NPR critic-at-large Eric Deggans evaluated Super Bowl commercials before the game, and updated his picks for NPR’s Morning Edition on Monday after the Super Bowl itself, predictably taking a few potshots from the left, including sniping about two ad buys from the Trump Administration.
Deggans did launch the cavalcade of ads with an arguably conservative-leaning or at least religious-leaning tone of one ad, the “pro-Jesus advertising campaign He Gets Us,” which he used to highlight why companies would spend so massively on Super Bowl ads, before the left-leaning critiques.
Few commercials tackled social issues. And when they did, the messaging was subtle, friendly and welcoming – even when used to promote initiatives from the government that might not be clear if you did not know the issues. More on that later.
He found a racial issue in a benign ad from a mortgage company with the tag “America Needs Neighbors Like You.”
Best covert pushback on political divisions: Redfin x Rocket Mortgage's "America Needs Neighbors Like You"
Sure, some knuckleheads online are complaining about how Lady Gaga recorded a new version of the theme from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, "Won't You Be My Neighbor," for this ad. But the visuals here – where a kid with brown skin helps find a little white girl's missing dog and the dog finder's father helps an old white dude remove a downed tree branch after a storm – seem to send a message of unity at a time when that's in short supply offscreen.
(We'll overlook the subtext; that these neighbors may be considered good because they're helping the white people). The tagline, "America could use a neighbor just like you," is a message of inclusion that also feels right on time.
On to Round 2, casting aspersions on the administration's revised dietary guidelines:
Slyest packaging of a controversial government policy: the MAHA Center's Mike Tyson ad
Featuring the former heavyweight champion in a tight, black and white closeup talking about the perils of obesity while eating an apple, this ad gives little clue that it's promoting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative, beyond urging viewers to visit its website, realfood.gov. Of course, the new dietary guidelines recommended by Kennedy have been criticized by some experts, but that's not obvious from the footage of Iron Mike eating an apple.
Deggans linked to a PBS News transcript featuring guest host William Brangham summarizing those supposedly controversial new guidelines: “That's significantly more protein and dairy, numerous servings of fruits and vegetables and other healthy fats, all of that at the top, and fewer whole grains down at the bottom.”
Next up, a “suspicious”-sounding Trump policy:
Slyest packaging of a government policy, Part 2: Invest America, "Dear America, We Can Change Their Future"
This ad, which aired a bit before the game's kickoff, featured a succession of cute kids across a range of ethnicities and ages, touting "free money" available to "every American child" to fund everything from future college dreams to a couple of trampolines. What the ad doesn't detail is that the kids are referring to legislation signed last year by President Trump that establishes $1,000 from the government to create savings accounts for kids born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028. The ad's lack of specificity about the program, which the president has dubbed Trump Accounts, might be self-defeating – without references to the government or the legislation, the idea sounds kind of suspicious, despite its roots in actual policy.
In contrast, he approved of a commercial using “class warfare” in health care and the line “the wealth gap is a health gap,” though he did snipe at the “big corporation,” Hims & Hers’, selling its telehealth services “at a time when medical expenses are one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in the U.S.”
