This year’s Super Bow…. we mean Big Game is literally tomorrow, and the advertisements are getting plenty of attention. This year’s Super Bowl in Roman numerology is “LV”, but maybe it should be “EV” given the international incident that seems to have stemmed from this year’s ads.
Yeah, yeah… LV is roman numerology, not an acronym. In a world of electric cars dubbed “Turbo” (love you Porsche) or electric Mustangs with aeronautical speeds as represented incorrectly by letters (Mach E), can you blame us for making the jump from LV to EV in an electromobility context?
Audi’s got a history with the Big Game of course. Most recently was last year’s “Let it Go” ad featuring actress Maisie Williams singing “Let it Go.” from the Disney movie Frozen in a spot about global warming and the Audi e-tron Sportback.
Seems poetic now, because, GM’s 2021 spot features Will Ferrell (joined by Kenan Thompson and Awkwafina) who can’t seem to let it go as he takes on the electromobility loving market of Norway as GM stands to launch its own new round of electric cars.
Audi hasn’t announced a Big Game commercial for 2021, but the GM ad and some of its lead ups didn’t sit well with Audi Norway. Yes… Audi Norway… the Norwegian Audi importer struck back on YouTube with some spots of its own starring Norway’s #1 selling car the Audi e-tron and actor Kristofer Hivju, the Game of Thrones cast mate to Maisie Williams who also happens to be a proud Norwegian.
We’re embedding them all here for your viewing pleasure. Watch the back and forth nature of it and you’ll see it for the good-natured EV salmon slap fight that it really is.
First, there’s Will reading about “two guys named Olaf” having the first mackerel “slap fight”…
Then Kristofer corrects him. It’s salmon… “sal-mon”.
Ferrell goes for a pizza prank…
But Norway likes pizza… preferably with the big fish…
Ferrell gets a little aggressive…
To which Kristofer offers his final message from the wheel of his e-tron.
So Audi of America is sitting out the Super Bowl, but it seems Audi has gotten in on the Super Bowl action without actually making an official TV spot. We’re not sure if their new CMO Tara Rush had anything to do with it, but she’s also got history of her own working on unnofficial Big Game spots. In her previous life at Heineken, their team was also behind this viral YouTube spot for Newcastle Brown Ale starring Anna Kendrick.
Finally, if you’re a football fan or a four rings fan then you know Audi has also been advertising e-tron product at the Big Game for a while now. There was also 2019’s spot dubbed “Cashew” pushing the e-tron GT concept car.
Of course the production version of the e-tron GT is scheduled to drop on February 9, less than 48 hours after the Big Game. Are we the only ones hoping Emilia Clarke dressed as Elsa makes an appearance?
P.S. Hey Audi of America product planner Anthony Garbis, Kristofer says the only thing worse than pizza with anchovies is Hawaiian Pizza.
