There were lots (and lots and lots) of commercials during Sunday’s Bowl game. Many, if not most, missed the mark completely. The reason? The ad agency folks who created them and the clients who approved them neglected to explain the features and benefits — the reasons viewers should buy whatever product or service they were promoting. Many featured celebrities who were paid handsomely to promote themselves, because they sure weren't saying or demonstrating anything about the products they were supposed to be pushing. Disagree? OK then, take this test. What product or service was Kris Jenner promoting? Laura Dern? Dan Levy? Tina Fey? Chris Pratt? Arnold Schwarzenegger? Gimme the name of the brand, not the genre. See what I mean?
But the worst commercial of all didn’t feature celebrities. It featured the second unhappiest family in America (after the Bidens).
A quick recap: A young figure skater is performing in a competition. Camera cuts to her dad in the audience as his daughter finishes to wild applause. The seat next to him is empty. For a split second, he smiles, pleased his daughter did well, but then glances at the vacant seat beside him, loses his smile, and becomes instantly sad as a wrist-slashingly depressing singer starts intoning a song that reminded me of the opening scene in Dr. Zhivago where young Yuri follows his mother’s casket to her grave. The singer continues her dirge until the commercial ends.
The skater who, for a second, had flashed a triumphant smile, is now looking as sad as her dad — she obviously heard the music. Cut to a blue KIA EV9 as dad drives his daughter through the snow along a twisting mountain road. He uses the car’s navigation system to map out his route and arrives at a home which, conveniently, has a frozen pond in the yard.
Cut to an old man — presumably the girl’s grandfather — inside the house, in a wheelchair. Cut back outside to the girl’s dad. He is stringing carnival lights above the pond, which he plugs into a generator that, in turn, he plugs into his electric car. Someone wheels the old man to the window as the lights come on above the pond, revealing the girl re-creating her skate show. The old man’s tears up, puts his hand on his heart and writes “10” (e.g. the score an Olympic judge would give for a perfect performance) in the frost on the window. I assume he wrote 10 to indicate his approval but perhaps he wrote it to let his son and granddaughter know that’s how many days he has left to live since they obviously don’t visit often — otherwise they wouldn’t have had to use the navigation system to find him.
Cut to, and hold on, the car as announcer intones, “Kia. Movement that Inspires.”
I’ve had bowel movements that inspired me more.
There are so many things wrong with this commercial I hardly know where to begin.
For starters, why did Kia choose a sad situation — a seriously ill elderly man unable to leave his house? Why didn’t the creators have the girl perform on a frozen pond outside a hospital where, from a window, her mother, holding the baby to which she just gave birth, watches her daughter do triple axels and spins? That would have been a happy occasion. Don’t you want products that make you feel happy? Of course you do. Everyone does.
Another observation: This is 2024. Everyone has a smart phone. So why didn’t the girl’s dad simply take a video of her performance with his phone and share it with the old man?
Why is the music track that plays under the commercial as depressing as “The Funeral March of a Marionette?” Shouldn’t a commercial for a trendy product be lively and/or happy to communicate how using it makes one feel?
Why didn’t the girl's dad, when he installed the lights above the frozen pond, simply get an extension cord and plug them into an outdoor socket? Wouldn’t that have been cheaper, faster and easier than buying a $42,000+ electricity-generating car?
Come to think of it, are there any benefits of owning a Kia EV9 other than being able to use it to generate electricity? Does the car reduce CO2 emissions? If so, that could have been mentioned to appeal to environmentally-conscious consumers. Does it help owners save money on costly gas? That benefit would have appealed to budget-conscious viewers. Is it fun to drive? Does it have unique safety features in snowy driving conditions? How does it compare to other cars in its price class? Does it convert, at the touch of a button, into an airplane? Who the hell would know from this commercial?
Certainly not viewers, though it’s a safe bet both the agency and client got VIP tickets to the Super Bowl from CBS which charged something like $14 million to air the spot.
What’s the next Kia EV9 commercial gonna show? The dad and daughter in their KIA following a hearse carrying the old man’s body to the cemetery?
Sure, why not?
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