Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: JuJu Smith-Schuster, samuel l jackson, super bowl, Super Bowl LV, verizon

Verizon Taps Video Game References In Super Bowl LV Commercial

Published Sun, 07 Feb 2021 21:20:51 -0600

Verizon decided to go for the gamer references for their Super Bowl LV commercial as they say you "can't blame the lag". The commercial wasn't promoting any one particular video game or franchise, even though the entire spot looks like the animators took a lot of references from Fortnite. The ad has Samuel L. Jackson preaching from on high, dressed up like he's a combination of Nick Fury from the MCU and Julius from Saints Row, chewing out gamers for blaming lag on their bad performances, all while promoting the company's 5G Ultra Wideband with what they claim has "ultra low lag".

"You really gonna lie to Samuel L. Jackson while he's holding a sparkle stick?" Courtesy of Verizon.

The real highlight of the ad comes after he chews out Pittsburgh Steelers' receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, who then heads off and gets a giant fish to swallow Jackson whole. A nice little nod to his death scene in Deep Blue Sea. Ultimately, it's just a fun little commercial and one of the highlights of the night considering how boring the game was with everything being one-sided. I mean, we're sure Tampa Bay fans are enjoying their night, but once they were up 28 points, we turned it off. So as far as gaming goes, yes, Verizon pretty much won the night as far as we're concerned since it was a fun ad that didn't make us fall asleep. Also, we look forward to seeing Epic Games work with Verizon to get this Jackson figure with his sparkle stick and some voice lines in the game. If they both don't capitalize on the buzz this image is getting on social media as quickly as possible, they're just letting money go straight into the dumpster. Enjoy the ad below.