We all know the saying ‘money talks.’ We also know there are few better platforms for said money to speak than during the Super Bowl when roughly 100 million viewers are expected to be watching. This year is not only a presidential election year, but Americans have been overwhelmingly inundated with politics from the Russia hoax, to the Ukraine whistleblower, to an arduous attempt by Democrats to impeach the President.
For those looking to the Super Bowl to be their light, their happiness, and their one day of solace to forget American politics; sorry. The Associated Press reports on the rare marriage of politics and Super Bowl Sunday: “for what may be the first time, national politics will invade one of the biggest TV events of the year.”
Specifically, “Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg and President Donald Trump have shelled out millions to broadcast campaign ads during the Big Game, when nearly 100 million viewers are expected to tune into Fox.” Understandably, this is a huge opportunity for the presidential hopefuls to spread their message knowing exactly where the voting populous is; glued to their televisions.
Next week marks key political events, such as the Iowa caucuses on Monday and the State of the Union address which President Trump will deliver on Tuesday. An interesting perspective from Charles Taylor, a marketing professor at Villanova University, said that while January is generally too early for politics and therefore “the very presence of national campaign ads during the Super Bowl is unprecedented,” this year “taking out a Super Bowl ad in this context can be viewed as a show of strength or signal of confidence.”
Michael Bloomberg’s ad focuses on gun violence, while one of Trump’s campaign ads “touts wage growth and lower unemployment rates. ‘The best is yet to come,’ Trump says in the ad.” Reportedly Amazon’s commercial makes “oblique references to national affairs” and include “Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi” imagining “life in different time periods before the Alexa voice assistant” and there is reference to “fake news” and a Richard Nixon-like character asking his “secretary to remind him to delete his tapes.”
For anyone to say that Super Bowl ads aren’t and haven’t been used to push agendas are naïve. If anyone is angry that they have no reprieve from politics, even during the Super Bowl, their blame is best pointed at Democrats who have been on the rabid attack to remove President Trump since before he took office.
