2016 Super Bowl commercials: Nintendo, Pokemon hype up the nostalgia
For many years now, Pokemon has been one of the biggest video-game franchises in the world. It’s spawned everything from an animated series to a card game to stuffed animals to even a float during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Ultimately, it’s hard to go anywhere without seeing Pikachu turn up in some shape or form.
What’s surprising to us is that the Super Bowl commercial below is one of the first times that Nintendo has really made an effort to advertise during the big game using some of their familiar characters. Is it really effective? That’s something we’re trying to sort out here.
The idea – Basically, this is a super-intense journey that looks almost like a training montage for any athlete, only here it leads to a stadium battle between two Pokemon trainers. The end of the ad makes it clear that this is meant to honor the franchise’s 20th anniversary.
What works – The intensity of the ad definitely makes you curious what the point of it is, and it’s a smart move by Nintendo to focus primarily here on the characters that even some casual Pokemon fans will know and remember. The reality is that there are many people watching who have never played the game or haven’t in some time. You’re not going to recruit new players, but maybe you can get the nostalgia crowd.
What doesn’t – We probably would’ve gone for something that was either a little funnier or more sentimental, mostly because we don’t think of Pokemon as anything that needs to be treated like you are in a Thunderdome. Why not focus on the end of the commercial, establishing a connection through Pokemon for the father and his son? Or, how about doing something funny with the creatures themselves and how they can only say their own name?
Overall Grade – C+. We think the messaging at the end of the commercial is very strong, but this is once again a prime example of a common Super Bowl ad faux pas: Someone thinking that spending a ton of money on an ad automatically makes it great. There are better ways to go about this.
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