The Salesforce Super Bowl AD stars the award-winning actor Mathew McConaughey. The commercial opens up with McConaughey wearing a spacesuit, referencing his performance in interstellar as a pioneer of space travel. However, the commercial takes a quick turn with McConaughey rescinding his space pioneering spirit, and proclaiming the new frontier is here on earth, not in space. More importantly, this proclamation by McConaughey in the commercial highlights Salesforce’s company philosophy, branding themselves as an earth pioneering company. Personally, when I watched the Superbowl, I found the advertisement to be very clever in with their marketing tactics, and I believe it is worth examining.
Though this is a very simple, fun, and lighthearted commercial, I believe that there are some things that allow the commercial to be very captivating, and marketable for Salesforce. One of the things that I believe Salesforce did well would be taking a hot topic and polarizing it. The hot topic in the Advertisement would be the progressive development of technology, specifically the “meta-verse” and “space travel”. Both of these topics have a Science fiction undertone to them, but at the same time, it is a hot topic precisely because these topics are becoming non-fiction.
Salesforce recognizes the potential of this new development and capitalizes on it by creating a counter-movement, Team Earth. With a perspective that is the complete opposite of progressive technology and one that is more well-grounded in conservation efforts, Salesforce associates themselves with one side of the debate that they created themselves. As such, the polarizing tactic that salesforce employs can be seen in the quote by McConaughey below,
“It's time to build more trust, time to make more space for all of us. So while the others look to the metaverse and Mars, let’s stay here and restore ours. Yeah, it's time to blaze out trail ‘cause the new frontier? It ain’t rocket science, it's right here”. - Advertisement
From the quote, I believe there are a few phrases that help paint a picture of the ideological differences between TeamSpace and TeamEarth. The main keywords include, “build more trust”, “make more space”, and “stay and restore”. From these phrases, it indicates the stances that TeamEarth hopes to take, and assumes the stance that TeamSpace would likely take.
The phrase “Build more trust” is quite literal in its reference. Pointing to Salesforce’s company goal as a (CRM) customer relationship management, but also the goal of group conservation effort in “staying on earth”.
“Make more space” is a bit of an interesting one, as it is not quite literal as “building more trust” but a phrase that references the ideological differences between TeamEarth and Space. Likely pointing out the notion that with space travel we are seeking to find more space to solve the fictional “overpopulation” and “overcrowding” problem, and TeamEarth is against that ideology.
Finally, “Stay and Restore” is both literal in its meaning and also has some ideological implications. The ideological implication is the idea that with space travel and the virtual world of the meta-verse we are “escaping” our dying planet. Instead of fleeing, Team Earth establishes their argumentative notion that it is better to stay and restore. To do so, the literal meaning of “stay and restore” references Salesforce’s goal of aspiring to be more environmentally friendly, as well as highlighting the company’s restoration efforts via the #TeamEarth movement that they created.
All in all, I believe that this commercial is a great foreshadow for the future arguments and stances that will likely take place when the meta verse and Space travel to mars become a reality. Additionally I would also like to believe that the TeamEarth movement in the near future may pull these debates into the political sphere and likely rebrand the modern conservative and liberal parties. Regardless, this is a tentative topic and only time will tell.
Very interesting dissection of this Ad. I didn't see this during the Super Bowl, but you did a great job of explaining it. It seems like many of the big companies (Meta, Tesla, etc.) are focusing on the beyond, so it seems like Salesforces' commercial does a good job of advertising what realm they are focusing on... here on Earth. For Salesforce, this is great press by using McConaughey because of his reputation, so I think they did a great job.
Great analysis of this Super Bowl Ad. I think you bring up great points about how the marketing team at Salesforce took an issue of hot debate, whether or not we should be expanding our homeland to outside earth or not, and made it into a commercial that leverages their values. I think they also chose a great actor and great voice for this commercial as McConaughey has that thoughtful and provoking voice and tone. Overall, you chose a great commercial to examine from the Super Bowl and I think we need to think deeper about what we see on TV like this!
I remember seeing this super bowl ad. I think the team who went about this was very smart, specifically with Mathew McConaughey, considering his role in Interstellar. The whole point of interstellar is to leave earth and find a new home, but now Salesforce is projecting the opposite. I think it is interesting to think of this "Team Earth" versus "Team Space" because of people like Elon Musk and other billionaires who are pushing the leap to go further and further. Unfortunately, I feel like this is going to divide us though into two groups based on our opinions. I am not sure how soon this would happen, but I see this happening in the future.