Growing up, I was always eager for the Super Bowl. My eagerness was not for the game, however, but for the advertisements. Back then, companies went all out for the couple of seconds of allotted commercial space and created memorable ads. These would contain quality storytelling that would perfectly represent the product or service.

The advertisements were peak entertainment for people like me who were not tuned into the game. It gave us something to enjoy while watching our dads or uncles incessantly scream at the screen.

I still remember most of them, like the Chevy advertisement featuring truck drivers surviving the apocalypse. Beyond the game, Super Bowl ads would also became topics of conversation. The Monday afterwards would not only be filled with football play discussion, but which advertisement was your favorite. But I don’t think Super Bowl commercials hold that same power anymore.

Recently, I’ve noticed a downward shift in the quality of Super Bowl commercials, and I haven’t felt the same level of intrigue as I once did. The New York Times commented on this change in its rankings of Super Bowl commercials. The columnist described a growing problem with the ads having little creativity, relying on celebrities and having overcomplicated plot lines. Simply put, advertisers are focused on shock value, making people care less and less about what they have to say and marinate in the bizarreness.

Last year, the Super Bowl ad space was dominated with strange Temu advertisements that people were exhausted from seeing. In fact, Temu dished out nearly $21 million to feature multiple ads about its online shopping site — which I saw as extremely agitating.

This year had weirder commercials like the Tubi cowboy head commercial or Instacart bringing back the puppy monkey baby. Some brands relied on celebrities, with Mountain Dew producing a commercial featuring Becky G and Seal, who was CGI-ed onto a seal’s body. It was deeply unsettling and left audiences extremely confused. Jeep also brought in Harrison Ford with a commercial that felt like the commercials from my childhood. Yet, it droned on for two minutes, boring people by the time it reached the punchline.

These ads don’t feel like storytelling or like they relate to the brand at all. They’re simply there to get attention and don’t leave you with much to desire besides brand recognition and confusion.

But what caused this change?

Forbes gets right to the point, targeting the reasons as to why there is so little creativity in these ad campaigns. They rely on nostalgia, gags and celebrities that fail to hit the mark. It also points out that most of the ads were published online before the Super Bowl, meaning much of the audience has already seen the ads that are playing. Why have the priorities changed so much?

As a marketing student, my first thought was a shift towards social media marketing. While television has reigned over the world of advertising for years, the clamor for prime-time spots has gone down over the past decade. More marketing teams are cognizant of the idea that TV isn’t always reliable, especially when there are now screens you can blare ads on in the palms of customer hands.

Forbes describes this trend over the past decade, describing how ad spending is expected to exceed $207 billion on social media. Despite the high amount of money being put in, it’s cheaper to get your advertisement out on social media platforms. It costs about $8 million for a 30 second spot during the Super Bowl. Compare that to the various social media platforms where advertisers can spend around $200 to $50,000 a month. Businesses are then turning away from costly television commercials and focusing on ways to drive up engagement on social media.

Super Bowl ads are less prioritized and advertisers now favor longer campaigns throughout the year. The ads are still being produced, so why are companies dishing out big bucks to make ads that stink?

Part of what has been lost is the storytelling aspect as companies have moved towards more attention-grabbing ads. According to studies, the average attention span has seen a significant decrease over the past couple of years, with a decrease from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds in 2013. That statistic is only set to get worse, leading me to believe that this shift is an effort by advertisers to adjust to the change in attention span. But it’s not working.

Focusing on just shock value does nothing to get people to buy your product or be interested in what your company stands for. There is nothing there for viewers to gain and therefore nothing for you to gain as advertisers. Here is my parting message to these advertisers: get it together. Companies need to step back and realize that creativity and storytelling is what sells — not CGI-ing a singer onto the body of a seal.

Lily Fitzgerald can be reached at [email protected].