Advertisements are everywhere you look. Companies allocate a lot of money to promote their products and push ads in the media. One of the biggest advertising opportunities is during the Super Bowl, which guarantees that millions of viewers will be watching at the same time.
On Feb. 11, the Kansas City Chiefs’ overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers delivered the most-watched telecast in history. Despite garnering 123.4 million average viewers across all platforms, the commercials were lackluster, considering the huge advertising opportunity for companies. Ultimately, I feel that Super Bowl advertisements aren’t resonating with Gen Z, a generation that grew up surrounded by technology and advertisements galore in the media.
Older Super Bowl ads, such as the talking babies for ETrade and Betty White’s Snickers commercial started advertising trends that we see to this day. These commercials created engagement and had successful results. After noticing the success these Super Bowl ads had, other companies used similar concepts through creative humor to try and get people’s attention. However, with a saturated media market, nothing seems as unique as older commercials anymore.
Many of the recent Super Bowl ads have brought in celebrities to promote brands and products. Since so many companies do this, their commercials don’t stick out and it limits their chance of going “viral.” For instance, TikTok influencer Addison Rae appeared in a commercial for Nerds. In addition, many people watch an ad simply for a celebrity but disregard what the brand or message even is. For this reason, the younger generations “tune out” commercials.
Additionally, a bombardment of similar ads can make an audience lose interest on the whole. I can’t remember a single ad from this year’s Super Bowl because I would get up or be on my phone, just like everyone else I was with.
Since younger audiences grew up navigating advertisements and technology, Gen Z knows how to utilize media literacy. They can tell when an advertisement is good and they can tell when something doesn’t look right. A lot of people also do not like seeing personalized ads because it can feel like an invasion of privacy. For example, it’s common to discuss a product with a friend, and to your surprise, you come across an ad for that specific product or brand later. It can feel like losing privacy, which people don’t appreciate. In turn, people are losing trust in advertisers.
I believe there needs to be a new advertising approach to get the attention of younger generations who grew up in a technology and advertisement-centered era. In the past, people couldn’t wait to watch Super Bowl commercials, but now, many people just tune them out and wait for the big game to start again.
