In spite of the fact that 46% of this year’s Super Bowl viewers were women, the Super Bowl commercials fell short when it came to reflecting gender parity. According to this data collected by Motto, here’s the breakdown of representation in this year’s Super Bowl ads:
- Women had no speaking role in 64% of the national commercials aired during this year’s Super Bowl.
- 25% of the commercials had no women in them at all. Only 5% of the commercials contained no men.
- Of the 41 commercials that did contain women, 56% failed to give the women any spoken lines.
- Out of the 29 commercials with voiceovers, only two (or just under 7%) were done by women.
- 50 of the 55 ads had male directors.
Motto chose the MINI USA “Defy Labels” advertisement as their personal stand-out from the bunch, since it gives speaking lines to Serena Williams and Abby Wambach (among several other celebs).
As for me, I’d pick Janelle Monae’s Pepsi ad, embedded above, as my own favorite — but now that I’ve had the chance to actually watch it without a crowded party talking over it, I realize that none of Monae’s own music is featured in the ad (!?!). It’s great to see Monae dancing to some classic Motown in an early ’60s diner backdrop … although this is definitely a rose-colored-glasses version of 1960s diners. Overall, this seems to be a throwback to Britney Spears’ old Pepsi ad, in which Spears revisited multiple decades — except Britney Spears got to sing her entire commercial. So, yeah, I’m a little disappointed. Nice to see Janelle Monae getting what I hope is a huge paycheck from Pepsi, though.
Anyway, which Super Bowl ad did you all find to be the most bearable?
(via Motto)
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