Amazon caught the spotlight at this year’s Super Bowl with a star-studded ad and social media campaign where its Echo smart speak lost its familiar voice, only to be replaced by celebrities.
After a teaser ad where Amazon’s Alexa loses her voice, with an appearance by founder and chief executive officer Jeff Bezos, the story continued by showing Alexa celebrity replacements for the e-commerce giant’s Super Bowl ad.
London agency Lucky Generals created its first ever Super Bowl commercial in partnership with D1, Amazon’s in-house creative unit.
The 90-second spot continues by including the teaser, where a woman at home asks Alexa for the weather, but Alexa coughs and dries up.
In Amazon HQ, Bezos is reassured by an aide that the situation is under control and that they have stand-ins at the ready.
Those stand-ins include a star-studded cast – Gordon Ramsay, Rebel Wilson, Cardi B and Sir Anthony Hopkins – trying, and spectacularly failing, to replace Alexa.
Ramsay berates a man asking Alexa how to make a grilled cheese while Cardi B wonders why anyone would want to go to Mars after a teen asks how far it is to the planet.
Wilson, in a sudsy tub, talks dirty to a man who has asked Alexa to set the mood at his dinner party, and Hopkins, lounging in a yard with peacocks all around, tells a woman who is trying to call her boyfriend that he’s unavailable.
As the camera pulls away from Hopkins, the real Amazon Alexa voice returns, reassuring that she’s back – set to Carly Simon’s Bond theme, ‘Nobody does it better’.
Michael Boychuk, Amazon executive creative director, said: “We’re always trying to innovate on behalf of our customers and even though I think we’ve proved conclusively that nobody could ever replace Alexa, we hope that viewers have as much fun watching this, as we had making it.”
Danny Brooke-Taylor, executive creative director and founder of Lucky Generals commented: “The Super Bowl is advertising’s noisiest day of the year, so it takes a brave client to lose its most iconic voice. Massive props to the entire team at Amazon for their unwavering desire to create something brilliant.”
The spot ran during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LII on February 4. The Amazon Alexa Super Bowl continued with supporting 30-second spots featuring Leslie Jones, JB Smoove and Rebel Wilson.
The advertisement itself is extremely creative and managed to become one of the most talked about ads from the Super Bowl. The ad has attracted nearly 50 million YouTube views at time of publication.
