The Super Bowl is a great time of year when football fans come together to watch the biggest game of the year. There are a lot of things to look forward to during the big game. Watching the teams fight for the trophy is perhaps the biggest one, but there are other things like the half time show that people really look forward to. However, there is a form of entertainment that people enjoy that is not quite as traditional.
The Super Bowl commercials are known for being large and over the top due to how much people have to pay for them and how many people are expected to see them. There is a lot of high end commercials that companies spend millions on in order to try and push their product. This Super Bowl was no exception with companies like Bud Light, Stella Artois, Pepsi, and other various big name brands put their best foot forward in terms of commercials.
However, there was a strange pattern to a handful of these commercials and it may not be one that most people expected. A large number of commercials incorporated the ever growing industry of artificial intelligence into its commercials story one way or another. In a Michelob Ultra commercial they present these robots that can run faster and be stronger than humans. However, the downfall they have is they cannot enjoy a good beer with friends.
In a Pringles commercial there are two guys combining different Pringles to get different flavors and they ask Alexa a question. She responds and then continues to say how sad she is because she cannot taste Pringles, they cut her off and enjoy the snack. These are just a few examples of this strange pattern that seemed to form during the Super Bowl commercials. Companies making jabs at robots and how it cannot replace human interaction. Amazon made fun of itself in their ad where Harrison Ford’s dog ordered himself a lot of dog food.
This trend in commercial topic has no meaning, but it is a rather strange topic. Typically Super Bowl commercials have some humor to them and can be enjoyed more than most commercials. These seemed to just be pushing a message about AI and how people are superior. While the Amazon one was humorous some of them are almost sad in a way. The Ultra commercial has a sad robot outside the bar and it evokes this feeling of sadness because he cannot join them.
Even the Pringles commercial can create some sympathy for Alexa and how no one cares about what she wants. There are lots of ways to make these products appealing, but a lot of brands choose to use this attack on AI as their method. They attempt to evoke a feeling that being human is so great because we can enjoy things like beer and chips. However, in the end it leaves an uneasy feeling or just a general sadness for the robots in the commercials.
While this may not be the most important thing to look at from the Super Bowl, it is an interesting occurrence that is fun to look into.