it
(08:52):
was entertaining anyway. I definitely agreewith you. It was very entertaining,
and I would have I would haveloved this commercial nineteen ninety seven when it
should have aired. Yeah. Yeah. I liked little things about the script,
like when he's like, look,we're going to do a script rewrite
and he's like what the director interactingwith him was actually probably my favorite part.
(09:15):
I don't the director's in the commercialis like nobody, He's just some
guy. But I liked his likeit's it's neighbor and he's like, that's
what I said, neighbor, Imean to me. Their interaction was kind
of funny, you know, Idon't know. That was my best Arnold
by the way. Yeah, sothis guy, this director, completely unfamiliar
(09:41):
with the work of Arnold Schwarzenegger beforecoming into this gig. Yeah, that's
that's I mean. The comedy ofit is like this guy and I know
who Arnold is, Like, whydoes he seem upset? I knew?
He said? Neibor. Neibor Idon't think this man should be hired for
this job. Yeah. Anyway,so what walk in and BMW? This
(10:03):
one. You know, there wasa time when when Christopher Walking was this
semi obscure kind of actor and onlypeople who are kind of like, you
know, in the know knew himand kind of joked about the walking voice.
Man of those days long gone.We've got the the sn L parodies,
(10:24):
we've got so many comedians doing thevoice. And of course we've done
walking more times than I can't tocount. That being said, the BMW
Super Bowl ad is like a walkingexplosion on the earth. It's like walking
(10:48):
eating itself. Yeah, it's whenyou know you've conquered the world and all.
This one, I loved. Thisone just completely worked for I mean
not just for the walking, whichis great, is just seems super cool
in this The impressions are terrible andfunny. You know, this one had
me laughing throughout. But it's alsogot an actual like concept and message behind
(11:11):
it. You know, they putsome they said, Okay, we've got
Christopher Walking, let's kind of matchthat with what we're trying to say,
And so they did. There's onlyone Christopher Walking and only one ultimate driving
experience. The rest are just imitations. I like they actually put something together
around the actor that they had,so it all worked for me. Yeah,
(11:35):
going back to clever, that wasa clever message and you could really
use almost any celebrity that has thatsort of stature, but Christopher Walking made
it. It made it work,and his delivery in this is what sort
of endearing about the whole commercial tobegin with, is like, these people
are all doing impressions of him,which would I mean, maybe that's maybe
(11:56):
that's flattering, but I feel likeit would be super annoying, and you
know, he sort of plays offannoying in a way that is like,
you love this dude. I reallylike at the end he's like, come
on, are we done here?You know, like you know, but
he's he's having fun with it,and the execution is just it's very good.
It's very good. Little not offto the the ending where he sees
(12:22):
Usher and the guy, even theguy like it was cool the way they
sort of work that in He's likeyeah, and then you know, he
says yeah yeah, like the Ushersong and then Usher's there. I thought
that was kind of fun, andthen he does the the walk and sort
of dance move from the Fat BoySlim video. Mm hmm, yeah,
(12:43):
so yeah, some nice touches.Threat. Do you think there were other
actors they Do you think they triedto get like an al Pacino? There's
only one al Pacino. I justsad. I don't know if it would
work, don't. I don't thinkit would work as well either. You
know, I could think of abunch of people they could have done it
with, But this is really itseems tail to walk And that's why I
asked that question. It's it's alot like what we just did. You
(13:05):
know the episode about Snoop Dogg,Right, it's about a type of person
that has a persona that is verywell known but also that is very well
loved, and Walkin just seems likehe's in that classification, right. Snoop
is like kind of a beloved character. Walking has that too. Paccino probably
(13:28):
does, but I don't know ifhe comes off that way, you know
what I mean, Like he I'mnot sure if everybody loves him in the
way that it's like I want tohug this guy. Yeah, and you
don't you don't know him, He'snot he doesn't have that uniqueness enough,
you know what I mean. Mmhmmm, He's just not enough of a
character. It's definitely true. Sothis one was a whim. This is
(13:48):
exactly what I want to see frommy li like celebrity infused ads. I
want to see that infusion, youknow, really taking place. Yeah,
these were definitely my favorite, thoughby biased. Yes, for for all
the reasons that we've already described werefans, which you know leads us into
our next question, our big question, Patrick, what is that? Well
(14:11):
we started to touch on it.Yeah, do celebrity Super Bowl ads still
make an impact or have we beenjust so oversaturated with them that they don't?
Or put another way, if atree falls in a forest of falling
trees, does it make a soundthat's deep? That's deep, man,
(14:33):
but true. It's almost like itwas written for me. It is,
isn't it. Somebody's feeding you theselines, these nuggets of wisdom. I
think you probably know where I'm comingin on this. I think we've talked
about this before. There there wasa time where a lot of big celebrities
didn't do commercials. So that wasa big deal when that kind of somebody
(14:54):
crossed that threshold, right, youwere kind of like, whoa, this
is mind blowing this somebody of thiscalibers in a commercial on my TV.
Those days are long gone, andI get it. There's a reason,
you know, companies go to thecelebrity, you know, especially with a
Super Bowl ad, the's automatic attention. People know this person, so they're
(15:15):
like, Okay, I know thisperson, I trust this person. I'm
gonna listen to this person. Youknow. It stirs up nostalgia and all
these other emotions because you're already havethis attachment built in, so it makes
sense to do this. But man, have we just like fallen back on
this over and over again, andnow it's just like, hey, just
sprinkle a celebrity in there, saythe message, or sprinkle five celebrities in
(15:39):
there, doesn't really matter what we'resaying. Just have a celebrity, get
our brand out there. That's it. You're right, I mean, the
evolution of this has caused this celebrityfatigue. There's no doubt about it.
You know, going back to thebeginning, when we were young, it
was very rare to see a moviestar, a movie celebrity in a television
(16:07):
show. When you saw it you'relike, oh wow, that's crazy.
Movie stars did not go on TV. Sports sports stars and TV stars went
on TV, and there was alittle like, uh stigma. I think
they avoided it like the plague.And then you know that slow shift to
(16:29):
now where you see movie celebrities,movie stars doing television television series, whole
series, and it has become sonatural to see them on TV, and
then the progression of them doing TVcommercials to now a super Bowl commercial doesn't
(16:51):
feel that special when you see acelebrity. I mean you you've come to
expect it, and that expectation isalmost like almost like this form of entitled
we have, right, We're likewhat, like I want more? Like
where is it? You and Iare going that's not very clever. Our
reaction right now is a culmination ofeverything that has come before, where we're
(17:12):
just like so oversaturated. We're disappointedwhen we see Arnold in a state farm
cred like what you know what Imean, Like we would have been blown
away at one point in our livesif we would have seen that, But
now we're like, eh, showsyou where we're at? Right? Yeah?
Yeah, I mean oversaturated would bethe simplest form of what we feel.
(17:34):
The fatigue is there though, andyou can picture from the agency side
why this is happening. It's like, Okay, we've got the celebrity.
They can only come in for aday. We just got to get them
somewhere, get them to say aline, and then we'll figure out kind
of what to do with it.We'll figure out how it works, just
kind of put a spot together.And this is kind of why I feel
(17:56):
like we're seeing a trade off betweencelebrity he's in creativity at some point.
I think so many ads are justreally lacking that creative structure ideas that we've
seen in the past. You know, ads where you're like, oh,
that's good. You know, that'sa really good execution. But this goes
probably for anything in advertising. Theconcept is always going to be what drives
(18:19):
the whole thing. Can you comeup with a good concept to what we
talk about with editing right anything,If you do it right and conceptually the
idea is solid, then the executionwhoever that's by can be powerful. You
know, it doesn't have to beeven a celebrity in those cases, but
(18:40):
the concept has to be there.And I think when they're relying solely on
the talent to be the driver ofthe message. That's where it struggles,
I'll tell you. You know,as much as I didn't like the execution
the Duncan thing with Ben Affleck,I thought it was an interesting play because
(19:02):
it's sort of poking fun at thiswhole thing. I feel actually kind of
sad when I watch it, butthey're sort of playing the fact that Jlo
is like I told you not todo this, you know, almost like
this parody of the celebrity who haslike fallen into this hole of what you
(19:25):
see in front of you. Ifyou watch the Duncan one, you'll,
I mean, which everyone probably hasis watched the Super Bowl commercials. You
see it like it's sad. Andeven Matt Damon, you know, his
best friends like, remember when Itold you that I'd do anything? This
is anything? Yeah, you know, I mean, which is all jokingly
(19:45):
played, you know, in thissetup and stuff. And I actually think
that was one of the the bestcelebrity ads of the Super Bowl because it
was almost almost felt like a parodyof all that stuff, like it was
it was played up so much.The brand message is probably a little weak
on that one too, but therewas an ongoing, you know, kind
(20:06):
of brand story there. It's almosta sequel to the ad they ran last
year in a way. But Ithought it was really funny. I thought
it was well put together. Imean, the brand's obviously front and center
with the tracksuits they were wearing andeverything, and the fact that they just
layered on you know, they hadAffleck and j Low and then they throwing
Tom Brady and Matt Damon and itwas just like so over the top but
(20:30):
also pretty well put together. Tothat one actually I connected to pretty well.
I liked, like I said,I liked the part where it was
playing up this sort of like almostsadness of a celeberty falling into that.
That part is what I liked aboutit. I don't really like the message.
I don't think it aligns to thebrand at all, But again,
(20:52):
I don't even know that there wasnecessarily like a brand message to it.
That's the thing. I think itwas more just like like shilling a brand.
Yeah, there's a lot of theseads where it's just like, here's
a sketch sponsored by a brand,almost, and that's kind of what that
one felt like. I'll tell youwhat I thought was the best, Probably
my favorite ad of the commercial ofthe Super Bowl did feature a celebrity,
(21:18):
and that was Sarah Vay with MichaelSarah. Oh yeah, I did like
that one a lot. That oneI thought was hilariously funny. Obviously the
celebrity pairing with the brand there makesmakes a lot of sense. I thought
they did a good job kind ofputting that together. The jokes just kind
of inherently ingrained. There. Hecomes on and he talks about this is
(21:41):
why I developed this lotion, andhe's like, you didn't know, goes
into a whole thing. You know, there's a scene of him massaging himself.
It's all play played pretty well andvery funny, and you know it
kind of ends with them saying,you know, developed by dermatologist not Michael
said, yeah that I liked thatone a lot too. Out of the
(22:03):
I think those were probably my topthree. I did like one that I
don't think anybody on earth. Yeah, anybody on Earth probably thought, uh,
I can't wait to hear what thisis. It was Silk with Jeremy
Renner. I didn't even see this. I mean it was towards the end.
If you know the story of whathappened to Jeremy Renny, which I
(22:26):
feel like many people do. Itwas sort of shocking. He is in
his kitchen in this ad and hestarts singing, I feel good. No
no, no, no no,and he just starts dancing, jumps up
on his counter. He's doing likekicks where he's kicking things, and I
(22:47):
mean, is this czi? No, this is him and it I mean
my wife obviously was like that theythat's special effect, I said, or
stunt double and I said, no, it's not. I'm pretty sure that's
him. I mean it was likea year ago he got ran over,
run over by a snowplow. Yeah, and so like I something about that
(23:08):
commercial. I was like, gaveme hope in this world that, you
know. I mean, this guywas almost dead dead, never was gonna
walk again, let alone. Healmost died and here he is doing a
commercial where he looks like his oldlike better than he was prior. So
(23:29):
uh anyway, and it was areal short commercial, but he you know,
silk makes you feel good kind oflike the whole got Milk. I
would say, I don't know whatthe actual tagline was, but you're like,
man, I need to start drinkingsilk because this is if this is
what he's drinking. And I thoughtthat was a great brand alignment. This
dude who is almost dead now he'sdoing kicks. He's throwing spatulas through his
(23:52):
silk milk jug. So yeah,something about that one. Yeah, Yeah,
understandably. I think that's even whenwe talk about kind of these best
ones, when we talk about likewalking and Michael Sarah and Jeremy Renner,
these all these commercials, you know, I try to think of, like,
what are they have in common?What makes them good versus the ones
that are not? And you know, to me, it comes into how
(24:15):
you kind of integrate the celebrity inkind of a like you mentioned, a
unique, surprising, memorable way whereit doesn't just feel like insert name of
celebrity and script, you know,where it could be anybody. Yeah.
With in the case of Jeremy Renner, you're like, his story plays a
role into how you reacted to thatad, right, Yeah, where if
(24:37):
you put Arnold Schwarzenegger in that place, it plays much differently. Yeah,
So if you haven't checked out theseads, you can. You can find
them on Speaking Human. You know, we've got a lot of these ads
from the super Bowl on there,and uh yeah, check out. Tell
us what your favorite is, letus know. That's it for this episode.
(24:59):
You and find current past episodes ofthe podcast on Speaking human dot com.
We'll be back in two weeks withanother episode of Speaking Human. Catch
you then humans Speakcking Human. Iguess you never said that's it for today's
(25:22):
episode. Did you want to saythat? Yeah, check it out,
blah blah blah, and then Isay that's it for this eh, cut
reset, get Arnold in there,quiet on the set, camera, speed
audio, speed action. That's itfor today's episode. You can find currant
(25:48):
past episodes of the podcast on Speakinghuman dot com. Cut Brent, that's
a keeper.
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