Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
This year’s Super Bowl might have been underwhelming from the game perspective, and even from the commercial perspective (whither Puppy Monkey Baby?), but in the absence of an overwhelming movie presence the rival streaming services stepped up to plate* and tried to get a basket**. Sure there were glimpses of Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, and even Toy Story 4 after the game was over. But it was Netflix, Hulu, Amazon’s Prime Video and CBS All Access that used the platform to make the biggest splash.
So in the tradition of turning everything into sports, who won? Who had the best Super Bowl commercials? With millions of dollars on the line, which streaming service took home the Super Bowl trophy for commercials, and who was left weeping in the corner?
Let’s break it down:
*Not that familiar with football, sorry.
**See above.
CBS All Access - 'Star Trek: Discovery'/'The Twilight Zone'
CBS All Access started their Super Bowl time with a quick tease of Spock’s (Ethan Peck) appearance on Star Trek: Discovery, then kicked it over to an appropriately trippy ad for their Twilight Zone reboot. At first it looked like we were cutting back to the game when suddenly everything went on the fritz, and out popped Jordan Peele with a riff on the classic Twilight Zone narration.
Pros: The Spock tease was a clear way of telling casual Star Trek fans that a character they know and love will be on the show, so that’s good, simple awareness. But the Twilight Zone trailer killed it. CBS All Access isn’t the biggest streaming service yet, so a lot of Twilight Zone fans — which there are many, particularly in CBS’ demographic — had no idea this show was coming. Now they do, and in a day that also dropped a new trailer for Peele’s Get Out follow-up US meant there were a ton of people extremely excited for April 1 to roll around.
The ad was also one of the more effective ones in a Super Bowl devoid of breakouts, so expect a lot of heat to come CBS All Access’ way off of this… It was money well spent.
Cons: As a Star Trek: Discovery fan I was a little weirded out about centering the show around Spock, even if I get the reasoning. And though the Twilight Zone portion of the ad killed it, they didn’t mention the frankly insanely good cast line-up on the show, which could have amped hype levels up even further.
Prime Video - 'Hanna'
Amazon’s contribution to the Super Bowl (beyond, uh, doing a whole ad about how their products don’t work) was a teaser for their new drama Hanna, complete with the news that the pilot was streaming for Prime Video members for 24 hours after the game.
Pros: Hanna is a beloved cult movie, but it’s not necessarily a household name, so if Prime Video wanted to raise awareness? Mission accomplished. It also shows a good amount of confidence in the pilot if they’re dropping it this early (it won’t debut in full until March). It’s also taking a lesson from Netflix’s success at last year’s Super Bowl, when that service dropped an entire surprise movie (that would be The Cloverfield Paradox).
Cons: It wasn’t that huge of a surprise, since we knew about it earlier in the day, and 24 hours might not be enough time for more casual viewers to check out the show.
Hulu - 'The Handmaid's Tale' Season 3
What at first seemed like a typical “America is awesome” Super Bowl commercial was twisted into a teaser for The Handmaid’s Tale Season 3, complete with a visit to the Washington Monument turned into an enormous cross, confronted with hundreds of lined up handmaids.
Pros: Fans of the show were surely excited to see Elisabeth Moss and company back in action, and it nailed the usual extremely dark tone of the show. It also looks like the action and set-pieces are bigger, and with a Washington, D.C. setting it’s possible we might be building towards some sort of climax.
Cons: After mixed reaction to Season 2, it’s tough to get super excited about delving back into that darkness for Season 3. This is also a tactic the show has used with previous Super Bowl ads, to better effect.
Netflix - 'Our Planet'
Fans expected — no, demanded — that Netflix drop a trailer for the highly anticipated Stranger Things 3. It would have made sense to see one, too, since the service dropped a poster and release date (July 4) for the series at midnight on New Year’s. Instead, we got a trailer for nature doc Our Planet, and the Netflix Twitter account spent all night dumping on the game.
Pros: Our Planet does look beautiful, and nature docs are hot right now. Also, with a very boring game, the very funny Netflix account sending out animal GIFs all night was a solid, reliable bit.
Cons: I mean, it wasn’t a trailer for Stranger Things. Animals are nice, but they’re no demogorgons… And even the @Netflix account noted that their streams were down 32% as compared to a usual Sunday. Dropping something from Hawkins might have helped make up that gap, and given them the same cachet as last year’s Cloverfield Paradox surprise.
Ultimate Winner: And the ultimate winner of the Super Bowl’s streaming wars is… Tom Brady? WHAT? He doesn’t even have a streaming service!!! How does this guy keep doing this!!!
