Another year, another Superbowl Alexa commercial. This one isn’t as funny as 2018’s, but at least it has Harrison Ford and a cute dog. Via Digital Trends:
Amazon’s having fun with Alexa with this year’s Super Bowl Sunday TV commercial. The online retail giant is set to run at least one television commercial for the Amazon Beta Testing Program during Super Bowl 53 this Sunday, February 3. After seeing Amazon’s earlier teaser videos we guessed that the program has something to do with Amazon’s Alexa digital voice assistant, and we were right. Check out the video at the top of this article.
To spark interest in the so-far-under-wraps announcement, Amazon enlisted actors, comedians, and astronauts in short teaser ads. In the ads, actors Harrison Ford and Forest Whitaker, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer from Broad City, and NASA astronauts and twin brothers Mark and Scott Kelly all react to That-Which-Is-Still-Secret.
In each video, the actor slides open a two-section horizontal shutter or door, looks at what’s inside, and utters a short reaction. What each clip has in common is that the contents emit or reflect blue Amazon Echo light that illuminates the character’s face. The inside surface looks like egg-crate acoustic soundproofing, but no further details are visible. All that Amazon mentions in conjunction with the teasers is “Amazon recruited some famous friends to test new Alexa technologies. To see what happened, tune into the big game on 2.3.19.”
Here’s what happened when we acted on the suggestion to ask Alexa:
DT: “Alexa, what is the Amazon Beta Testing Program?”
Alexa: “I’m not supposed to talk about the confidential Amazon Beta Testing Program until the big game on February 3. However, I think you can keep a secret. Just say this access code: Blue 126. Again that’s Blue 126.”