Jade Manning and Vince Osmond: Super Bowl 2023 – an expensive reminder that there is no formula for great ads
By Jade Manning (right) and Vince Osmond (left), founding partners, Today the Brave.
It’s 2012. A young Jade and Vince are in their office at TBWA Johannesburg (hard to imagine, but all creative teams had offices back then). While our collection of He-Man figurines watch on, we wait for a video to load on our Macintosh computers. Eventually, we can click play on the Carlton Draught ‘Beer Chase’ commercial.
Ninety seconds later, the packshot appears, accompanied by one of the greatest lines of all time – Made from Beer. Staring at our laptops, we simply shake our heads in envy, and despair. But mostly despair. Because we’ll never be able to make something this awesome. “Those Aussies are so lucky”, we say. “If we had those brands, those budgets and those brave clients, we’d make awesome ads too”, we reassure ourselves. Must be nice.
It’s 2023, and we’ve long since left the cushy offices of TBWA Johannesburg. Two desks down, a young creative team digest this year’s Super Bowl ads. Conveniently for this story, they say something to the effect of “If we had those brands, those budgets and those brave clients, we’d make awesome ads too” But we’ve been in Beer Chase country for eight years now, so our response is a bit different; there is no formula for making great ads.
Just take a look at this year’s Super Bowl commercials.
This is one of the most-watched spectacles of all time. Brands are spending unspeakable amounts of money. Brilliant agencies with access to ridiculously famous celebrities – all the ingredients that we were convinced made for great ads. But in 2023, we still haven’t seen another Beer Chase.
Of course, this is not to suggest that all the ads are stinkers. Far from it. ‘The Singularity’ from Squarespace, ‘Great acting or great taste’ by Pepsi Zero Sugar and ‘One hit for Uber One’ are some of the goodies – the ones with ideas, not just celebs. But they lie amongst many thorns.
It leaves you wondering; what went wrong? Where does it unravel?
Perhaps the issue begins with believing that money and famous people are a guarantee for success in the first place. But if Super Bowl 2023 can teach us anything, it’s that there is no equation. No formula. No shortcut.
Even after you’ve been handed all the money. After you’ve been given the greatest brief. After cracking a killer idea. After getting the nod from John Travolta or Danny McBride. Even then, it’s no shoo-in for high fives.
It’s a terrifying realisation, and it’s why bravery will always be our greatest ally.
To be clear, ‘brave’ doesn’t mean everything needs to be Skittles, or even Beer Chase for that matter. Every brand’s DNA and version of bravery is different. Bravery helps us step into a world of unknowns and emerge with a point of difference, a bit of clarity, and a touch of magic which great ads have always had in common.
Cut back to 2012. Thanks to Elon’s breakthrough in time travel, an older Jade and Vince step into their Johannesburg office, wearing out-of-season black leather coats. Whispering unnecessarily, Jade says “There is no shortcut”. It’s too whispery. Younger Jade and Vince ask us to repeat. It’s awkward now. ‘There is no shortcut!’ Jade shouts, now too loudly. We grab a He-Man figurine and quickly we exit.
9 Comments
100% correct.
Rarely has so much money been spent on so much dross to achieve so little.
And it’s not like they get the brief the week before – people are already working on next year’s ads.
Fucking hell, so very depressing.
Hope to see you both at the Hunts 40th.
I’ve just gone through the whole bunch. It’s so disappointing for all the reasons you mentioned. How does this happen?
Not too long ago, nobody would dare talk out of turn to the CD. They respected what the CD said, because let’s face it, nobody liked being verbally abused in front of their co-workers. But that wasn’t the only reason everyone listened. They’d earned their way there, their arse was on the line and they knew what was great and what wasn’t. Cut to 2023, the divorced ones are still CDs (or ECD / CCO now). They’re churning out 100 page decks of crap. But there’s someone new in the room, not listening and learning, but saying ‘as a millennial / gen z / social-media expert, I don’t relate to that.’ So the least-informed creative in the room, with zero experience in crafting great, well-loved campaigns is calling the shots based on their ‘gut feel’. The CD goes along with it in the spirit of looking ‘collaborative and inclusive’. Don’t want that talking-to from management again. The creative department leave the industry in droves. And the ads? Well, look around. It’s time to kick the idiots out of the room.
To draw a parallel between Superbowl ads and regular ads, it’s the conforming to equations and formats and templates that hits the bullseye.
The big celebrity ad is not longer the big celebrity ad when everyone is doing it. It’s mediocrity.
The most spoken about spot this year seems to be Tubi, and last year Coinspot. Love them or hate them, they broke with convention and stood out for doing so.
By quietly inviting the audience in, rather than wave shiny expensive objects in their face. And yet still made more noise.
Maybe agencies should stop hosting quarterly meetings with clients to present ‘the latest trends’, and instead focus on ways to buck them.
At the risk of sounding like an old man, I feel like advertising has been all downhill since 2013 or so.
Like an end zone grab in the dying seconds, TUBI comes along and restores our faith.
Love this photo! Looking sharp, boys.