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Speaker 2: Hi, how's it going very well?
Speaker 1: Stevie? What's happening with you? I bet you've been busy
for the past forty eight hours.
Speaker 2: I have, I have.
Speaker 3: I'm actually in San Francisco right now. We're super Bowl
country out here, So, well, what.
Speaker 1: Is it like the day after? Because I'm in NASCAR
country and I know what it's like to do four
and five days on the infield of the Charlotte Motor Speedway,
and that last day when everybody's going home is kind
of a I don't know how to describe the vibe.
What about you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, and my husband's from Charlotte, so I'm familiar
with NASCAR country as you speak of. But yeah, no,
it's what's interesting on the advertising side is all the
real work has happened leading up to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: So now we're on a bit of the come down
on the other end.
Speaker 3: But you know, we're you're sort of seeing the results
of which ads stood out, What are people talking about?
Speaker 2: You know, what are the narratives.
Speaker 3: Coming out of the game, What are really people saying?
And I think, you know, part of part of it
here is the things that are standing out from last
night are the game was a snoozefest, so thank god
we had the ads because you had something to watch,
and a lot of the big themes were that you
had a lot of tech, you had a lot of
healthcare and GLP one advertising and.
Speaker 2: Return to humor.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of comedy was coming out of
all of the spots last night, and people were trying
to really land comedy again, which in past years always
goes up and down.
Speaker 1: Speaking of that tech talk, one of the greatest moments
happened yesterday morning because I have my Alexa program to
talk to me every single morning, and she reminded me
I'm in a Super Bowl commercial later on today with
Chris Himsworth, and I have never experienced that where she spoke, well,
she's gonna correct me on the speaker. In a second,
She's gonna go, I'm not a she, I'm not a he.
So there, but Alexa corrected me and and did things
with me that that made sure that I was watching
for that super Bowl commercial?
Speaker 3: And how did you I'm curious, how did you feel
knowing that your Alexa was actively telling you about advertising
for your Alexa?
Speaker 2: Did that make you happy? Sad in between a little bit? Like, way,
what's going on here? How'd you feel about that?
Speaker 1: I'm loving it. I'm loving it. It's a real because
I'll tell you what. I will sit there and I'll say,
you got to tell me more about this young blood Alexa.
And then Alexi will tell the story and I'll sit
there and I'll have this conversation. Yeah, but here's the
thing that blah blah blah blah blah blah, what should
I be looking for the commercials? And and so it's
like it's it's like me sitting with me. Isn't that
really weird? Because she's I mean, Alexa will sit there
and tell you that she's nothing but a reflection of us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, in Alexa's ad last night was all about Alexa.
Maybe or maybe not trying to kill you. So I
think that was an interesting take. And because you mentioned
that your Alexa told you about advertising, there was another
AI brand in the Super Bowl as well that called
that out specifically. So and Claude had an ad talking
about how their platform with AI will never feature or
won't feature.
Speaker 2: Ads and that. So, So it's an interesting debate that's.
Speaker 3: Going on right now of saying, hey, we are inviting
AI into our lives and talking to it every day,
just like you mentioned, and what happens when you start
to put ads in there?
Speaker 2: Is that okay? Or is that not okay?
Speaker 3: And I think that was they took the total opposite
track of instead of saying we're going to add advertise
to you, we're saying we know ever will so uh,
we're seeing the AI wars play out in front of
us in real time.
Speaker 1: One of the things that to kind of drawn a
line in the sand in this household is I did
not like the Dunkin Donut commercial, whereas my wife couldn't
get enough of it. What has it is it doing
that effect on everybody across the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been hearing a lot about this particular ad.
Speaker 3: I don't think it was one of my It was
not one of my favorites. And I'll tell you why
it was, because it was a little complicated. We've Duncan
has started working with Ben Affleck several years ago, and
it made it was very simple. It made a lot
of sense. We all know Ben Affleck is a big
Duncan guy. He's you know, he's from Boston. It all
made sense. But they put him in the drive through.
They had him sort of do the the classic, uh
Bostonian thing, and this year there was just one too
many things going on. They had a written explanation at
the beginning trying to explain what you were about to see.
Nobody likes to read anything during during the Super Bowl.
It's usually not one of their top things they want
to do. And then they sort of mixed up. They
had Goodwill hunting and then they.
Speaker 2: Had ninety sitcoms.
Speaker 3: And if they'd stuck with one lane, if they'd just
done Goodwill hunting and had a bunch of celebrities, probably.
Speaker 2: Would have been just fine.
Speaker 3: But it was just one too many things going on
and really complicated, which I.
Speaker 2: Think is why we're getting this sort of polarized response.
Speaker 3: Is because we all know how good they have been,
and this one just didn't quite hit the mark.
Speaker 1: I got to know what they did in the production department, because,
first of all, I don't want to be a judger,
but I am somebody of radio for many years, and
I am a voiceover actor. I did not like the
announcer at all. That had to have been an AI
technology announcer. There was no emotion. There was nothing about
that announcer in that Duncan commercial that proved to me
that it was real.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 3: Of all the things in the Duncan commercial, I don't
even know if I could have told you if that
was real or not. One thing I do know is
I believe Ben Affleck's artist Ty Companies, who produces all
of those spots, and so I don't know where they
stand on the use of AI announcers and all of
those things, but there is.
Speaker 2: Sometimes no replacement for human talent. So I feel you
on that.
Speaker 1: So am I really weird in thinking that they finally
put hard liquor in there as an advertiser because the
Victoria Justice commercial made me go, oh, this might be
worth jumping off the wagon.
Speaker 3: Well, the liquor has been a part of the Super
Bowl in the past. Sveedka Vodka was also here last
night with the bots, and they've shown up a year
over year. So there are liquor brands that have been
there before. Usually we're seeing beer brands and those are
the ones that we tend to remember. But yeah, liquor
advertising and as you mentioned, Victoria Justice were part of
part of the show.
Speaker 1: And of course sports gambling is the big thing. And
here in the Caroline is what did we see? We
see a bunch of stories about how teenagers are involved
in spending sixty thousand of their Paris dollars and I'm going,
oh my god, that's how you know that the commercials
are going to be effective when your stories in the
newspapers are going to be about sports, you know, gambling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think I believe it was fan duel
or Draft Kings had a spot last night featuring Colin
Jost and Michael Shea during the broadcast, and then a
ton of online advertising happening during the Super Bowl too,
So maybe they're not necessarily always buying the TV time,
but they're hitting you up for sports betting during the game.
It's a massive market and it's only been a couple
of years since we've been able to have betting sports
betting more opened up across the country and legalized, so
it's only going to continue.
Speaker 1: In my heart, I am convinced that Ben Steeler and
Benson Boone are going to be doing a movie together,
and that was a pre promotion for something they've got planned.
Speaker 3: I you know what, I think that would at least
explain whatever it was they were doing.
Speaker 2: So you're right.
Speaker 3: I'd Ben Stiller been pretty visible lately with some of
his productions. Interestingly that that AD's been getting a lot
of airtime prior to the Super Bowl too.
Speaker 2: It wasn't one of my favorites. It was early in
the game.
Speaker 3: I don't I think it was one of my favorites
because it didn't really tell me a lot about what
instacart was bringing to the table. I don't need a
lot of education about stuff like that, but it was
it was a little weird for weird sake versus you know,
communicating anything about who instacart really was.
Speaker 1: Another one that caught my attention and it was an
oh wow factor, and you know that AI was involved
in This was the Budweiser commercial with the Clydesdale and
what did it turn into an eagle? I thought it
was a goose in the very beginning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think that's actually going to be
one of the crowd favorites from the night. People love
the Clydesdales, people love bald eagles, free bird playing in
the background, just good classic super Bowl advertising. I think
that one is going to be one of the standouts
from the night. And I can't tell you whether they
used AI or not. VFX was certainly involved, but yeah,
I think I think Budweiser, they've they had two spots
Anheiser Busch had two spots in the super Bowl last night,
and that one I think is going to be the
one that really stands out.
Speaker 1: One of the shockers for me was first of all,
was to see Lady Gaga in the halftime series or
the special with the music, but then to see that
the commercial was on there. So I'm thinking, why didn't
she tell us that she was doing both? Because when
I to see both of them was it was such
a blessing that she that she was really seriously a
major part of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it was interesting because you're
referring to the Rocket and Redfin commercial where she where
she sang the Mister Rogers songs. Interestingly, I've seen a
lot of commentary where people if you didn't know, you
didn't necessarily know it was Lady Gaga that was the
cover of the other song.
Speaker 2: But yeah, a big night for her.
Speaker 3: I think that goes to, honestly, her popularity as an artist.
Speaker 2: You choose celebrities.
Speaker 3: And music and songs for the Super Bowl a lot
of times based on mass appeal. You're trying to hit
big swaths of audiences, and for her to have been
featured in a number of ways, I think it means
this is a mega A list or superstar global popularity
who is respected at least enough for her talent and
her recognizability that she'll cut across a lot of demographics.
And you know, maybe she's got bills to pay and
she wanted some super Bowl checks.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Stevie Archer coming
up next. What were the best Super Bowl commercials? What
were the clinkers? Let's get back with Stevie Archer. Kudos
to Liquid IV because I think they've finally put on
their grown up tennis shoes and are starting to play
the real game, because when you've got someone like Propale
knocking on your back door when it comes to making
sure that you've got the right drink in your I
mean Liquid ivy with demon Hunter on there, that wins
automatic win for me.
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
Speaker 3: I thought it was fascinating that they took a step
away from sort of the performance hydration angle and went
straight up for the like are you hydrated at all?
Look at your pe angle. Potty humor in general was
a trend last night too. That you had Liquid iv
talking about literal singing potties, you had the fiber commercial
with William Shatner making fiber jokes. You had tight Ends
making prostate sort of jokes. You had a lot of
There was a lot of potty humor overall, and I think, yeah,
it is interesting to see Liquid iv it on such
a mega stage. It sort of means that again, we're
going to keep seeing the battle happen in terms of
like who's going to reign Supreme and the gatorade, the
propels and the hydration category everywhere, and that's where money's flowing.
Speaker 1: Well, see that The thing about it is with the
potty humor and stuff like that, everything that I read
about these commercials, it was going to be based on
a younger audience. And so being that I do have
an essential job at a grocery store, I know who's
buying things like liquid IV, and I thought they hit
their target because it's not just the sports freaks and
those that work out, it is every Tom Dick and Harry,
mom and dad and everybody that's buying liquid IV. I
thought they hit it right out of the park.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was super stand out. It was
a very clear message.
Speaker 2: And I think.
Speaker 3: A lot of times when you see the younger demographic
two the thing that you're gonna you're seeing is a
lot of brands too that are using internet celebrities and influencers.
So I think when you talk about hitting younger demographics,
those are the brands that were really going after those
those markets. That's why Benson Boone was there, That's why
Sabrina Carpenter was there, Charlie XCX was showing up, and
you had a number of brands. Mister Beast was part
of salesforce. Those are the brands that are going for
those younger demographics too.
Speaker 1: What is it about Rob Wriggle that we all feel
comfort and we feel secure when he appears in a commercial.
I don't understand what it is when it comes to
loving this man for everything that he does.
Speaker 3: Now that I can't fully speak to the scientific value
of Rob Riggle's universal appeal, but I can tell you
it's no mistake when he shows up in your ads
that people with universal appeal are the ones that are
getting selected.
Speaker 2: A lot of.
Speaker 3: Brands do do testing and do vetting of their talent
with focus groups with people.
Speaker 2: There's Q scores, there's E scores, There's.
Speaker 3: All kinds of stuff that can quantify exactly why the
Rob Wriggle effect might be taking place. But those celebrities
that can kind of cross over a lot of demographics
like that and make people feel their universal appeal, that's
why they get the big checks.
Speaker 1: And big kudos to Rich Cracker. First of all, the
competition in that department. Not to sound like Shark Tank here,
but there is a lot of competition out there, but
Rich Cracker steps in there with who bow and Yang,
who I think is a major force of the future.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they actually had quite the ensemble cast. They had
Bowen Yang, they had John Ham, they had Scarlet Johansson
and Bowen has certainly been.
Speaker 2: On the rise.
Speaker 3: So that's another one where you've seen a celebrity go
from internet niche TikTok and podcast culture into SNL where
he became a fixture into a major movie with Wicked.
And now he's probably going to you know, be continuing
his like film and TV career. So he's one where
he can reach across both like the younger demographic, the
tapped in cultural demographic, and he's got a you know,
increasing the A list recognizability, which is you know why
he's going to be starting, you know, showing up in
more and more advertising.
Speaker 1: Because I'm the production director, was the product production director
for Iheartradios. One of the things that you clearly do
when you're sitting inside that studio with your clients it
is brand, brand, brand or sell sell sell. I felt
branding last night. Did you feel the same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's I think that's right for the
most part.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of times the Super Bowl is
about name recognition and memorability and creating that like top
of mind consideration and awareness. You just want to be
the first brand people think of when they're you know,
going to pick up whatever item that is. I think
there was a few brands that hit on really hard
hitting product messages.
Speaker 2: Glub Hub was one of them. They had the George.
Speaker 3: Clooney spot where they the entire message was about Glubhub
eating the fees, which I thought was one of the
hardest hitting, like product messages we saw where they were
really trying to make a point of difference between them
and we've been seeing them and Uber eats and instacart
and DoorDash was doing a social only campaign last night.
Speaker 2: They've been going hard at it for a while.
Speaker 3: The fact that they snuck in a rational product message
I actually think was really smart because we've you know,
we all of those brands start to run together after
a while when we've got seventy five of them on
our phones.
Speaker 1: I think the one that really caught my attention and
was more like a well why was the Elijah Wood
commercial because it's like, Elijah, I haven't seen you in
a movie in a while, who are you? What are
you doing up there? Because Generation Alpha doesn't know who
you are?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was an interesting casting choice. I think that
was for Skittles and Yeah, and I think you know
Skittles as a brand has always kind of taken offbeat choices.
Their their whole thing is about weirddvertising. So I think
the question I'd be asking is whether they were really
going after Gen Alpha or who they were trying to reach.
And a lot of times sometimes what we're seeing too
is and I have to I have to get more
educated on this myself. As you do get these little
pockets of interesting cultural trends where on TikTok older things
will emerge that suddenly Gen Z or Gen Alpha will
grab onto and you kind of go weird come from
and there are these little pockets of memes and trends
that get grabbed onto. Right now, everybody's talking about twenty
twenty six being twenty sixteen, so all the twenty sixteen
stuff is popping back up, and we're in a big
stage of nineties nostalgia, so he could be part of
that wave is just going who are the big stars
of the nineties, And we'll probably start seeing a lot
of Elijah woodmeans coming out of last night.
Speaker 1: Well, Skittles is onto something right now, because last night
I tried something for the first time from Skittles, and
it was Skittles for Weega and what happened is it's
got chili pepper in it. It is Skittles that is
so damn hot, but you couldn't put it down. It
was so it was like, you gotta be kidding me,
but you can't put it down. And that's why I'm
thinking that they're going for the older people with a
younger taste, if you know what I mean, because it
mean it's the same thing with TikTok. The kids are
going for the heat, but man, if they can introduce
the adults to the heat, they got it made.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, it's It's interesting because they also had
Nerds Gummies in the Aglass Night and the chewy candy
category is the chewy gummy candy category is the fastest
growing candy category like in the world right now. So
between Skittles and Nerds Gummies, they're all trying to find
the next new product innovation to grab somebody else and
pull them in.
Speaker 1: Well, man, you got to come back to this show
anytime in the future. The door is always going to
be open for you.
Speaker 2: Awesome, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Will be brilliant today, Okay, I will.
Speaker 2: Try my very best. Likewise,