Super Bowl ads: the good, the bad and the weird
FOX Business’ staff watched Super Bowl 52 on Sunday and devoted special attention to the commercials. Here is a look at the good, the bad and the weird.
The good
The New York Giants fizzled this season and didn’t even make it into post-season play. But in a Super Bowl ad promoting the National Football League, quarterback Eli Manning and wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. did a rendition of the “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” routine from the movie “Dirty Dancing.” Manning lifts Beckham above him the way Patrick Swayze did with Jennifer Grey in the 1987 movie.
A survey from the Workforce Institute shows that 1 in 10 Americans might not go to work Monday because of the Super Bowl. In that spirit, Reckitt Benckiser’s Mucinex had this message: Enjoy your sick day, America. It was delivered by the cough medicine brand’s green, phlegmy “spokescreature.”
The Bad
FiatChrysler (NYSE:FCAU) uses a recording of a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a backdrop for a patriotic Dodge Ram spot. The King Center, the Atlanta-based organization that houses the slain civil rights leaders papers, disavowed the ad when it tweeted that it’s not the entity that approves the commercial use of King’s words.
The Weird
Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) takes a risk in its Febreze ad with Dave, whose “bleep don’t stink” and who presumably doesn’t need an odor control spray. The commercial ends: “Dave isn’t at your Super Bowl party, but everyone else is. Is your bathroom ready?”