A Somber Superbowl Sunday

Like many people I found myself planted in front of the TV this past Sunday. The Superbowl was on. I personally do not follow football, nor can I even remember the last time I watched any sort of sports game on the TV, which makes me biased in my analysis of the Superbowl. Instead of being enthralled by the touchdowns, tackles, chest bumps, fouls, and male stereotypes being fulfilled I was engaged in an analysis of popular culture and social norms reflecting on what it is about this day and this game that captures the undivided attention of so many people, and more importantly how could this attention be manipulated for a good cause. Instead of wondering on who was going to win, I was wondering whether they had recycling and compost bins, what kind of light bulbs the stadium was using, how much energy it took to power that half-time stage, and who was going to be cleaning up all that confetti. It was in the middle of a stream of these kinds of thoughts that I was interrupted by a Colgate commercial. This commercial provided a stark contrast to the other billion dollar car advertisements I had seen so far. The Save Water campaign is about encouraging people to brush their teeth using less water raising awareness about clean water scarcity. The reason I loved this commercial so much is that Colgate identified an issue that is relevant to the use of it’s product, and used it’s product to increase awareness of that issue, while also marketing for it’s own product and brand. To me this commercial aligned business initiatives with social initiatives, which I think is a very important step to changing the way that our society functions. I also thought that putting this ad in the Superbowl was a strategic move, because the social focus made the ad stand out among the other product focused commercials. In some ways I think it also challenged other companies to raise the standards of their ads. Then again just because I thought this commercial would be effective in raising awareness does not mean that it actually was effective in raising awareness. Even if it did raise awareness the question then becomes whether such awareness will actually motivate behaviour change. Additionally comes the question of whether this was simply a publicity stunt for Colgate to improve it’s brand image. Regardless of the effect I was happy to see such a large company promoting positive behaviour changes, and an ad encouraging consumers to reduce their consumption. It was refreshing to see an Ad that deviated from the standard Super Bowl commercial and the Super Bowl attitude encouraging consumers to consume consume consume.