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At this point it's nothing but cliche to say that the Super Bowl commercials were dissapointing. Year after year we expect to see interesting funny bits in between the game, and year after year we are treated to a bunch of lame jokes and faux controversry.
One theme this year was hyper-machoness (which is not as good as hyper-nachoness). It's understandable given the audience, and it's a cumulative effect, but it's tiresome when Jim Nantz of all people is telling me to take off a skirt and buy a portable tv.
The other theme was underwear, and it didn't help that the Dockers "men without pants" spot ran directly after a spot with people in their underwear. But more on that later.
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First up, the highest rated ad was the Snickers/Betty White. Betty's line was kind of funny, but I think it's uncreative to use "borrowed interest" like that. However the idea that a snickers will help you playing football sucks, and they didn't even pay it off--the guy who ate the snickers isn't the guy that sacks Abe Vigoda. The whole thing was pretty unmemorable for me and I was surprised that it was the highest rated one.
The most pervasive spots were Bud Light and Doritos. The Bud Light spots were consistent! They were terrible and uninspired all night, all revolving around a worthless new tagline. Even reading their captions "man joins book club for beer" and "scientists react to asteroid" bore me. The only way the Bud Light campaign was a good idea was if the CEO is in a Brewster's Millions situation. I give Doritos credit for being different but they should have stopped with the kid (#11) and the dog (#2) and scrapped the casket (#14) and wrestling (#17).
The Coke ones were almost good. E-trade gets a mild laugh, but it's old hat by now. The Bridgestone bachelor party and Audi weren't bad either. The Budweiser fences would have been better without the dialog that dumbed it down.
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Now for my favorite ads. Even though the cars.com is a spot in an existing campaign, and it's not all that different from the fantastic Dos Equis campaign, this spot was the first one of the night that I was satisfied with. (#12)
I thought the Career Builder "casual friday" one was simple, hilarious, and had a nice tone. And the laughs were actually tied to the product in a memorable way. And yet it was #51 and the stupid monster.com ad with the beaver that made no sense was #10. I think it was hurt by the Dockers commercial that followed.
I loved the 5 second letterman spot with Leno in it. Hilarious.
And I also liked the Hyundai 2020 Favre MVP ad. They took a topical joke and turned it into something actually tied to the product in a memorable way. Of course it was rated #49.
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I also liked the Google ad but thought it was stupid for them to do a Super Bowl Ad. They already own 80% of search and this didn't show why their search is any better. But it was well done.
Not only does no one care about GoDaddy but no one is actually outraged, so their whole campaign is a waste.
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I got an work email about the San Francisco office's Docker spot. I actually saw a "wear the pants" poster series and loved it. Here's the tone of those posters:
Yes, it's hyper-macho, but I love it. It at least fits the brand (where as that stupid portable tv is more likely to be used by kids than spineless men).So why didn't the tv work? (#59)
These guys are upbeat, singing proud to be pantsless. They look confident and sort of cool in that anti-cool, hipstery sort of way. If anything, this commercial seemed to be a commercial for "not pants." How much better would a voiceover of the above image had been? A lot.
Also, if your commercial is relying on the shock value of men in underpants, make sure it's not following a commercial full of men in underpants. Hurt the impact of both.
Similar to underpants, there was another theme with all the commercials clumped together...little people! There was a commercial break with 3 commercials in a row, all with little people (Alice in Wonderland, Little Kiss for Dr. Pepper, and Punxsutawney Polamalu).
ReplyDeleteOther than that I'm finding that I disagree on many of the spcific commercials you listed (liked some you didn't, didn't like some you liked), but overall they were definitely disappointing.
The thing I don't get is why it's so hard to get even one or two great commercials like the ones during the Super Bowls a few years back. How have we gone several years without a single "great" commercial, when there's so much money going into making these ads?
Now I'm curious. What commercials did you like that I didn't and vice-versa?
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm sure a lot of it is due to the fact that I didn't care much if the ad was effective, but rather if it was funny/entertaining (probably because A-I'm not in advertising and B-we were drinking the whole game). Between Betty White and Abe Vigoda, I thought that commercial was hilarious. I didn't even realize that it was someone else that ate the Snickers.
ReplyDeleteI also liked the Bud Light house and the Doritos wrestling one just for the lunge at the end.
I didn't think the Audi one was that great, and I didn't like the cars.com one because they didn't go as far as the Dos Equis ones. Dos Equis is hilarious because they're all ridiculous/impossible things...in this case it's someone that can do a whole bunch of stuff that a person could believably do (cheering squad joke aside), so it wasn't as humorous, and then the end was just a straightforward message. Again, I'm sure it's an effective ad for the product/service, but that didn't do anything for me.
I'm sure this is just as subjective as people's tastes in movies, music, etc. so I'm not surprised by this or anything. I just found it amusing how we were nearly opposites on several of them :)