BarkleyOKRP Exec Creative Director Ben Pfutzenreuter’s Super Bowl Faves
What were your favorite spots from the advertising extravaganza that is the Super Bowl? How about your least favorite? Let’s see how your answers line up with what BarkleyOKRP Executive Creative Director Ben Pfutzenreuter had to say about the great and not-so-great offerings from Sunday night…
SCREEN: What was your favorite spot of the night?
BEN: Coors Light. Eventually somebody was gonna take the sloth from Zootopia and make it a thing. Mischief not only gave it a strong reason, they got there through in their distinctly mischievous way. I respect the hell out of the way the agency sees marketing, and the clients who share the vision.
That spot (and campaign) is fun, funny, enjoyable, and emotionally evocative from start to finish. Everyone on that project, from client, to creative, to director crew and post production, nailed it.
SCREEN: What was your least favorite spot of the night or a spot you felt could have been more successful?
BEN: Listen, making a Superbowl ad is just plain difficult. The stakes are high, internally and externally. So I hesitate with contextless criticism, cause I know everyone’s trying.
But, even as a huge country fan, the Coffeemate spot feels like an investment in the media moment and Shania Twain that is unrealized. It just isn’t doing anything different than a conventional spot aired on the remaining 364 days of the year would.
With a captive audience who is willfully making memory during the game, our job as advertisers is to meet the moment with something that evokes a strong response. A disembodied tongue, a celebrity not really lifted to a relevant center of the idea, just feels underwhelming. I get the point, I just feel little about it.
SCREEN: What would you like to see more or less of in terms of advertising in next year’s Super Bowl?
BEN: More dialogue, meaningful interactions, and strongly conveyed emotion. Any emotion. Panic: like Reeses, Paranoia: Like Uber Eats, Exhaustion: like Coors Light. Schadenfreude: Like Totino’s Pizza Rolls.
Less: Fully rational appeals with an absurdist overlay that doesn’t repeat or center the brand. Less “tack an end card on” creative. Which feels thankfully in decline already.
SCREEN: Any final words here, Ben?
BEN: I feel like we’re in the middle of a transformation in American film advertising right now, the average work around “The Big Game” is… maybe, getting better? I liked multiple things this year, more than recent memory.
There’s some ideas I really believe about how creative works, deep down: Specifically the role of characters, real interactions between them, strong and clear emotions, and finally how ideas need to center the brand truly inside of them. I think more and more advertisers are picking up on this.
What’s happening right now at the top end of our industry illustrates there’s plenty of room for great creative that delivers quality impressions, memory, and behavior from consumers. I’m inspired.
Thanks so much for chiming in, Ben! Check back here at SCREEN for more insight and interviews from advertising creatives between the coasts. You can also click right here to subscribe to our weekly email newsletter.
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