Play it too safe and nobody will notice your ad. Push it too far to the edge, however, and you could find yourself in the middle of a massive controversy, as some banks and other financial companies have learned to their peril. It can be tough to find that ideal middle ground, where the ad is both noticed and manages to drive home the right message.
Nowhere are the stakes higher than at the Super Bowl, however. Most banks can't afford to run an ad during the big game — the cost to run an ad in 2018 is at least $5 million, according to Sports Illustrated — but several have ponied up, with mixed results.
SoFi, for example, scored a hit ad that ran during the 2017 game, which served as penance for its widely panned commercial during the game a year earlier. Synovus, meanwhile, ran a regional ad in 2017 during the Super Bowl that managed to be both funny and highlight the institution's work with small businesses, while Quicken's attempt to tout its Rocket Mortgage service reminded many people uncomfortably of the mortgage business right before the housing crisis.
In honor of the 2018 Super Bowl, we offer a look back at some hits and misses for financial companies' advertisements, both those that ran during the big game and beyond. (And while the final slide is not from the Super Bowl — or even a U.S. bank — it's well worth your time.)
SoFi's disastrous 2016 Super Bowl ad
The ad features a narrator who rates each passerby of the camera, with some being "great" and some being "not great." At the ad's conclusion, the narrator urges consumers to log into SoFi to discover if they're "great or not." Reviewers called it "mean-spirited," and "perplexing." It was rated as one of the worst commercials of the Super Bowl that year.
Weirdly, it was almost worse. The original version of the ad —
This horse does not play football
It's easy to see why. For one, it's funny. For another, it features an actual customer of the bank, who comes across as more genuine than most actors. It also successfully highlights the kind of help a bank can provide.
The horse may not play football, but the ad won
Quicken forgets the financial crisis
The ad itself is fine, highlighting how easy it is to obtain a mortgage digitally. But that ease of service was precisely the point of criticism. Namely, observers said that
Samuel Jackson's bad damn day
But when he said "damn" in a Capital One ad, people lost their minds. Never mind that "damn" barely counts as profanity and falls well short of Jackson's obscenity-laden tirades popularized in movies like "Pulp Fiction" and "Snakes on a Plane."
Still, Capital One ultimately
The true source of outrage may have less to do with Jackson's word choice, however, and be more related to politics. At the time, some conservatives were angry at Jackson because he was an outspoken supporter of then- President Obama, likely fueling the controversy over the ad.
See the original ad below:
Your bank for life
The ad features a young boy receive a pen while visiting the bank with his parents, and we watch him use that pen as a child and into college, where it plays a key role in introducing him to his future wife. Never has a pen proved so consequential in a person's life.
The ad hits all the marks, including driving home its final message, "Old National. Your bank. For life." Unsurprisingly, it won the
E-Trade has an unusual bank robbery
The ad is done with cinematic flair, but the overall creepiness (complete with tellers putting on animal masks) and implied violence make it a strange way to promote your business. Contrast it with E-Trade's usually funny "baby" ads and it's not hard to see why the company stopped making ads like this.
Bigger is better?
For one, Hopkins comes off as arrogant, condescending and sexist all in the space of a minute and a half, arguably his worst role since
But the worst part, in addition to the mindless repetition of the word "big," is the message of the ad, which is that big banks are better (and, indeed, bigger is better in general). The ad ends with the tagline, "Barclays: A Big World Needs a Big Bank."
It's notable that this ad came eight years before to the financial crisis, when the idea of big banks lost its luster to many.
It's the Super Bowl. Do you know where your child is?
Just in case you were having fun watching football with the kids, this ad will make sure you lock your cabinets and keep your kids safely in a padded room with no sharp edges.