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- [00:02]
A
Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys podcast. Set at the intersection of commerce and tech, your hosts, Sree Rajagopalan and Peter V. S. Vaughn explore how brands and.
- [00:14]
B
Retailers engage consumers in a digitally driven world.
- [00:18]
A
And now, here are the CPG Guys. Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys podcast. It's a very special episode here. I am, of course, your co host, pvsb. When I'm not crooning in front of a microphone, I'm leading industry and client engagement at Flywheel, the commerce acceleration division of Omnicom. I am of course, joined by my Ride or Die. He's my bff. He's the Chief revenue Officer at Think Blue Consulting. He is also former CCO at General Mills. He's paparazzed to his daughter's fans. We will mention them later tonight. And of course, he is the man known as Sri Sri. Welcome. How you doing, man? What you been doing tonight? You've been pretty busy the last couple hours.
- [01:05]
C
Rhea decided to host some people at home. So there was a bunch of people at home.
- [01:09]
A
That must be why you're in the studio recording intently.
- [01:13]
C
Watch the super bowl commercials. I wasn't so into the game. Believe it or not, when you get a when your episode is sponsored for actually reading adds, it becomes a different level of fun. You know, there's a reason to watch the whole thing for four hours.
- [01:28]
A
Well, I think you and I will both agree that the clear MVP of the game was. Was the Seahawks kicker because he scored almost all the points.
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C
Yeah. The one thing I'll tell you, Peter, those first 12 points kind of put the game away.
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A
Yeah.
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C
The points that came after that, from two turnovers, 15 points. That was the game after that. Pretty much that's how it was. 29, right?
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A
Yep. Big deal.
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C
Patriots had a shot in this game. I mean, I thought they did too. Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers. I mean, they had a shot.
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A
You know, the thing is such a low level of penalties in this game.
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C
Yeah, I think maybe four or five.
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A
Maybe unheard of how low it was.
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C
Agreed, agreed. Completely unheard of. This level of low. I don't think the Seahawks had a penalty in the first half.
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B
No.
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A
So for our audience, if you haven't guessed it already, this is our annual super bowl advertising recap episode Sri and I painstakingly listen to over 60 plus commercials, not including all the ones that Peacock just threw in to advertise its own shows. But we're gonna. We're gonna talk to you about them. We're not gonna get through every single one of them. We will go quarter by quarter, but we're gonna start. You know what I hate about most shows, Sree, like the Oscars and the Emmys, they always save the, you know, best, best movie or best, you know, best drama for the very end. All right, you and I aren't going to do that. We're going to come right out and say what our favorite commercials were. So I'm going to open it up to you. Sri, what were your three favorite commercials that you saw today?
- [03:02]
C
Hey, before we do anything else, Peter, I think it's important to recognize we have several sponsors of this episode. So I want to say thank you. You know who you are. It gave Peter and me more purpose to watch it. And get this. Literally stay glued to TV to watch every single piece of this. So, you know, Peter, I obviously am going to pick the State Farm commercial first in my top three. Let's do three, Peter.
- [03:27]
A
Hold on, Sri. Hold on, hold on, Sri. Sri, you're watching me on tv spinning my hands. I'm walking along my arm.
- [03:37]
C
It's not every day, Peter, your offspring, your family is there on the Super Bowl.
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A
That means my daughter was in the first commercial after kick commercial on super bowl.
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C
Like it's.
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A
And it was funny mind. Funny.
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C
Then another one that I loved a lot was Serena Williams for. What was it? Ro.
- [03:58]
A
It was Ro which lost 34 pounds.
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C
Yep. I'm going to put that in my top three, Peter. And I got to pick the Dunkin Donuts hand. I mean, it's insane. The all star cast, George Costanza, Ben Affleck, Ted Danson. Let's see who else. Jennifer Aniston.
- [04:19]
A
Yeah, that was White Jasmine guy.
- [04:24]
C
Yep. I had another few competing 10 out of 10, but I wouldn't put them in my top three. But I'm still going to rate them 10 out of 10. But we'll get to them as we cover quarter by quarter. I do have 50610 out of 10s, to be honest with you. Not all of them are. The quality is bad. Some of them are for the messages of the ads.
- [04:42]
A
Yeah, yeah.
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C
But that was about it. I have got. I've got. I've only got two more than got it. 10 out of 10.
- [04:47]
A
So what we're heremind Sri. Two of them we agree on. I think that the. The opening State Farm ad with Cat's eye was absolutely hilarious. Caught my attention. Maybe I'm a little biased. I don't care. I love my girls. And Cat's eye kicked it, obviously. Goodwill Dunkin by Dunkin Donuts. Just cavalcade of celebrities.
- [05:10]
C
No surprise there. I think our generation that was a super hit.
- [05:13]
A
My third one was a real, you know, tugged at my heart. It was Ring. So Ring did an ad talking about how they are at no cost helping people who've lost their dogs upload a photo of their dog and the location where the dog was lost. And they are using all of the deployed cameras out there.
- [05:35]
C
Right.
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A
To find dogs. And they say they are. They are finding at least one dog every day that is reported lost and uploaded through the Ring system. No cost for. You don't have to have ring. Just go to their website, upload the pictures, say where you lost your dog and the AI within Ring will take over. They're going to look for the dog and their goal is to reunite dogs with their owners. What a great commercial that was. Sree.
- [06:02]
C
I couldn't agree more. With the help of A.I. you know, which leads me to talk about themes. You know, here's what I thought were very persistent. Three themes through the ads. Number one, AI, AI AI AI. Every AI company that's large and scaled in size. Microsoft Copilot, OpenAI ChatGPT, good Gemini. Several uses of AI. Even the Ring ad showed use of AI. So what's the big takeaway from that, Peter? AI is here. Like no more AI in the future. It's this mystic, cryptic thing. It's here folks. Better start using it. That was a big one for me. The second one was weight loss drugs.
- [06:41]
A
A lot of GLP1.
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C
I don't know how many we saw. 5, 6, all GLP1, GLP1, GLP1,. GLP1, GLP1. Gone are all the diet fads and all the eat this, eat that diet bars. None of that stuff was in there. It was all straightforward use. GLP1, get healthy. And the third and last one that I think was, man, that was a Super bowl commercial filled with all star cast of celebrities.
- [07:04]
A
Yeah, yeah.
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C
Anything you observe different. Anything.
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A
There's one, there's one I'll add that I thought was going to be more of a theme and it really didn't show its head until the fourth quarter. And that was the use of QR codes. Only two commercials had a call to action around a QR code. One was, one was the sales force and the other one was, was lays.
- [07:28]
C
To get some carved out on the farm field. Which was pretty.
- [07:31]
A
Yeah. And they said, they said we'll get you the bag of chips within 72 hours. But that was the only other major theme there were. There were Some nostalgia ones. In addition to Duncan. There was Matthew Broderick doing Ferris Bueller. There was Adam Sandberg imitating Neil Diamond. There was, you know, there were, there were some really interesting ones. But let's go through it. Sri so let's, let's start in the first quarter.
- [07:56]
C
Let's go Q first quarter and I'll kick it off. I'm going to say it again, Peter. It's not every day you get an offspring. My daughter kicked off super bowl commercials with the first act after the whistle, which is mind boggling. Here are some of the ones I liked in the, in the first quarter. I liked the lace potato format. I put that up there, you know, just very, it was very touching to see a father hand over. You and I are girl dads. We talk about it often on the show. We, we talk about empowering women. It felt very empowering. You know, he was literally passing it on his retirement, passing on his farm, stay connected with lay's potatoes supply. That felt special to me. I've already talked about row and weight loss. 1. Couple others that really had hard home for me was Instacart with Benson Boone. I thought that was, do you remember that one? It was really, really, really nice.
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A
It was the, it was the banana ripeness selector.
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C
And Ben Stiller with the disco song, I thought that was kind of funny.
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A
But Ben Stiller. Yeah, it was a little nostalgic.
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C
How bad can it be? So I kind of like that one. Let me see if I've got another superstar in Q1. I do want to talk about. Let's get your superstars in Q1. Other than.
- [09:10]
A
Well, actually, I'm going to go a different direction. Sure. I'm going to tell you what I, what I, that I didn't really like. Right after that phenomenal Cat's Eye opener. You had Colin Jost and Michael Che, who are two of the funniest people, as co hosts of Weekend update on SNL. Their commercial for DraftKings. Yawn.
- [09:27]
C
Three out of ten in my eyes.
- [09:28]
A
Just, just yawn. Horrible. Another one that wasn't really compelling to me. The Brad Pitt coming soon. Netflix advertisement.
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C
I don't know what that was.
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A
I don't know. I don't know. I don't care. Did nothing for me.
- [09:45]
C
Very, very average.
- [09:47]
A
And I would say in addition to that, the. Yeah, the. Okay, I don't really like the apartments with Dr. Shah. I like that it was okay.
- [10:00]
C
Four.
- [10:01]
A
Okay. You didn't like that.
- [10:02]
C
I mean, if you're going to use actors for ads, at least Pick somebody a little bit more and it's liquid. That man. Like, it's an editor filled Brandon product. Like that guy was just rattling off like he was reading from a prompter.
- [10:16]
A
Yeah. I will say this. You know, I could argue that the Jeff Goldblum and Heidi Gardner apartments.com and homes.com were. It was okay. But I don't really give it five. It's just Jeff. Jeff's played that character out enough. I'm done with it. I actually liked. I want to say one I liked. I actually liked the Claude AI one where the man. The guy's talking to his trainer and for a couple seconds you realize he's just an AI bot. And I thought that was so reminiscent of what it's like when you call an AI bot. When you. When you have a problem, you call your insurance company and they. You have to answer like five questions before you can finally talk to an actual person.
- [11:00]
C
A stark hit in the face. How important AI has become. And it's prevalent retail life. It was good to see all these ads because it's a reminder. I want to. A couple other bottom of the barrel ones. Yeah, I already mentioned Liquid depth was pretty disappointing for me. Yeah. I could not understand the Minions one that ended the first quarter. I don't know what that was. Did you get that?
- [11:26]
A
Everybody likes the Minions. They're from Despicable Me. They're cute little characters. It was just. The movie's coming. It's fine. It didn't affect me.
- [11:36]
C
I watched Despicable Me 1, 2, and I think even 3. Right. When Rhea and Lara were younger. But I just don't know what, like, it just. It didn't hit home at all whatsoever.
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A
Okay. That's all right.
- [11:47]
C
I had high hopes for another one. Peter. And I want to pick your brain on this. I want to. I want us to debate this one. Meta glasses. The Oakley meta glasses. They showed the ad twice. Once in the first quarter, I think.
- [11:57]
A
Third quarter. No, it was the beginning. It was the. Well, okay, so I. Here's how I cla. I actually classified that as the first commercial in the second quarter because I did it. The first quarter was over and it was in the commercial break, but between the first and the second. So I qualified that as second quarter. So it was. I understand. What it is, is you ask. You and I both have metaglasses. I don't know if you use the function instead of using your Siri device on your Apple or if you're in the house. Alexa.
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B
Right?
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A
Yep. It was fine, but it Didn't. Didn't blow me away.
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C
What about anyhow, the one with the discord. Robots playing games and what that ad didn't convey for me when all the other AI ads conveyed use cases. This opening one did not.
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A
No good. No clear use case.
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C
That's a miss. And then one last one I want to hit up for a second year is the Star wars with Darth Vader.
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A
And me of a Mandalorian and Grogu movie. Yeah.
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C
What do you rate that out of 10? It's Star wars, for Pete's sake.
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A
I mean, everybody loves Star Wars. Everybody loves Grogu. It wasn't offensive to me, but it didn't blow me away. Middle of the road.
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C
Middle of the road at best, right? And then.
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A
Yeah.
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C
What about seeing Kurt Russell in Michelob Ultra?
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A
Hey, I love Kurt Russell. Love Goldie Hawn. Great people that totally fed into the ethos of. Of who Kurt Russell is. It was fine.
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C
I couldn't agree more. Right. And then people want. I got one more for you, Peter.
- [13:38]
A
Yep.
- [13:39]
C
People who saw the game with me today at my home, they loved the Squarespace ad. I did not.
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A
Yeah, I didn't like it either.
- [13:48]
C
Average.
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A
For me, it's like. It's like Godaddy's already done that. Move on. Just. Just move on. All right, let's move to the second quarter.
- [13:58]
C
Go to the second quarter and pick our top three. You go first.
- [14:03]
A
I liked. I actually like the WeatherTech. I thought the commercial showed that WeatherTech was more than just floor liners of a car. They showed other things that they do, and they do it very well. It expands the brand. It didn't need celebrities. I thought it delivered against what its objective was. I loved. I love the Levi's commercial with James Brown singing in the background. I feel good. And it showed people waving their behinds. I thought that was good. And I like the Uber Eats commercial. I like the Brad. Brad Cooper and Matthew McConaughey commercial. I thought that was good. It was a playoff of the one he did last year. I loved when he looked at the NFL hall of Fame in Canton and said, look, it's a giant orange juicer. That was kind of funny.
- [14:52]
C
You know, I'll pick my top three here. I agree with you on one of these. It was the Bradley Cooper one. Did you mention that one? Yeah, that's an opener to me. I mean, Uber Eats. I mean, again, all star cast, Matthew McConaughey, Bradley Cooper, they carry the ad, right? Like, absolutely exceptional. Others stood out for me. Come on, man. How can you not like Backstreet Boys and T Mobile?
- [15:16]
A
Yeah, I didn't like. I didn't like that one.
- [15:20]
C
Not the karaoke one in store?
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A
No, no, it was just the one. I know which one. It's just that the Backstreet Boys was. It was campy and they changed too many of the lyrics and it was just silly and it didn't.
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C
Do not listen to the Backstreet Boys when you were younger.
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A
I was not a. Was not a boys band kind of guy.
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B
Sree.
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C
That means you didn't like NSYNC either.
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A
No, I didn't like NSync.
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C
Wow.
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A
The only thing I quasi liked with NKOTB hanging tough.
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C
That's older though.
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A
That's like. And if. If you want to go the boys band genre. I love bb.
- [16:02]
C
What about mortgage? Did you watch that one?
- [16:05]
A
I did watch the Rocket mortgage one. That was an interesting one. It showed, you know, a people packing to go to new houses. In one case it was a mother and a daughter. Clearly they were going. They'd gone through a divorce and the mother was reassured. I mean it was very. Yeah, it was. That was a good one. And I, you know, I also love the one on anti Semitism by the feature dog.
- [16:29]
C
You had me at hello. You know. And by the way, little off the record thing I researched right after the game. The song was by Lady Gaga. So I'm going to give that a few pronouns.
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A
She did sing. She did sing the.
- [16:39]
C
The. Oh, I do not want to miss the Blue Square alliance stand up which had the anti hate message which I thought was. And with sign of the times where we are right now, I think having such an ad for somebody to spend 7 million on an ad for 30 seconds. Kudos to Blue Square alliance for doing that. It was a ad going solidly against anti Semitism. So I like that ad a lot.
- [17:05]
A
Goodwill Duncan was. Goodwill Duncan was second quarter. So that was one of our favorites. We both agreed on that.
- [17:11]
C
Before you get there, how about the one that I won't forget? I'm going to leave State Farm alone for a while because obviously that's where my daughter's at. But the one I will not forget was a bunch of toilets and parties. Liquid IV ad. Like no one's going to forget that ad. I mean it's not a great ad. It's like cheesy, but you're just not going to forget it.
- [17:32]
A
It's going to hurt you. It played a classic Phil Collins song. So everyone from my gen will remember that. The ones that I really didn't like was the other Backstreet Boys. The. The Crypto Coinbase. Horrible, horrible ad. I don't even know what that's about. There was another ad by kinder, the. The Bueno Noble with William. William Fitchner, who now William Fisher is a character actor. He is, actually. He plays a conservative Supreme Court justice in my single favorite episode of the West Wing. It's from season five. It's called the Supremes. And he's being nominated. He's great. I love him. He's a great actor. But it's not going to make me buy their candy bar. I didn't like that commercial.
- [18:18]
C
I don't even know how that candy bar tastes. But now I'm going to go try it. At least it was on national tv. What about the. I thought the Microsoft Copilot AI ad which highlighted the use case of NFL prospecting and the use of analytics. I'm just thinking aloud, Peter. In baseball, you know how important statistics are in recruiting and every single game, every single pitch.
- [18:40]
A
Moneyball was all about that.
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C
Right. The coaches are going to have AI backed. Every single pitch. They're going to have AI backed stats, of course, to play call signals.
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A
You and I are both familiar with one of our. One of our favorite baseball books, Moneyball, by Michael Lewis.
- [18:57]
C
Absolutely.
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A
Where he talked about how the Oakland A's arbitrage the game before people really understand how to use all these statistics and crunch big numbers. So I agree with you.
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C
So I want to tell you what my bottom of the battle ad was on this.
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A
So what didn't you like?
- [19:11]
C
It was a Turbo Tax ad with Adrien Brody.
- [19:14]
A
Yeah, that was pretty bad.
- [19:17]
C
Like having Adrien Brody say, I'm struggling to do my taxes with Turbo Free going to help me. Do you think the dude has ever, like, done his own taxes in his life? Maybe when he was 18. That one didn't resonate with me at all. There's one other one I want to kind of talk about for a second. It's.
- [19:36]
A
Tylenol liquid gels. Yawn. Why did they put that commercial in the Super Bowl?
- [19:41]
C
I didn't get that. That must have been a local regional one. I must have gotten something else.
- [19:46]
A
That's why. Now I know why. Because it was a local one. Because they didn't put any.
- [19:50]
C
We had Universal Studios at that time. Did you see any of the Universal Studios?
- [19:53]
A
I saw that one. That was fine.
- [19:55]
C
We had it twice.
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A
I only saw it once. That. That's what the difference was.
- [19:59]
C
But. But I want you to give me your bottom two Your bottom two for the second quarter, including the two minute warning. Okay.
- [20:07]
A
The nerds. Gummy clusters with Andy Cohen. He is so oversaturated. He's really not that funny. He thinks he. He's. Because he's. He's the host of a talk show on Bravo and all the housewives love him. He thinks he's really funny.
- [20:23]
C
But I agree.
- [20:25]
A
All I do is I see him get drunk on New Year's Eve with Anderson Cooper. He makes a fool of himself. He's just a gadfly as far as I'm concerned.
- [20:34]
C
Yeah, I. Very below average.
- [20:40]
A
Okay. The coinbase is at the bottom.
- [20:46]
C
Yeah. So for me, the three are two out of two. We match. And then TurboTax with Adrian Brody. I have no idea what that was about.
- [20:53]
A
All right, so let's move on to halftime. Sree.
- [20:56]
C
Let's do the halftime first. Did you by any chance turn on, watch the. What was it, the Patriot show, Whatever it was with Kid Rock.
- [21:05]
A
The Turning Point USA Tuning Fund.
- [21:08]
C
USA MyPod.
- [21:08]
A
Well, it got. First of all, first of all, X announced before, a couple minutes before the show that they weren't going to live stream it because they were concerned with copyright infringements. So suddenly, the only. Only one carrying it was YouTube. I do understand that the. The person who helped organize it, the lead singer, was criticized for lip syncing to the song that he performed. So I'll just leave it at it was. Let's just say it was a bunch of not ready for primetime players.
- [21:41]
C
So I want to talk about Bad Bunny's performance. Bad Bunny is one of the greatest stars of our time. And I saw him live at the Grammys. He couldn't perform because he was contracted at the NFL. Two or two weeks later, he can't. But he did win album of the year. I mean, he was sitting in the first. Literally right in front of the stage, you know, Lara said she made eye contact with him. Daniela took a picture with him. Latino bonding going on over there.
- [22:05]
A
You notice he was sitting alone? Do you know why he was sitting alone? Sri?
- [22:09]
C
No, I do not know.
- [22:09]
A
Tell me, do you know that he. If you look at him, he was looking very bulky. It's because he was wearing a Kevlar vest under his tuxedo. He had received so many death threats going into that that he was wearing that. And he was also concerned for other people that he didn't want to be seated next to someone where they could possibly get hurt if something happened to him. That's why he was seated.
- [22:37]
C
I had no idea how yeah.
- [22:39]
A
And he was part of why he was. He. He looked a little bulky on the Super Bowl. He was wearing a Kevlar vest under his uniform. Normally he would show.
- [22:49]
C
Oh, yeah, he looked like super bulky.
- [22:51]
A
He would have his chest exposed. Normally he didn't because he was. His life had been threatened. That's a really serious thing.
- [23:01]
C
Very. Makes me. Makes me very sad. You mean, do you like Lady Gaga? Like, that was a little bit.
- [23:06]
A
And Ricky Martin. And Ricky Martin.
- [23:08]
C
Ricky Martin. I got the Latino connection and he was a superstar. But what was the Lady Gaga connection in there? Like? It literally didn't make. I was expecting Cardi B because she's. He's got a song with her, but that didn't happen. But man, the stage sets. What in.
- [23:24]
A
Yeah, here's what I'll say. The pageantry was great. His music is not necessarily my cup of tea. I thought it was nice. I loved, you know, when they was playing the big band stuff and you've got the horns. It reminds me of Gloria Estefan in the Miami Sound Machine. You got that Latin flavor. It was great. It's not my kind of music. So it didn't blow me away the way Billy Joel would have. By the way, Sheree, do you know that there are only two people that have ever performed the national anthem twice at the Super Bowl?
- [23:57]
C
One of them is one of them.
- [23:58]
A
Billy Joel is one. Aaron Neville is the other. Little tidbit preview for our audience.
- [24:03]
C
Somebody numbers of Bad Bunny. His song on Spotify. 2.398 billion. Do you hear that?
- [24:13]
A
Couldn't break 2.4 billion. What's the problem?
- [24:15]
C
Second streamed one 1.385 billion.
- [24:19]
A
Yeah, it's pretty good.
- [24:20]
C
I mean that was a halftime show for the ages. Useless controversy created for no reason whatsoever, you know.
- [24:29]
A
No, it was. No, let's. Let's be honest why it was created. It was created for people to monetize. They. You know what happens. Anger drives stickiness to. To television. It was all about ratings. It was all about then I liked.
- [24:46]
C
The way he closed it with love, not hate. That's the way the world is going to move forward. I love the closing message and you know, what a great show. I know my kids probably watched it and loved it too. Rio was with me. Lara's traveling back from Switzerland. But what a great. I'm sure the sets were just insane. Let's move to the now. Let's go to the halftime ads, buddy. How'd you like that one, Bill?
- [25:09]
A
Shad. I love it. It's Shat Raisin. Brand raisin man is fiber. Fiber flows it through. I loved the commercial. Love, love, loved it. I also liked. I like the NFL commercial.
- [25:22]
C
All the halftime ads, please.
- [25:24]
A
I love the. I love the halftime ad with the NFL where it's a little kid saying, I'm a champion. And it's.
- [25:31]
C
Love that one.
- [25:32]
A
No doubt about it. Very good. That was very good. I liked. Let's see what else I like there.
- [25:40]
C
But life was post Malone.
- [25:42]
A
Yeah, it was fine. That was fine.
- [25:44]
C
I love the sentence he says right at the beginning, which I don't know if people noticed. He says right up front to Peyton Manning. Do we have enough for everyone?
- [25:53]
A
Yeah, but.
- [25:54]
C
But what happened is three years ago.
- [25:57]
A
They'Ve been trying to dig themselves out ever since.
- [25:59]
C
Yeah, but it's post Malone. I'm not going to debate that one. One of my favorite.
- [26:03]
A
What didn't you.
- [26:04]
C
What did you and the kid. But another good one. Mike Dyson. You watch that one?
- [26:09]
A
You're like, I did regional. No, I did. And it was for. It was for real good food. It was a government. It was talking about, stop. Stop eating processed foods. I don't. I don't know if Mike is pretty much.
- [26:22]
C
Pretty much 90% of the advertisers who came from food and Bev are all processed food. So comical in my eyes. But. Oh, yeah, but the message is a good one. Can't deny that. And then all the AI ads I put right up top chat. GPT with the tamales.
- [26:36]
A
Did you like the Matthew Broderick one on Gen Spark? I mean, I. The Ferris Bueller reference, but I still don't know what Gen Spark does.
- [26:44]
C
I have no idea what Gen Spark does.
- [26:46]
A
Exactly.
- [26:46]
C
Wait a minute, Peter.
- [26:47]
A
That's.
- [26:48]
C
It's like, wait a minute, Peter. We did not get a Gen Spark ad. Instead we got a local ad for Law Brothers 800-222-222. You didn't get that one.
- [26:58]
A
I didn't get that.
- [26:59]
C
Yeah, we didn't get the Matthew. Brad.
- [27:02]
A
I also got one.
- [27:06]
C
With Sofia Vergara. It was okay. I mean.
- [27:10]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [27:12]
C
Okay.
- [27:12]
A
I mean, did it stand on vodka? The vodka one with the robots. That was silly.
- [27:19]
C
Yes, was okay with the robots. I gave. I'll give it a six out of ten.
- [27:24]
A
I liked the. I like the Southwest Airlines one where they didn't see. Okay, so here's what they did on mine. It was. It showed a bunch of people running like crazy to get to seats on the airplane and it was madness. I don't want a middle seat. I don't want A middle seat. And then they. All of a sudden, it got calm. They said, guess what? We now have assigned seats. It was a. It was a nice commercial.
- [27:47]
C
More money is what I see.
- [27:48]
A
All right, shall we go to the third quarter?
- [27:50]
C
I'm going. The only one I'm going to talk about, NBC, is the Jurassic ad. Do you like that one?
- [27:56]
A
The Jurassic ad was actually. Yeah, I did like that.
- [28:01]
C
Universal Studio. Or was it Xfinity? I forget.
- [28:04]
A
No, it was Xfinity. And that's. That's actually in Q3 in the third quarter. That's the third. Let's go to the third quarter.
- [28:12]
C
What did you pick your bottom of the barrel in halftime? Sorry, no offense, but I'm going to say it like, I don't believe religious ads should be on tv, period. The Church of Scientology is that.
- [28:24]
A
That was a local one. I had life three. 60. I don't know. I don't know what life 360 is. They had another one to Cova's. Be brave.
- [28:34]
C
We didn't get either.
- [28:36]
A
Okay, so there are some regional ones. Yeah, the genspark one wasn't very good to me.
- [28:44]
C
Oh, yeah, we did get that. Genspark AI.
- [28:46]
A
Yeah, I don't. I don't think. Matthew. Product use cases. That's my point. I don't know what the use case is.
- [28:54]
C
They actually showed, like, PowerPoint and stuff, didn't they? You can automate your presentations.
- [28:59]
A
Okay, see, I still don't really understand how. Why I'm using that right now, but in any event, I want to move the third quarter. Sri.
- [29:06]
C
No, I got one last one we have to talk about.
- [29:08]
A
Okay. What?
- [29:09]
C
The dream. Coming soon. Dreamy with Transformers. I love Transformers, man. You don't like Transformers?
- [29:14]
A
Didn't see that one.
- [29:14]
B
It was local.
- [29:16]
C
Rats. What a miss. All right, let's go to Q3.
- [29:21]
A
You're doubtful for me, obviously. I mentioned previously the Ring commercial was awesome. I also liked. I thought the Google Gemini home design was good. I thought the NFL blood test for prostate screening was good. Those were. Those were. Those were good to me.
- [29:42]
C
All right, I'm gonna go. Number one ad for me in Q.
- [29:47]
A
And I forgot the Xfinity. The Xfinity one for Jurassic park was like. Was a what if? Like, what if the power hadn't failed and it was still a great amusement park? Well, we wouldn't have had, like, 17 Jurassic park sequels after that. That's.
- [30:02]
C
What.
- [30:03]
A
What if. Which sri. You want to know something? I've never watched a single Jurassic Park.
- [30:10]
C
I've watched them all.
- [30:11]
A
I've never watched it.
- [30:13]
C
Every single one.
- [30:14]
A
You know why? Because I figured you'd watched it enough for both of us.
- [30:18]
C
You know, I haven't seen Homeland and everyone tells me it's the greatest show ever made.
- [30:23]
A
I'm going to do another admission here.
- [30:25]
B
On the cpg guys, you ready?
- [30:26]
A
Sri. I've never watched the movie Titanic.
- [30:30]
C
I've seen Titanic. Have you watched Ted Danson? That's another one that comes back again and again. I have no idea what that is.
- [30:36]
A
Which one? The Ted. Which, the commercial.
- [30:39]
C
Yeah. No. What? No, sorry, I got that wrong.
- [30:41]
A
Not Ted Danson.
- [30:43]
C
Back to me. But hold on, Peter, we're deviating. My top ads, the prostate cancer ad, I think fabulous Rob Gronkowski, all star cast. But shout out to Rian, Lara's friend. Two people of Southeast Asian Indian origin were on super bowl ads. They've never had a person of Indian origin on a Super bowl ad period. There were two today, Lara Raj Katsai and Maitreya Ramakrishnan. And guess where she's from? Which country of birth she from Sri Lanka. Sri Sri Lanka. She was here home maybe six months ago having dinner with us and we had a great conversation about Sri Lanka. But seeing her, she's part of the one of the most popular Netflix shows ever made. Never have I ever about a kid growing up through her teenage years into college. But the presence of Lady Gaga, Jisoo, Pokemon.com. that was the ad. I mean, the ad wasn't spectacular, but I'm going to rate it a high one because Maitri was in there and an all star cast. Let's see. I like the Budweiser ad with the horse, the Golden Eagle. That's your classic all American ad. Just for that reason, I'm going to pick it.
- [31:51]
A
I'm actually not. And here's why I didn't like that one. Sree. Because I expect the Clydesdale commercials to be really emotional, right? And you have the birth of an eagle and then the eagle's riding on the back of the Clydesdale and it's like, it's satiristic. And to me, it kind of devalued just the pure, clean. Like if it had been a younger horse and it was running along the older, it's a little more believable. But this was just so absurd that it lost it. For me, being that iconic, classic Budweiser commercial. Now it's just like comic relief. And like when the wings go up and you think you're seeing Pegasus with the wings above the horse, I was like, God, here's what they did SRI to me. You know what that was? It was a classic Henry Winkler jump the shark moment. That's whatever you want. Yep.
- [32:57]
C
Then I think another one that I thought was, I want to chat about GrubHub with George Clooney.
- [33:05]
A
Eat the fees. Very simple. Did it communicate what it needed to? If you buy a meal over $50, there are no fees. Got it.
- [33:15]
C
All of America now knows that.
- [33:17]
A
Very, very simple. It communicated very well. I'll give them good scores for that.
- [33:22]
C
Let me ask you a question. How do you sustain over $50 with no fees? You just raise the prices of everything on the.
- [33:28]
A
Of course. But that's. Is it free when you have Amazon Prime?
- [33:37]
C
No, I pay an annual fee.
- [33:39]
A
No, but do you think that. Do you think that Amazon uses that money to subsidize the cost of delivery or do they tell anyone who's selling in the Amazon prime that they have to build the delivery fee into the actual price of the product? That's what they do. So that's my point, is that they're just doing what Amazon's doing.
- [34:05]
C
So I want to talk about the Pringles ad with Sabrina Carpenter.
- [34:12]
A
Yeah.
- [34:12]
C
From a new album, Man Child, with the guy she wanted to date, which was the Pringles robot Collapses. What do you think about that one? Cheesy.
- [34:22]
A
Yeah, it was cheesy. By the way, to our audience, if you haven't caught it and you're a certain person of my age, Sabrina Carpenter is the guest on the latest rendition of the Muppet Show, a show that I reference very often on the CPG guys. I sent it to you this morning. She is the special guest. They've rebooted. Seth Rogen is the executive producer and he has rebooted the Muppet Show. And the very first guest is Sabrina Carpenter. And I thought it was hilarious. And sree, you and I are in that episode. We're up in the balcony. Yes. Waldorf and Statler are back.
- [35:00]
C
I still have no idea what he said.
- [35:02]
A
That's why I sent it to you, so you can watch it and you'll know who we are.
- [35:06]
C
What about Poppy soda, Charlie? XCX should have been much better. Like, I mean, literally, Hearston, I'm your number one. I would have expected something much greater, below average. You already talked about the ring security. One of you know, I thought it was a AI based. You know, they find the dog. It's just exceptional ad in my eyes.
- [35:27]
A
Yeah.
- [35:27]
C
What else in this quarter? Anything that stood out for you? Anything?
- [35:30]
A
Yeah, there was the Ritz commercial with Scarlett Johansson and Jon Hamm didn't really do that much for me. It was. Okay.
- [35:37]
C
Google Gemini, AI which kicked off Q3.
- [35:40]
B
There was.
- [35:40]
A
I don't know if this is probably a local commercial, but there was one for Tree Hut with these women who were. Okay, so that was a local one.
- [35:47]
C
What was the Tree Hut one about?
- [35:49]
A
It was a bunch of women. It was kind of like the 1984 Apple Commercial Conformity. They're all in a room, and one woman turns around and grabs a color bomb and throws it at the wall. And then they all start doing it. And I still don't know what the heck Tree Hut does.
- [36:06]
C
All right, let's keep progressing here. So what do we got?
- [36:09]
A
Okay, so let's go to Q4. Can we go to Q4?
- [36:12]
C
Pick your number one and two. Pick your top three. I'm sorry.
- [36:16]
A
Number one is Adam Sandberg. Sweet sandwich time. I mean, it's just like Neil Diamond. It's Hellman's mayonnaise. It's so fricking simple. You don't need to make it anything more than just fun. Right. I thought the WOVI commercial with. With Keenan Tops. I thought that was good. And DJ Khaled. I also thought the. Oh, the. Oh, okay. I like the. The. The. The QR code for Lays was compelling. It made me want to pick up my phone and scan the QR code. Yeah, those.
- [36:52]
C
I mean, I think the last ad of the entire game till the whistle blue was hims and hers. Diagnostic test.
- [37:01]
A
Yes, diagnostic.
- [37:02]
C
What you think Weight loss, heart health. I think important message. It's just fascinating to me how much of your health now you can take into your own hands. Yeah.
- [37:10]
A
You don't have to wait for some doctor to. But you know what that is? That's part of kind of like the WebMD generation where we want to diagnose ourselves. But I've got power ring on. I've got a monitor on my phone. I've got all these things, and it just. It's taking it to the next level. I can order my own labs.
- [37:32]
C
Fair enough.
- [37:33]
A
The ones that.
- [37:33]
C
There was another. It was a. Now, keep going. What else was your. What gen spot you talked about here? I really love the laser because of the QR code. Anything AI I'm going to.
- [37:45]
A
But I didn't like the other. I didn't like the Salesforce QR code one. It was a contest. How did that make me want to use Salesforce?
- [37:51]
C
You know who the guy was? Who? The star of that episode. Who? That was Mr. Beast.
- [37:56]
A
See, I wouldn't know that.
- [37:57]
C
What's the most special thing about Mr. Beast? One of the highest YouTube subscribers in the world or number two on TikTok after Khabi Lavin. Yeah, Mr. Beast is like, so freaking popular, but Salesforce is a B2B solution. Why are you on national TV? Like, you think the CEOs that are watching the show are going to remember Tamishri?
- [38:19]
A
The fourth quarter was not about the best commercials. It was about the worst. I don't know what the AI document dogs.
- [38:26]
C
I mean, what was that with cartoon dogs?
- [38:28]
A
I had AI coming with hei is coming AI dot com. I had another one for. Maybe it was local base 44. We can all build apps.
- [38:38]
C
Yeah.
- [38:40]
A
How's that going to help me? And then the other one I really didn't like, and it stars one of my favorite actors was the Alexa plus ad with Chris Helmsworth. I don't want to know about a terminator future where AIs figuring out ways of killing me and they're trying to make light of it.
- [38:57]
C
Why they made an ad saying that?
- [39:00]
A
Why?
- [39:01]
C
I don't know, man. It was a little bizarre to me.
- [39:03]
A
Yeah.
- [39:04]
C
Anyhow, put me a little like, whoa, I gotta start. Like, if talking about scaring people, it scared people. The one credit I'm gonna give salesforce.com. even though the ad. I have no idea what that was about. It had. It was the only other ad with the QR code for follow up, and I didn't scan the QR code. Now I'm thinking back.
- [39:21]
A
Maybe I didn't have my phone close enough to me because I was working on the keyboard of my iPad to make my comments on the episode. And when I saw it, I'm like, where's my phone? Where's my phone? Too late to. And I missed it.
- [39:35]
C
What did you get after the chatgpt? AI on the form. Right. The top of the phone.
- [39:41]
A
Hold on. Where is that one? The chat. Oh, where's Chat Chicken?
- [39:46]
C
Before Dave's Hot Chicken?
- [39:48]
A
I know. I didn't get Dave's Hot Chicken.
- [39:50]
C
That was another local one before Amazon Alexa. What'd you get?
- [39:54]
A
Oh, before Amazon Alexa was Tree Hut. That's. That's what it was.
- [39:59]
C
We didn't get that. Okay, so we got Dave's Hot Chicken. And what came right before that, we.
- [40:03]
A
Got a Zepp bound commercial, another GLP commercial.
- [40:06]
C
We didn't get that. We got Wells Fargo. And then it was Chat gp.
- [40:09]
A
Those were the local ones.
- [40:10]
C
Ones very, very interesting men. Another one that I thought was okay not going to rate it highly, but it was like, okay, was a Cadillac Formula one team? I don't know. Cadillac has a Formula one team now. I know that's the only reason. I'll give it a fight.
- [40:26]
A
Okay. There was another religious commercial, at least in my market. It was called he gets us. And it was more is not more to life. There's more to life than more.
- [40:36]
C
Listen, the message of the ad was absolutely fabulous, that live your life. There's so much more in life. But I do not like religious commercials.
- [40:44]
A
I just didn't know what the call to action was.
- [40:47]
C
Oh, the call to action was pretty straightforward. It said Jesus loves you.
- [40:51]
A
No, I know, but they wanted you to go to. There was a website, but I'm like, okay.
- [40:58]
C
Most fabulous. Live your life. Life is fine. The messaging was actually pretty powerful. But I just. Religious ads I don't think have room on television. All right, so what do we got? Did we miss anything?
- [41:13]
A
No, I think we got everything. Here's my big question, Sree. We talked about what we like, we talked about what we didn't like this year. Was it just a natural evolution year? You know, whatever the latest buzzword is, Was it a big step change? Did something phenomenally happened that you saw different about the ads in this year's Super Bowl?
- [41:39]
C
Listen, my daughter was in a Super bowl ad.
- [41:41]
A
The first one, that was the single.
- [41:42]
C
Biggest one to me. I don't think you could go on any further. But three trends, I'm going to come back to them again. AI is real. It's your pay attention, folk. No matter what corporate role you're in, it's either going to be productivity for you, helping you, assisting you every single day, or you're going to get analytics, insights, you determine what you're going to get. Generative, adaptive, predictive, I decide. But AI is real. No more talking about AI. It's a future forward, mystical. The second one was weight loss and healthcare. There was a lot of ads on.
- [42:12]
A
Weight loss, a lot of healthcare.
- [42:14]
C
GLP1 is real. I mean, there's a lot of misconceptions on GSP, GLP1, but there's. I think the facts on the data are coming out. Peter and I are not going to endorse anything, but it looks like GLP1, the frequency of the ads, there's some silent revolution going on. And the third one was all star cast of ads. I mean there was. I counted 77 celebrities in the 70 odd ads that were on the Super bowl this year. 77. And I might have missed A few. Because I don't know, if anything I want to say 75 plus. Any big distinct observations for you?
- [42:52]
A
I agree with you. Health was front and center between the food health, the Mike Tyson ad, the poppy ad. For gut health, you had the GLP ones, you had all the monitoring devices lot around health. And a lot of that has to do with the reality, Sree, is that television viewing audiences are getting older. And guess what happens when you get older? You talk about your health a lot more, don't you?
- [43:20]
C
I, I agree, Peter. So the interesting thing there is the Super bowl gets 130 million all ages. Everybody watches it. That's the part I didn't reconcile in my head. Why it was a focus on the older generations. But then you look at, I think.
- [43:33]
A
They still hold all the economic buying power.
- [43:35]
C
Funny, different generation.
- [43:38]
A
You know, the problem is, is that too much of the wealth is concentrated in the older generation. Sri compared to what reality?
- [43:44]
C
Who's buying stuff? Who can afford the buying power?
- [43:47]
A
Buying power, Sree. This has been long. I love doing this. Yeah.
- [43:52]
C
Let's wrap it up here with a question.
- [43:54]
A
Yep.
- [43:54]
C
Versus last year. Better. About the same. Worse.
- [44:01]
A
The topics are, you know, you've covered them all. But I don't feel like the ads were any better this year than they were in the past.
- [44:11]
C
Yep. I, I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. Right. Lots of sensationalism, lot of celebrities, but the only one addict. Again, that stood out in my mind. And I will not forget it. It's going to haunt me for a while. That's going to haunt me for a bit. I talked about it. It started with parties and it showed more parties and more parties and more parties. I can't forget that ad. And I'm going to remember that for a while. What's the one ad that you won't forget? Leave State Farm alone.
- [44:39]
A
The ring ad. The ring ad. It, it just. Now I know, like, God forbid Bala were to get out. What would I tell you to do immediately? Go on, ring. Sree. You need to get on ring and put Bala's picture.
- [44:54]
C
I agree. And we had one such scare yesterday morning where she now figured out how to squeeze. She's found the one iron bar opening that's more than four inches in the front of our house. Everything is four inches or less. So you can't cheek it. She's too big for it. She found one that sicks and she now knows that gets her onto the street. So I gotta get that one down.
- [45:18]
A
You gotta, you gotta put some wire mesh or something over it.
- [45:22]
C
Chicken Wireman coming up soon.
- [45:23]
A
That's what we're I love doing this episode with you.
- [45:28]
C
Let's wrap this up. Peter, by first thanking our several sponsors for this episode. It was kind of you. We enjoyed it. And then Peter, close us out, please.
- [45:37]
A
I always love doing this episode with you, Sri. It's one of our favorites. We have fun doing it. It's a labor of love. We definitely there. We come together on some, we differ on others. But it still shows that one of the last vestiges of though we both watched it streaming, the last vestiges of linear television is is in terms of its reach is the super bowl. And it's a pretty important event. So with that I'll say Sree, thank you as always for this is fun as we enter into our seventh year. Now what Sree, we're starting our seventh year of podcasting. Amazing. Can't believe we've been doing this. We've got a lot of stuff coming up. We're going to introduce a whole new series SRI and I have been working on. It'll be more culture focused than what we've been doing with the Riff. And what we do with our normal.
- [46:28]
C
Episodes may correct after we visit SOCOM Live.
- [46:31]
A
A fourth episode we're going to do. We're going to start doing some culture sh and I've got We're going down to Cagney in Florida. We'll be at it at socom. So a lot more to hear from us. All right everybody, thank you as all for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you on the next episode of CPG Gods. There you go. Talk to you later, people. Bye.
- [46:59]
C
Foreign.
- [47:05]
B
The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPG Guys, LLC where the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGuys LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own, and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. The views expressed by CPTGuys LLC do not represent the views of their employers or the entity they represent. CPTGuys LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we present in this podcast.