In light of the pandemic, lotās of big names have decided not to partake of their usual Super Bowl presence. Some are donating what they would have spent to charities. And there are some newcomers.
Guess who one of the newcomers is?
I canāt barely get the word outā¦
I wonāt type it out because I donāt want it drawing attention. Letās just say it starts with 5 and ends in r.
Even more proof how much money is being made off the backs of designers who are NOT being paid a fraction of what they are worth.
Not only is it shameful but itās also preying on the desperate. Iām going to bet the ads are geared toward getting people to sign up to āmake money.ā Because seriously, you canāt be in the US and make a living off doing that. Then again, it could be geared to those that want cheap stuff cheap. I donāt know, maybe Iāll be pleasantly surprised. IF (big IF) I watch it at all. Itās not like weāre having a SB party this year. It was really just an excuse to have a cookout in the middle of winter, LOL!
(and me not expecting my reply to post by hitting return. Spending too much time on Discord, LOL!)
My deep, dark secret is that Iām a man who completely missed the sports gene. In my considerable time on the planet, Iāve been to one NFL game (the tickets were given to me and it would have been rude to not go) and Iāve only watched one super bowl in its entirety. One of the advantages of Covid to me? Not having any super bowl party invitations to politely turn down.
Call me cynical, but Budweiser not advertising during the super bowl seems like a PR move ā especially since so many other A-B brands are still going to be advertised during the game.
Oh, donāt get me wrong ā¦ I could care less if there is a Superbowl or not lol
I never know whoās in it until itās announced. I do tend to watch it though for something to do and stay current. I used to be into Football a whole lot more during the 80ās and early 90ās. Then as the players I loved retired, I did too. I just couldnāt get into the newbies. Much like Nascar. Give me Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt banging it out in the last lap any day compared to todayās sanitized standards. I might even be interested in baseball if Gary Carter was still on the Mets
Iām one of those that have been to a few Super Bowl parties and stayed out in the kitchen or dining room talking with those not that interested and eating chicken wings
Ha! We must be related because I seem to have missed out on the sports gene too ā at least anything to do with competitive sports and, especially, watching other people play them. Then again, both you and I are cyclists, and I like to run, but I donāt regard either as a competitive sport when I participate in them ā Iāve never cared about races.
I got free tickets to a pro basketball game a few years ago but left halfway through. Watching millionaires repeatedly run back and forth on the court with a ball trying to make it go through a hoop seemed totally uninteresting ā about the equivalent of watching paint dry. I donāt get it, but I know some people really get into this kind of thing, which is totally fine, I guess.
I did, however, surprise myself a couple of years back, when we went to watch a cricket match with some friends. It was a warm early summer afternoon. Spring lambs softly bleating in the next field, with views across beautiful countryside and in the distance, a town on a hill dominated by the remains of a 12th century castle. Good local ale in hand, That slightly delayed sound of leather on willow arriving on warm air. It will always be one of those perfect, memorable, bucolic afternoons.
I have no idea what all those blokes in white, were doing running around the field though.
Some food for thought.
It isnāt about the creatives here, is it.
No, not by a long shot.
From an AdWeek article:
āThe commercial will build on the online freelance marketplaceās āIt Starts Hereā campaign, which premiered in September and focuses on three small businesses that benefit from freelancers.ā
āfollowing the outbreak of Covid-19, coupled with a growing acceptance of remote work, the online marketplace for freelancers has seen a flurry of activity. For the quarter ending Sept. 30, xxxxxxās revenue hit $52.3 million, up 88% compared to the same time last year. Throughout 2020, the companyās share price surged more than 700%.ā
More like hosing Freelancers and an increase in people wanting cheap crap for cheap. WhatEVer.
PS, a 30-second spot is running $5Million during the actual game.
Some of the supposed reasoning behind the big guys sitting it out is very interesting. It seems to be more about the optics of whatever they might put out there. Given the past year, Iām betting every single marketing professional wouldnāt touch that live wire with a 39-and-a-half foot pole.
In case itās not clear to some, youāre referring to the company whose name I will not spell out due to disgust, but itās the crowdsourcing company that canāt count to six before misspelling its own name. Iām half tempted to add their name to the forumās banned word list.
The only way to have made money from this company over the past year has had nothing to do with freelancing for them but to have bought shares of their stock. Now here they are running their first Super Bowl ad that is financed on the backs of their freelancers living in poverty and, in general, working for far less than minimum wages.
I keep reading about the new āgig economy,ā and how itās here to stay. All the articles seem to have glowing things to say about it ā like how it frees up people to work at home whenever they want and enables them to be their own bosses. I keep reading articles containing references to people who claim to make six-figure incomes from crowdsourcing through this and other similar companies. Yeah, right.
Seemingly, few people have caught on yet that these are slimy companies that have done nothing but figure out ways to use the internet to bypass labor laws while skimming big fees from people trying to earn enough money just to put food on the table. Their 700% increase in share prices largely mirrors an equivalent percentage drop in income from an entire segment of the economy thinking they can make a living heading down this path.
What Iād really like to see is a Super Bowl ad with a successful corporate CEO showing off his new crowdsourced $150 website, then juxtaposing that with the third-world freelancer living in squalor who spent a month of 18-hour days working on it. Maybe that could be followed up by another ad with another business owner talking about their great new visual branding package put together by a Los Angeles Film School graduate doing crowdsourcing work in an attempt to supplement her waitressing income with enough money to clothe her kids while paying off her student loan.
