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The Tech Company Super Bowl Ads of 2024 77

Posted by EditorDavid from the big-game-hunting dept.
Technology made its mark on the Super Bowl ads this year. Microsoft purchased a long inspirational ad for Copilot, ending with the tagline "Your everyday AI companion." (Although another message made the opposite point. "With artificial intelligence, the future is in good hands," an announcer says ironically -- while the ad shows the minions from Despicable Me 4.)

Google's ad showed how its Pixel 8 smartphone helps people with vision problems take photos. T-Mobile touted its internet service.

And for some reason CrowdStrike's ad about its endpoint security software took place in the Old West...

VW ended an ad looking at its history with a shot of its new electric vehicle, the ID.Buzz minivan, while Kia had its own heart-tugging ad touting their electric EV9.

And Pfizer ran a minute-long ad showing the history of medical progress, culminating with a pointer to their new domain, LetsOutdoCancer.com.

Even NASA got into the action, releasing a video showing an astronaut catching a pass in zero gravity. ("Including its solar panels, the Space Station is the same size as a regulation football field.")

And some people even tried watching the Super Bowl on their new Apple Vision Pro...
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The Tech Company Super Bowl Ads of 2024 More

The Tech Company Super Bowl Ads of 2024

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  • I find it hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)

    by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @12:37AM (#64233210) Homepage Journal

    I find the concern about ad blockers and how people hate ads to be kind of hilarious given that people actively seek out advertising, such as these ads shown during the Super Bowl. I don't get it, I'm not going to watch any of those linked commercials, nor do I really care about any of the companies or products involved.

    But the idea that people "hate advertising" is clearly false, because people routinely actively seek it out. The Super Bowl is as much about watching the ads as it is watching the players receive traumatic brain injuries.

    What people hate are intrusive ads or ads that interrupt what they're doing or ads that are otherwise low quality, such as the surge in crappy AI generated ads I've seen on places where ads are unavoidable. But people don't mind advertising, at least when it's entertaining and not thrown in the middle of something else they were doing.

    • Re:I find it hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)

      by herberttlbd ( 1366107 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @01:32AM (#64233316)

      Superbowl ads are popular because of the entertainment value. If the industry put as much effort into them for the rest of the year then people would probably not mind as much.

      • Re:I find it hilarious (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @03:25AM (#64233478)

        Very much this. There are commercials from the 90s I still remember because they were amusing and told a bit of a story. For example, for a coffee brand using the tag line, "Which coffee do you serve unexpected visitors?" That series of commercials had a guy in a bathtub where the floor gave out under him so he ended up in the apartment downstairs, or a UFO landing in some poor unsuspecting woman's back yard. And they were amusing, so they stick in the mind for decades.

        • Never having been much of a pro sports fan I'll always remember the Bud Bowl commercials during the Super Bowls of the late 80's and early 90's when I was still a kid. I was always far more interested in their results then I was in the Super Bowl's and I was still a decade away from being able to legally drink.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by antdude ( 79039 )

          The older (90s) SB commercials were way better than the recents (since the dotcom bubble bursted) ones.

      • Re:I find it hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @09:29AM (#64233882)

        Superbowl ads are popular because of the entertainment value. If the industry put as much effort into them for the rest of the year then people would probably not mind as much.

        The problem is that entertainment is hard and expensive, ANNOYING YOU WITH LOUD NONSENSE is cheap and easy.

        Given how nebulous the return on advertising is, they tend to go with cheap and easy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        Exactly these should be looked at more as short films -with over the top product placement as a part of the genre.

        They are advertising yes but they are exhibition in their own right. Which makes it qualitatively different.

    • I've never watched the Superbowl and have never given two shits about its ads, so I think there is an underrepresented minority here.

      • There's a strong correlation here: you need a serious brain injury to watch Superbowl, and you also need brain injury to want to watch ads. You don't appear to suffer such an injury; the ads are not aimed at you.

    • Re:I find it hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)

      by xlsior ( 524145 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @02:18AM (#64233384) Homepage

      I find the concern about ad blockers and how people hate ads to be kind of hilarious given that people actively seek out advertising, such as these ads shown during the Super Bowl.

      Seeing a well-made, funny ad once can be interesting.

      Getting force-fed a garbage ad (or even a 'good ad') 7,000 times while it is blocking the stuff you actually want to see is something else entirely.

    • I watched what is presumably "the best ads of the year" and... if one interrupted me despite my adblocker, I'd sooner make a script to fuck their ad budget than buy their product. There's no particular time that I'd want to see their ad, and even if I were specifically looking to buy their product I'd be looking at price/features/reviews. Much less replace my entertainment with 33% torture.

    • Re:I find it hilarious (Score:5, Informative)

      by Reeses ( 5069 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @02:53AM (#64233422)

      A someone who used to work in the industry, people don't hate ads. They hate BAD ads. Which outnumber the good ones by something like 100:1. If not more.

      • A someone who used to work in the industry, people don't hate ads. They hate BAD ads. Which outnumber the good ones by something like 100:1. If not more.

        What I do hate is having what I am watching being interrupted several times to force me to watch an ad, no matter how good. I am guessing that it is not so bad when it comes to the Superbowl for nothing much is going there most of the time.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Even good ads get tiring very quickly. I might watch a particularly good one once (e.g. a movie trailer), but not twice, and certainly not every half hour for weeks on end.

    • "The Super Bowl is as much about watching the ads as it is watching the players receive traumatic brain injuries."

      And we're shown ads as the medical staff is carting off the guy with TBI. It's a win-win!

    • Re:I find it hilarious (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @04:30AM (#64233536)

      given that people actively seek out advertising, such as these ads shown during the Super Bowl. I don't get it

      People don't seek out advertising. They seek out entertainment. Superbowl ads aren't your normal ads. They are the most expensive placed ads in the world and frequently represent a wildly different experience than whatever is shoved down your throat at lowest cost.

      It's like the difference between sitting at a TV at a random time and selecting a completely random channel vs sitting down at a TV specifically to watch that series which you heard just won an Emmy.

      The interest is to see what people come up with when they put serious effort and dollars in. Just because I clicked the above ads, doesn't mean I seek out advertising, and doesn't mean I don't use adblockers wherever possible.

      • That works because of the nature of American football, in which a two hour-long game yields no more than twenty minutes of action. It would never work in, say, the soccer World Cup final: the billions of fans watching it would be up in arms in no time.

        • That sport should be named to "American Throwball". The other sport shold be renamed to "Kickball".

          All they have in common is they're both a load of boring old crap specifically designed to keep the easily amused entertained :)

        • That works because of the nature of American football, in which a two hour-long game yields no more than twenty minutes of action. It would never work in, say, the soccer World Cup final: the billions of fans watching it would be up in arms in no time.

          Oh don't I know it. As soon as someone invents a tractor beam to hold something mid air no doubt the rules will be updated to allow coaches to call a time out while the ball is *in* the air.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by waspleg ( 316038 )

      I don't seek this trash out and I find it a very damning commentary on the vapid shallowness of society in general that this is one of, if not the most celebrated "art" event of the year every year.

    • Actual human beings have more than one motivation and their relative levels change with differing inputs and over time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      People might watch a well made ad that has entertainment value once or twice. That doesn't mean they like ads in general.

  • I guess that was what those large men were doing in between all the camera shots of Taylor Swift and Blake Lively.

  • Does anyone else see a problem with NASA spending tax dollars on Super Bowl ads?

  • VW (Score:2)

    by kamapuaa ( 555446 )

    I drive a VW, but do they really want to remind people about the details of their history [dw.com]?

  • "Your everyday AI companion" (Score:5, Funny)

    by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @02:03AM (#64233362)
    who's fun to be with!
  • Remember people, if they force these adverts into your field of view, boycott them! Send a loud message, no more advertising, enough is enough!

  • "Let's outdo Cancer" (Score:3)

    by at_slashdot ( 674436 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @02:23AM (#64233390)

    Is that wise? That sounds like a bad thing to me...

    • Is that wise? That sounds like a bad thing to me...

      I'm just waiting for Pfizer to come out with a cancer vaccine and it's based on mRNA tech so I can watch how quickly all those people bitching about those type of vaccines change their minds.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        Yeah other people are fun to laugh at when you don't even understand trivial details of their perspective or concerns.

        I know a very large number of people that opposed the vaccine mandate and personal chose to not get covid vaccine. (Myself included). I know only a handful of people that think MRNA is inherently evil or some conspiracy. The vast vast majority objected on two (2) principle grounds.

        1) These were tested with cell cultures created from abortion products and there was not alternative available

        • You can't convince them otherwise.

          Just like they assume you are anti-vax even if you are fully vacinated for everything but covid.

    • yeah, I don't think that word means what they think it means. It sounds more like something Bayer, nee Monsanto, would aspire.

      outdo
      verb [ T ]
      US /atdu/ UK /atdu/
      outdid | outdone
      to be, or do something, better than someone else:
      He always tries to outdo everybody else in the class.

      https://dictionary.cambridge.o... [cambridge.org]

  • lamentation (Score:3)

    by spaceman375 ( 780812 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @02:47AM (#64233412)
    All these comments are just whiners bitching and moaning about politics, taxes, and nazis. Not one has any content with substance. No technical observations of what it took to make the ads, nothing about the newest devices or the latest AI applications. I mourn the death of slashdot.

    For my part, I applaud the NASA ad. All the resources used were already legitimately in place without further expenditure beyond a few minutes of their time. There was no "massive waste of taxpayer dollars." The reward is increased faith in science among people who might be persuaded otherwise, especially important demographics like impressionable youth and people who provide the all important donations and political backing. But to get technical, the comment about being faster because of orbital speed is missing the relevant frame of reference. If they claim 17,500 mph around the Earth is faster, they have to allow that the Earth is in solar orbit at a substantially greater speed, about 67,000 mph. So they are going 17.5k faster, AND slower, every 45 minutes as they go with and then directly against Earth's solar orbital speed.

  • The Vision Pro link only mentioned the Vision Pro for clickbait.

    In reality the link takes you to an article that showed idiot "scientists" discovered if they made their own crappy VR headsets it induced nausea. And then these same jackholes had the audacity to tell you not to wear a Quest 3 or Vision Pro for long because they sucked at building VR headsets so surely all VR headsets were equally bad.

    Great job guys! Who funded you again?

    • From TFA:

      They mostly wore the Quest 3. Some of them also tried the Vision Pro.

      The researchers didn't make "their own crappy VR headset." They used the Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro.

      • The researchers didn't make "their own crappy VR headset." They used the Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro.

        Wrong, they used the Quest 3 for the study, with ONE GUY after the trial was over trying the Vision Pro.

        So I guess I was partially wrong, they didn't make the headsets they wore, they used the Quest 3... not a very glowing recommendation for that headset.

        For the record I've had no issues eating wearing a Vision Pro nor have I "tripped repeatedly" while wearing it as one of these bumbling scientists did.

  • The T-Mobile ad link appears to be the wrong link, a duplicate of a formerly mentioned ad.

  • I liked the ball pass at the end.

    Good ad.

    Could have used a bit more free-fall ball passing. That shit's cool. The sort of thing that inspires kids.

  • Negative publicity (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @08:28AM (#64233770) Journal

    And in the realm of "negative" advertising, Paramount+ was having significant issues streaming the game. [google.com] What CBS hoped would bring in new Paramount subscribers likely had an opposite effect, showing the streaming service was unreliable.

    This year, Paramount+ provided a much less expensive option for viewing the Superbowl than typical. Their basic service is around $6 a month, and so they probably had massive numbers of signups occurring just prior to the game. After the first half of the game the issues died down for us and it seemed to stream fine for the remainder.

  • I wonder how many people who watch the superbowl commercials with glee also have adblockers installed in their browsers.
    • That would depend on why people have ad blockers. For many like me, ad blockers make browsing tolerable again as ads have gotten louder, more intrusive, and attention grabbing. I have almost blown out my ears a few times when the video ad on a site would auto play at volume 11 while I had headphones on. Ironically I went to a website to see the Super Bowl score after halftime. Instantly an ad appeared that covered the entire page. It could be removed or clicked off or respond to any input. It also did not d
  • Every year seems to be the same thing: the ads played during the Superbowl game seem to be more important and more discussed than the game itself.

  • Google's ad showed how its Pixel 8 smartphone helps people with vision problems take photos"

    I'd really like people making a portrait video to be told:

    You're holding it wrong.:-)

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