Monday, February 2, 2009

Super Bowl Ads

Super Bowl XLIII (that's 43 for all you non-Roman numeral speaking folks) came and went Sunday, and back at work most of you are probably spending 10 seconds talking about the game, which was very good by the way, and the rest of your time discussing the infamous Super Bowl advertisements...not so good.

Overall, I was extremely disappointed with this years' ads. There were a few good ones here and there, but even the best of super ads '09 were second fiddle to those of years past.

A few of my favorites include:

Miller High Life 1-second ad.











This was really pure genius. Reminds me of Ollie Williams doing the weather.











As the shortest ad ever to air on Super Bowl Sunday, it caused plenty of buzz. The media covered it so much prior to the Super Bowl that this meager 1 second turned into the most talked about Super Bowl ad of the year. Sometimes less really IS more.

Cash 4 Gold was one of the funnier ads, starting off looking like any other C4G commercial, only sadder because Ed McMann was leading the way. It quickly turned to laughs as M.C. Hammer backed up old Ed with some of his own gold for sale.

Teleflora, for me, was one of the better ads. I just loved watching the flowers talk crap to the woman. There has probably been someone in all our lives at one time or another whom we would have loved to tell off with some shit talking flowers. Million dollar idea right there.

ETrade babies are usually funny and on this particular Sunday evening they did not disappoint, flexin' the golden pipes for our pleasure (that sounded dirty).

Movie Trailers - I do not remember ever seeing so many previews for upcoming films, but it was a nice glance at what was to come.


THE SO-SO




For all you SNL fans out there Pepsi's "Pepsuber" ad offered a couple of chuckles, however the Pepsi Max 'I'm Good' commercial kinda took the wind out of their sails and threw the company into the so-so category.

Godaddy.com
has never been the best of the super ads, but they always stay true to the 'sex sells' theory. I respect that.

Doritos did an alright job with their ads, but nothing I would write home to mom about. I am always a fan of breaking things so the snow globe through the vending machine was a nice moment for me, however, it is not deserving all the hype received from other critics.
Who actually writes home these days? Don't these people have cell phones?

Careerbuilder was not bad, but I felt like I was (or should have been) on drugs.

Audi, not bad, but I will forget it in a week.

Cheetos, also not bad, but I will forget it tomorrow.

Coke, just did not do it for me this year. Their ads were average at best.

This Priceline.com ad was no different than any other Priceline commercial. It was fine for your average commercial spot, but does not come close as a standout among the giants of Super Ad Sunday. Gotta step up your game, Shatner.


The bad

Sobe's ads went the route of a high budget film that spends the majority of their time and money on special effects. Sobe did the 3D thing which probably would have been a lot cooler if I actually had some 3D glasses. The dancing lizards and NFL stars were not as funny as the Sobe people thought when they were putting this thing together. I am not going to even count the Monsters vs. Aliens as a commercial since it was more like a short children's film.

I don't really expect much out of a business like GE, and that Scarecrow commercial confirmed what I already knew...television commercials are not their strong point.
Spend that money on clean, renewable energy or something!

I can't believe such a titan of the Super Bowl ads has made it to this part of my list, but alas, it is true...the Budweiser Clydesdales were really overkill this year. Enough of the damn horse. If I see them one more time I am gonna drive up to St. Louis and turn every one of those damn mascots into glue. The main reason Budweiser gets thrown into this category is because they are held to such a high standard. There were maybe one or two of their spots that made me grin, but overall their ads smelled like horse shit...more specifically, Clydesdale shit.

I don't expect much out of Taco Bell, and that is pretty much what I got.
Not impressed.

Monster.com, I have forgotten you already.

Overstock.com just bored me.

Anyone else I did not list on here I either forgot about or just did not feel like taking the time and finger energy to list. Basically, if they are not on the list, there is a good chance the ad falls into the BAD category.