The First Super Bowl Ad Is Here: And It's From Lexus
The automaker is returning to the big game, after making its debut in 2012, with a 30-second spot created by ad agency Walton Isaacson that will appear at some point during the first half of the game. Advertisers during Super Bowl XLIX are paying anywhere between $4.4 million to $4.5 million for 30 seconds of airtime.
Lexus' ad is unlikely to go down as one of the greats and eschews celebrities, humor, and cute animals to simply show its NX vehicle elegantly being put through its paces in what appears to be a glamorous indoor parking lot, while dancers writhe and splash in-between the frames of driving. The spot isn't set to a traditional musical soundtrack, but instead features the tuneful noises of the car as doors slam and tires squeal.
Walton Isaacson's founding partner Aaron Walton told Variety it wanted to make the car the hero of the ad, saying: "We wanted to make sure that the focus was really around the performance of the car, the energy of the car, and we didn't want to do anything that was going to take away from that."
The amount of automakers advertising during the Super Bowl has declined this time around, according to this year's broadcaster NBC, which provided an ad sales update earlier this month. General Motors and Volkswagen have previously indicated they won't be advertising. That said, we know Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and the Toyota Camry are all on the roster for the commercial breaks during Super Bowl XLIX, which takes place on February 1.