When artists try to depict autonomous vehicles in their works, most of the time they end up featuring Tesla EVs. We've seen this most recently in the "Leave the World Behind" movie. And yet, when Popeyes aired "The Wait Is Over" commercial during the Super Bowl night, the self-driving car in the video was not a Tesla, but a Rivian.
Super Bowl LVIII came and went, but the commercials aired during the show will remain in people's minds for a lot longer. This is why companies pay millions to promote themselves during the show. Carmakers have been a mainstay of Super Bowl commercials, although they have lately reconsidered the opportunity of advertising during the event. Only four carmakers (Toyota, BMW, Kia, and Volkswagen) have aired commercials during this year's Super Bowl. Despite many fans and investors wishing it was otherwise, Tesla did not participate.
Although not many car companies decided to advertise this year, this doesn't mean Super Bowl videos were light on cars. This is probably the reason why some car companies don't see the benefit of spending money themselves on Super Bowl ads. Tesla got a nice search and sales boost during last year's show, despite not wanting to advertise. The simple fact that other carmakers advertised their electric vehicles drove Tesla traffic to insane levels. But there's also a risk to not wanting to advertise.
Although it's hard to ignore Tesla when depicting an autonomous vehicle, as we've seen recently in Julia Roberts' movie"Leave the World Behind," it's not impossible. Popeyes' latest commercial features an autonomous driving vehicle, and it's not a Tesla. It's worse than that, it's a brand that competes with Tesla in the EV market and has been so far considered an outsider as far as driver assistance systems are concerned. I'm talking about Rivian.
The theme of this ad is the chicken wings that the fast-food chain is finally offering after fifty years since it opened for business. "Popeyes finally has wings" is the punchline, making it clear why its title is "The Wait is Over." In the commercial, Ken Jeong plays a man who was cryogenically frozen in 1972 and defrosted in present times to taste Popeyes' new product. The commercial then follows Ken as he discovers the wonders of the modern world, including delivery drones, vacuum robots, massage chairs, and, you guessed it, self-driving cars.
Forty seconds into the commercial, we see a distressed Ken in the passenger's seat of a Rivian R1S, with no one behind the wheel. This is funny, considering the EV startup hasn't shown ambitions to develop self-driving vehicles. Instead, Rivian is offering adaptive cruise control features (Driver+), while the Highway Assists adds lane centering into the mix. The latter is roughly equivalent to Tesla's Basic Autopilot, although many consider it inferior.
The fact that Popeyes shunned Tesla and went for Rivian instead, despite its EVs lacking autonomous driving features, shows how poisoned Tesla brand looks these days. Fewer companies want their image associated with it due to Elon Musk's controversial opinions on X (formerly known as Twitter).
After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions. Full profile
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