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MESSAGES ABOUT AMERICA, inclusiveness — and, even “four years of awful hair” — kept bubbling up in Super Bowl 51 ads from Airbnb, the NFL and a line of personal care products.
As the New England Patriots edged out the Atlantic Falcons on the field in Houston, Airbnb touted inclusiveness with an ad showing faces of different ethnicities and the copy: “We all belong. The world is more beautiful the more you accept.”
Coca-Cola aired a previously run ad during the pre-game show in which people sing America the Beautiful in different languages. Even a hair care brand dipped into politics: The ‘It’s a 10′ hair brand indirectly referenced President Donald Trump’s famously unruly do in its Super Bowl spot.
Advertisers who paid $5 million (about €4.6 million) for 30 seconds of airtime had to walk the line with ads that appealed to everyone and didn’t offend. Some were more successful than others.
“Anxiety and politics just loom over this game, so anybody who gives us the blessed relief of entertaining with a real Super Bowl commercial wins,” Mark DiMassimo, CEO of the ad agency DiMassimo Goldstein, said.
“Brands used to worry about whether their ad could be interpreted as right or wrong, Kelly O’Keefe, a marketing professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, said. “Now they have to worry about whether it will be interpreted as right or left.”
Plenty of ads walked that line.
An NFL spot conveyed what all advertisers hope the Super Bowl becomes: a place where Americans can come together. “Inside these lines, we may have our differences, but recognise there’s more that unites us,” Forest Whitaker said in a voiceover as workers prepped a football field and gridiron scenes played.
“The Super Bowl is shaping up as a counterpoint to the divisiveness in the United States,” Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University, said.
Airbnb’s ad was one of the more overtly political, showing a variety of different faces with the tagline “We accept.”
Some thought the ad was a hit. “Kudos to them for making a strong statement,” O’Keefe said. But others, such as Villanova University marketing professor Charles Taylor, thought it didn’t have a clear enough link to the brand and risked coming off as a “purely political statement”.
Some advertisers took the safest route possible by re-airing ads they’ve used before — an unusual, though not unprecedented, move. Coca-Cola, Google and Fiji water all aired rerun ads.
During the pre-game show, Coca-Cola ran It’s Beautiful, an ad featuring people around the country drinking the fizzy beverage and singing America the Beautiful in different languages.
Surprises
A debut Super Bowl spot by the ‘It’s a 10′ hair care brand introduced its line of men’s products by joking about Trump’s hair.
“America, we’re in for four years of awful hair, so it’s up to you to do your part by making up for it with great hair,” a voiceover stated as black-and-white photos of people with a wide array of hairstyles flashed by. “Do your part. … Let’s make sure these next four years are ‘It’s a 10.’”
Snickers got press by airing a live ad in the third quarter. On a Wild West set, actor Adam Driver seemed to now know the ad was live — and then the set fell apart (on purpose). “You ruin live Super Bowl commercials when you’re hungry,” the ad’s tagline read.
Ads with light humour and stuffed with celebrities were popular. Honda’s ad made a splash by animating the yearbook photos of nine celebrities ranging from Tina Fey to Viola Davis. They make fun of their photos — Jimmy Kimmel is dressed in a blue tux and holding a clarinet, for example — and talk about The Power of Dreams, Honda’s ad slogan.
T-Mobile’s spots — which featured Justin Bieber dancing , Kristen Schaal in a 50 Shades of Grey parody and Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg mixing talk about T-Mobile’s unlimited data plan with innuendo about Snoop’s marijuana habit, got people talking — as did an ad from antioxidant drink maker Bai featuring Justin Timberlake and Christopher Walken.
I think ‘earned’ is the wrong word.
A job pays money. That money is called earnings. What don’t you get?
Stealing ‘pays’ money. That money is called …
Fill in the dots, good man.
show me someone here who doesn’t use banks. as long as money is flushed through the bank systems there will always be people making money off it. only way around it would be a zero interest state bank that allows people to be paid and spend that pay without benefiting individuals, but or society always elects people who serve money rather than the people, so there is no way around this. PS: Bertie, did actually have a bank account – he just used it corruptly.
the vast majority of these people have worked incredibly hard, sacrificing most of their 20s and 30s and 40s.. you will always have the one bad egg in any industry to ruin things.
Oh thats alright then. But we were told that we have to pay all that money to get the best. Seeing the state of the banking ‘industry’ in this country and the subsequent catastrophic effect on it’s citizens, maybe you could impart to us your wisdom on how bad thing would have been had we in actual fact not paid over the odds for ‘the best’ and, shudder at the thought, actually got the worst possible people to work here.
If this was a real republic then we wouldn’t have three token journey men, but the top dogs in jail.
The Republic is dead, long live the Republic.
Over paid, over rated pocket stuffers.
Nice one journal rub it in
Does that mean you can do the job?
Does it mean they can William?….track records a bit*h.
Isn’t bloody great to have the Celtic tiger back..
Meanwhile irish public servants are still paying for their transgressions. The financial emergency hasn’t gone away you know
“40 Irish bankers”……spot the typo
Financial Predators
- Bankers who max your debt
- Landlords who max your rent
- Political Parties who max your tax ….
There are no hidden fees for any service from a bank (you just have to read the smallprint and booklets) and nobody is forced to borrow money. Banks provide services and they involve risk. That’s it.
But that “risk” is never the bankers or the bond holders. Just the poor saps below that glass ceiling. All thanks to the neo liberalism of FF, FG and Labradooles
I’m not surprized. Banks have slapped charges on absolutely everything and are still charging big interest on the mortgage loans, fleecing the general public, totally acceptable behaviour by our lovely corrupt gov.
Mortgage rates in Ireland since the mid 2000s are pretty reasonable compared to what was available historically. As recently as the early 1990s, rates were up as high as 18%! Currently one can achieve a rate of around 4.5% variable. That’s not exactly extortionate, comparatively. I live in New Zealand and my fixed rate is 5.4%, and that was a fairly low rate historically (the available rates having fallen further since due to escalating house prices). You can’t necessarily blame banks for charging for their services, as they have always done. People took on these crazy 110% mortgages back in the Tiger days, not exactly the current banking regimes fault, a certain amount of responsibility must fall on the banks customer. Now don’t think I enjoy paying bank fees if I can avoid it, but there must be an understanding that services have a cost. You get paid interest by the bank for the facility of them using your deposited money, and as such, it works the other way.
that’s all good but the banks are getting money at zero rate plus ecb are buying assets
That’s all fine and dandy, but the banks’ mortgage customers, during the Celtic Tiger era, were thinking, on the one hand, I really should defer my house purchase until I have saved a 20% deposit, but on the other hand, if I don’t act now I will never get on residential housing ladder.
Due to non existent Banking Regulation, and an era of pushy salesmen in aggressive sales commission generating mode within Ireland’s banks, folks were forced into bad borrowing decisions.
No one forced anyone to do anything, I know, I lived in Ireland through those years.
The poor bankers.
The jealousy on here is hilarious. People who can hardly count, let alone understand economics and complex mathematics, moaning about smart men and women who have made successes out of their careers. Sad really.
What is sad Alan is that the rivers of Ireland are full of dead bodies directly attributable to the collapse of the Irish banking sector, Directly attributable to these same bankers, and while decent working people are still suffering pay cuts these super intelligent fat cats are still lining their own pockets. vote Fine Gael. Vote Labour.
Smart men and women? So why, if these were any business other than banks, would they have been shut down years ago? I wouldn’t be the jealous type anyway and certainly not jealous of people whose actions in getting back the money they created when someone applied for a mortgage eventually resulted in the death of that person because of the pressure they were put under to finance a loan I approved only to find out it wasn’t that sustainable after all. W/bankers are lovely people really.
What’s the issue here?
You work, you get paid, simples.
Some earn more than others, fact!
You may bet nobody earning 1 million + in wages is wasting their time in comments section of the journal!
There’s a lesson there folks….
Welcome to the ‘earning less than a million club’ Seamie.
and at least five million in 2007
No surprises there so…
I would prefer if headlines for articles such as this used the word “made” and not “earned” which I reserve for the income most of us gain from our efforts.
Compared to City of London this is small fries, compared to NYC? Fuggheadboutit. Also, I don’t have much passion for banking and think there’s a lot of sneakiness going on, but I can guarantee you whatever Irish bankers take in over 1m euro work harder for that than 95% of the population do for their 30-70k.
ridiculous.
At risk of feeling incredibly naive, I thought there was a cap limit of €500k for salaries in banks? I know some staff have used loopholes to get around this before, but to have 40 doing so seems crazy.
Look at the graphic again.. they all earned under €500K in fixed salary, even the top person who took home €2.5M after bonuses.
It’s the variable amount, i.e. the bonus component based on performance, that brings these people into the €1M+ total earnings.
shower of w**kers those bankers
Misleading in the extreme. Left wing populist journalism that hasn’t even researched what the headings mean under each industry type. The most important for the purposes of this article is the retail banking heading. The scope of the EBA not only includes the public banks, but also private companies that are regulated by the central bank.
You’re all wrong. People at the top of amy industry earm million dollar salaries. The banking system was banjaxed. You want the people in charge to be shit hot. If they do a good job they deserve the millions.
So to reitterate, you are all wrong. Good day.
The same people who f**ked it up are still in charge.
You’re wrong. Good day!
go dig out the annual reports for the main banks in 2007 and then dig out the same for 2014. line up the executive committee then and now. and report back….
Richie Boucher
wonga
Due to budget cuts and decreases of wages in our pockets it was our monies that was used to pay these bankers which is corruption at its highest . Banks should have been left to fall and bonds should not have been paid to shareholders . We are fools and still bailing out the banks while they live a life of luxury from our expense .
allowing the banks to fail was the right answer? really? of course it seems like the right answer in the depth of a recession – we all wanted to be iceland. but we are now in a position were unemployment rates are falling, people on dole is falling, USC is going to be cut further (more so than WC incr!), public sector wage increases are being put through. of course the man on the street is angry but recovery in asset prices is the first thing to happen. we are now going into the second leg which is money in people’s back pockets. i will bet my bottom $ that in 2016 & 2017 people will notice the difference and the recovery in ireland will broaden outside of Dublin. you are already starting to see asset prices recover outside of Dublin. Go and look at GDP growth rates on “google” for Ireland versus Iceland and see how you now feel? PS: a lot of the bankers that were in charge at the time are now gone. some have even gone to prison. there is a market rate for any job and internal remuneration committee – if you think it is that easy a job go and apply / work in the industry.
they were surely paid my mistake, customers should expect a refund soon for funding such errors.
take all your money out, cripple them. they keep taking money off you till they’re caught – sorry, it was a mistake. ok, here’s your prison cell. if every petty criminal said that to the judge for robbing people – sorry it was a mistake.
its never gone the other way, crediting your account, theres a reason for that and I’ve just said it. banks should be fined heavy for this trick.
disgusting
40 bankers made a million? That’s only 25k each.
How much is that after tax??
have your say