There has been plenty of talk about a ‘vibe shift’ in America since Donald Trump won the 2024 election in a definitive fashion, and the first look at what brands have in store with their commercials for Super Bowl LIX only further confirms the theory.
The general consensus is that Super Bowl commercials have gotten ‘safe’ in recent years with advertisers relying more on virtue signaling and star power than originality or humor. After last year’s big game, Megyn criticized the commercials as “a flop” and urged brands like GoDaddy and Carl’s Jr. to return to their headline-making strategies of earlier aughts.
“It makes you bond with the brand when they give you a laugh, or it’s something provocative, or they show you the sexy girl,” she explained at the time. “There was none of that. It was all like, ‘We’re very safe. We’re very safe.’”
Well, it looks like Madison Avenue got the memo. The previews of Sunday’s ads show Carl’s Jr. is back with a bang as Bud Light tries to get back in America’s good graces. And on Friday’s show, Megyn was joined by Victor Davis Hanson, author of The End of Everything, to watch the commercials and discuss the “return to normalcy.”
The Vibe Shift
The Super Bowl, Megyn said, serves as a “cultural touchstone” in the way it is one of the remaining events that has the ability to attract the attention of the nation and offer a snap shot of where we are.
“They are removing from the end zone the ‘End Racism’ signs. That’s big because we have been subjected to those lectures from the NFL for going on five years now,” she said. “They are not eliminating the so-called ‘Black National Anthem.’ We are going to have that thing which is divisive in this context. But we are going to get an interview with President Trump, unlike Joe Biden, who wouldn’t sit for one because he couldn’t.”
Trump will also become the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl when he makes his way to New Orleans to watch the rematch between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles. This confluence of events, Megyn said, feels like “we are so back,” and brands seem to be broadcasting a similar message.
Carl’s Jr.
Carl’s Jr. ditched its racy ads featuring scantily clad women eight years ago, but the fast-food franchise is back at the Super Bowl with its burgers-and-bikini formula. Influencer Alix Earle is following in the footsteps of Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian in this year’s commercial, which promotes the chain’s “hangover burger.” Watch:
Hanson, who noted that the ad even features a “gas guzzling” convertible instead of an electric vehicle, said the U.S. is entering a “liberating period” – not unlike the one Ronald Reagan ushered in during the 1980s – that pop culture is picking up on.
The return to “salaciousness,” Megyn said, is part of that. “I feel like there is something significant to the fact that the obvious nature of men and women – that women love to be sexy where appropriate and men love to fawn over them – is back on screen and being celebrated,” she explained. “It is fine to show off the female form and have guys drooling over her, instead of the stupid Gillette ad which was like some self-flagellating guy trying to show us what a feminist he was.”
The net-net: “We went through this crazy period,” Megyn added. “And something is changing.”
Bud Light
Something is also changing for Bud Light. The beer maker is continuing its image rehab in the wake of its disastrous collaboration with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney with a commercial targeted at the very demographic it once admonished: “Fratty” bros.
Shane Gillis, Post Malone, and Peyton Manning are the “big men on Cul-de-Sac” in the innuendo-laced ad. Watch:
“It is bearded men, guys with baseball caps, ‘party at the sac,’ ‘smoking meat’ with the women, and I didn’t see any fake women by the name of Dylan Mulvaney,” Megyn said. “This is all testosterone… This company has heard us. It’s obvious.”
While Hanson joked that Bud Light realized “the .001 percent of the population is not as profitable as the male working class,” he said there is no denying Trump’s role in this cultural phenomenon. “We are waking up… [thanks to] one guy with executive orders and fearlessness,” he said. “Typical Republican orthodox approach to [DEI or USAID] would be to get a committee and then maybe compromise the forks of it away with the Democrats, just like we saw [with previous administrations].”
“But this is different,” Hanson concluded. “This is a really true counter-revolution.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Hanson by tuning in to episode 1,003 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.