Well its over now. We didn’t get the highest scoring Super Bowl in history as predicted, but we did see some pretty good commercials this year. My personal favorite was the Mars’ Snickers: You’re not You When You’re Hungry. How can you not like seeing Betty White and Abe Vigoda getting tackled?
Betty White in Snickers Super Bowl ad
Unfortunately enjoyment of that commercial depends on your age. Everybody in the room was over 30 and familiar with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Golden Girls. Funnier still is that Betty White has more comic timing in that ad than any sitcom on CBS right now. Thanks to Hulu, you can see all the ads good, bad, and stupid by clicking through here…
Money well spent (ads I liked)
Doritos: House Rules - Hate to go to a stereotype, but little Black kids are always funny. White kids need props (see the kids with glasses in Jerry Maguire) or they need to be pudgy like Pete Wiggins in the Ally Bank and Kaiser Permanente ads.
Hyundai: Ten Years - A commercial for football fans and a genius one from Hyundai touting its ten year warranty. Better do something about that Detroit, while Toyota is on the ropes.
Bud Light: Voice Box - I like it just because it reminds me of all that syth R&B music from the 1980s.
Careerbuilder.com: Casual Friday - Disgusting, people you really don’t want to see in underwear (a weird inverse of the GoDaddy ads), but very effective in describing a workplace that you don’t fit into.
Audi: Green Car – Wow, so here we get every green liberals wet dream and every conservatives’ nightmare. But don’t worry, we’ve been rescued by German engineering.
Chrysler: Dodge Charger - A commercial for guys. Yes, sorry ladies this is what runs through our heads when you’re talking.
Motorola: Megan Fox Photo - The humor of the ad is based on the everybody’s reaction to the photo and her 15 minutes are about up anyway. Ten years from now, she’ll be on one of the VH1 decade/ where are they now shows.
Megan Fox in Motorola Super Bowl ad
You spent $2.6 million on that!? (ads I didn’t like)
Boost Mobile: Super Bowl Shuffle Reunion- That was it!? All that build up and hype and that’s what we get? The punky QB in a hoveround getting a spray on tan. No, I’m not going to your website to see more.
Bridgestone: Whale of a Tail – Oooo, guess who saw The Hangover, the people at this ad agency.
Carmax: Hmmm. Let’s take an old Internet meme and build an ad around it. No let’s not, most of us had already forgotten the staring gopher or whatever the hell it was.
Budweiser: Clydesdale/Fence & Bridge - Lame. Wow, CGI animals. It would be interesting if you didn’t do it EVERY year.
E-Trade: The Babies - Umm, just like Budweiser– how many times are you guys going to the well with this talking CGI baby thing. I loved the shankapotamus. And the milkaholic was kind of funny. But I still don’t know what talking babies have to do with my portfolio.
Dockers: Men Without Pants – No. Lots of men need pants. A lot of them are in this ad. I was trying to eat when this was on.
Doritos: Casket: It just seemed to far fetched. I know its a Super Bowl ad, but how was that really supposed to work?
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You missed my two favorites. I really enjoyed the Doritos bark collar. It was fun. I do enjoy commercials where animals are smarter than people. My favorite commercial of the night was Google. It was simple. You knew what the ad was trying to sell. It showed you the service in use and told a story. Very clever.
I really hated the Motorola Megan Fox commercial. It was as annoying as the godaddy commercials and showed almost as much imagination.
I Will have to come back again when my class load lets up – nevertheless I am taking your RSS feed so I can read your site offline. Thanks.