The Super Bowl — the holy grail of mainstream, iconic, lol-worthy advertising. As the event continues to transform into an all-encompassing cultural spectacle, its audience is rapidly changing, too.
The viewership of this year’s Super Bowl is expected to hit a new peak. According to Nielsen, the female audience is up to 46% - marking more female viewers than any other major female centered entertainment award shows. This proves the world’s most coveted advertising space is well and truly no longer just a sanctuary reserved for beers and trucks. (Not that women don’t drink beer and drive trucks, but you get our point.)
With brands such as NYX Professional Makeup, Elf, Temu, Dove, Booking.com and Etsy filling the airspace this year, it’s clear many marketers and media agencies have caught up to today’s audience. But are creative agencies lagging behind?
‘Ads aren’t as funny as they used to be,’ is a common sentence I’m sure many of you have heard over the past few years. I’m sure when you dig a little deeper, many of the ‘funny’ ads these people are referring to were ads specifically written through a male lens, for a male audience. And often, with women playing oversexualized roles, as the butt of the joke.
As this type of bro-vertising naturally faded away, have agencies stepped-up to fill the available space and, as the title of this article suggests, make her laugh?
Surprise, surprise — some have and some haven’t. But it’s safe to say, many of us in agency land could be making her laugh harder and more often. A better way of saying this is — agencies used to tell jokes just for him, why are they now hesitant to tell jokes just for her? Because, yes, women have a sense of humor, too.
If you look back through the archives of iconic Super Bowl advertising, it’s painfully difficult to name ads that do this. Sure, there are many iconic spots for her, which have no doubt helped a much needed societal shift (see below).
