A Roundup of Tech-Ads from Super Bowl LIII
In a tale as old as time, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick brought home yet another Lombardi Trophy to Boston in last night's 13-3 victory against the Rams.
Despite the lowest scoring game in Super Bowl history that didn’t produce a touchdown through three quarters, the commercials at least gave us something to get out of our seats about.
The tech-related ads specifically brought about a wide range of emotions from the self-deprecating rendition of Amazon’s Alexa to the heartfelt interviews of children with disabilities using Microsoft controllers. It was a decent year for the advertisements during an otherwise anti-climactic game.
For those who fell asleep during the first quarter, here’s a quick rundown of the most important tech commercials you might have missed:
- Google – The first ad saluted military members while simultaneously demonstrating how the search engine could help them find jobs based on what they did in the service. The next ad focused on Google Translate. It was mostly a feel-good commercial about how language connects us across the world, but there was a brief moment of hate speech to show how words can also hurt and divide us.
- Microsoft – The company’s ad focused on several children with disabilities and their shared love of video games. Microsoft’s latest video game design is based around ways to improve gaming for this population of players that goes beyond a one-size-fits-all controller.
- Amazon – With voice-controls being implemented in an endless amount of new technology, it was pretty ironic to see where the voice-powered assistant, Alexa would fail.
- Expensify – The expense management system fit a few million dollars into their own budget for a 2 Chainz music video commercial. Adam Scott also makes a cameo in the end as the buzz kill asking for receipts for expense reports
- TurboTax – To highlight the live CPA feature, TurboTax created a creepy robo-child who wants to grow up to be just that.
Companies like Pringles and Michelob Ultra also attempted to make their products relevant in the tech industry by incorporating voice assistants and robots. The two ads were very similar in that they both referenced the fact that devices cannot enjoy food or beverages. Clearly not the most clever, but probably one of the only ways to connect these two categories.
Despite a boring game and a few creepy robots, Super Bowl LIII had some pretty impressive ads. As for the rest of the country (besides Boston), we'll be counting down the days until football is back.
