Sunday, February 07, 2010
Super Bowl open thread
As I said in this week's podcast, I think Super Bowl commercials have been living on their reputation for years now, but if you want to talk about the ads, the anthem, or any other TV-related thing having to do with the game as it goes on tonight, have at it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
52 comments:
Did CBS drop the ball by not having Survivor All Stars 3 premiere after this Super Bowl game?
Abe Vigoda sighting!
Pierre Chang in a Bud Light commercial - gotta love it! Too bad they couldn't get Eric Lange to be in it as well, his assistant did look a bit like Radzinsky.
Guess he got tired of Dharma Beer.
Seems like Bud Light was a little late to the Auto Tune party.
I always end up watching the commercials the next day because of the stupid CanCon rules that substitute the CBS feed with the one from CTV (or Global).
I haven't seen anything that great though, except maybe the streaking sheep.
Letterman, Leno & Oprah! Funny just because I didn't see it coming!
No pants trifecta in play.
Another Lost themed Bud Light commercial?
Wow. I never thought that I would ever see Jay and Dave in the same commercial. And Jay is promoting Dave's show? I guess no one likes Jeff Zucker.
This year's ad theme: a woman has turned you into a wuss, now buy this product you jellyfish.
Yeah, that FLO TV ad was bad.
Based on my Twitter friends.. we loved the Michael C. Hall / Dodge commercial. We love us some Dexter!
Commercials: I am woman. Beware, I am your enemy, you emasculated ninny. Buy this car/beer/pair of pants. Cojones included.
Gross.
Do we give Leno kudos for poking fun at himself, or just ponder why he would star in an ad for the competitor who has been mocking him mercilessly of late?
Did CBS get cold feet on the Tebow thing? I'm pretty sure we were led to expect a more explicit appeal to baby-having, not just "check out our web site".
This halftime is absolutely painful.
This year's crop of Bud Lite ads are pathetic and unfunny. Who wants to live in a world where nothing is more important than bad tasting, low-calorie beer?
Crystal, you nailed it. Half the advertisers are selling simulated masculinity. Where is this trend coming from? Why does Madison Avenue think we need this?
Seriously, with as bad as this is, what are the chances that CBS didn't come up with idea. I mean, I'm sure it's just a coincidence that their CSI franchise has The Who songs as the title music, right?
2 missed CBS cross-promotional opportunities at halftime: David Caruso didn't come out, whip off his sunglasses, and deliver a cheesey line before The Who began, and Roger Daltrey didn't sing, "Meet the Undercover Boss!"
And, yeah, that was a really lame halftime show. And I like The Who. Guys were just going through the motions, especially as compared to Bruce last year or Petty the year before.
Townshend and Daltrey both should have done some serious vocal warm-ups before trying that.
I gotta say, Google nailed it. Nice job.
Did the government really need to spend millions on commercials for the Census?
Its pretty sad that the most touching ad through the end of the 3rd quarter was for an internet search engine.
-K
Worst slate of commercials in my life time hands down
For some reason this is being shown live in Australia, including the ads.
Its the first NFL game I've seen, but I cant seem to turn it off.
The Google ad was super cute.
As mentioned by a few people already, I am also not liking these ads about how men are emasculated by doing things their girlfriends/wives like (like going to work, being considerate) and that they need to buy X product to assert themselves.
That there have been several ads in this mold is even more aggravating. I get that the SuperBowl is a hyper male event. But a ton of women watch too and you don't want to make us mad.
Did anyone else call Barney? I apparently have a date with him in 2016.
I don't even know if this is a new commercial, but how is CBS able to make the claim that 94 million follow the NCIS shows? That seems like wonky statistics to me.
Blair - I have a date with him too. Oct 12 2016
The Census Bureau has a public relations budget of 340 million, of which 144 million is allocated to advertising. So, 2.5 million spent on a one commercial aired on the day of an event that last year drew 98 million viewers, is money well spent. Also this is for something very important that happens once every ten years.
The Denny's screaming chicken in a spacesuit did have me cracking up.
If you think that the lame-ass 'highbrow' Census commercial convinced anyone to complete the form who otherwise wouldn't have, you are cracked.
The ads were awful -- except I did get a laugh out of Dave Oprah Leno bit.
The only commercials I can actually remember at this point (about 45 min after the game) is the Betty White/Snickers ad, the CareerBuilder underwear office ad and the Dodge ad that was awesome until it turned out to be well...for a Dodge.
Bill Carter has all the info on the Letterman promo
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/how-the-letterman-oprah-leno-super-bowl-ad-came-together/
For all the attention it got, the Tebow/Anti-abortion ad was pretty much a zero. And sorry ladies, but the reason all these companies have "emasculation" ads is because guys can relate to them and think they are funny/true.
Shocked by and loved the Letterman spot - thought for sure it was a rehash of his Oprah one from 2007 with a CGI of Jay put in...
The chicken screaming in space was cute.
Several of the commercials were rehashes of Internet virals like the dramatic woodchuck.
Too many spots with people with no pants on... lol
Nothing really stands out - lack of creative spark in general.
The second FloTV commercial was a pretty cool take on how to use that tech... the first FloTV commercial guaranteed I would never own one. Ooops.
But Brees and his son? Sniffles!
Having just read the Bill Carter article on how all this came together, it seems as though Letterman's ad has done more positive PR for Leno than what came out of his appearance on Oprah.
As for the anti-abortion ad, is that the first time a political ad has been aired during the Superbowl?
I also liked "Keep your hands off my mama; keep your hands off my Doritos."
terrible halftime show. maybe the least exciting, least entertaining halftime show I can remember. who could have guessed that a 45 yr-old band performing a medley of their 40-yr-old hits wouldn't light the place up. I KNOW they played several songs, but by the end of it I would've sworn it was just one long song. CBS should have just run more commercials, or a video of The Who instead.
What's the old advertising adage about how men won't buy products from male spokespeople they feel inferior towards? That was out in full force tonight.
Also, the Joe Montana voiceover on the Skechers ads were pretty half-hearted, but at least it reminded us all of who the REAL greatest quarterback of all time is. (Sorry Peyton, Joe never threw a pick-six to blow a Super Bowl.)
Were Dave, Oprah, and Jay in the same room, or was that edited?
Did CBS get cold feet on the Tebow thing? I'm pretty sure we were led to expect a more explicit appeal to baby-having, not just "check out our web site".
Who did the leading-to-believe in the first place? A bunch of people who had never seen the ad!
As for the anti-abortion ad, is that the first time a political ad has been aired during the Superbowl?
There was nothing political about what was aired, but when it comes to advocacy, they ran those anti-smoking ads for years.
i liked whatever commercial stevie wonder was with tracy morgan, i think VW. also how great would it have been to have somehow included conan in that comercial...maybe bringing drinks out for them.
there are many articles coming out now about the Jay and Dave commercial: It was filmed last Tuesday in NY; Jay wore a disguise to sneak into the Letterman set; Oprah didn't sneak in; they filmed it in the Ed Sullivan Theater balcony; filmed it in 25 minutes; it was only awkward how NOT awkward it was; and they had originally asked Conan to participate but his people declined. Jay got permission from NBC and flew into Jersey early on Tuesday. I think that covers everything.
Why 'how to assemble a crib' instead of 'how to put together a crib'? Google didn't want the three seconds of 'how to put on a condom'.
Abe Vigoda sighting!
I loved that one but forgot it until you mentioned it. Love Betty White.
The most low tech one may have been the best - the Google one. Funny, eh?
Leno/Oprah/Letterman was surprising and surprisingly funny.
Great game, great ending. Drew Brees and his child was a killer scene.
RE: Google
If he'd queried "how to put on a condom," maybe he wouldn't need to know how to put together a crib.
[rimshot]
Best spot of the night, hands down. Mostly because, as Todd VanDerWerff (@tvoti) noted on Twitter "it doesn't seem to have a barely restrained hatred of all humanity. Unlike every other ad."
Top spot by far was the Google ad. Compare and contrast with the Dodge Charger ad. I think we can tell which company has a hopeful view of the future, and which is a bitter legacy company that needed a government bailout to stay in business. There's an easy way for a man, any man, to avoid the future predicted by Dodge: Don't get into a relationship.
Emerald Nuts was the best of the rest.
I got a chuckle from the Carmax "Dramatically Smart" ads, but hated the Dennys screaming chickens.
I preferred Coke's "Sleepwalker" ad to the Simpsons ad (but that could be because I have dreams of going on safari one day).
Bud Light was lame as usual. Still selling their watered-down piss to man-children, I see. I think it's safe to say The Most Interesting Man in the World would *never* drink a Bud Light. Contrast with the ad from one of the other low-calorie beers, Michelob Ultra.
GoDaddy commercials continue to stick in my mind only because of how truly awful they are. They're like the "Plan 9 From Outer Space" of advertising. With sequels.
FloTV had a good one in the Memories ad, but misfired badly with their other two (yeah, helping to pick out the underwear your girlfriend presumably is going to wear in front of you is so emasculating. Ever hear of the concept of suggesting "you'd look amazing in this"?).
Teleflora apparently didn't learn anything from the flak they took last year.
Most of the creators of this year's ads really need to go to the University of Don Draper: "Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing is OK. You are OK."
Most of this year's ads were about hating life (and the women in your life).
Btw, the Google ad has been up on YouTube for a couple of months now, along with other similar "Search Stories" (although for some reason the one that's basically "What if Google were around when Bruce Wayne's parents were killed" has been taken down).
While I guess I'm glad people liked the ad, as a former Googler I was disappointed Google did it. First off, why the heck do an ad for the search engine, which has 70% or so usage in the US and is what everyone associates with Google? If Google really wanted to do an SB ad, why not for the new, designed and sold by Google, Nexus One phone? Or a "Things You Can Do On Google *OTHER* Than Search You May Not Know About" bit?
The theme of almost all the Beer ads is that American males are morons who will do anything for their favorite alcohol delivery system.
In the last few years we have seen guys looking lustfully at the Heineken, not the girl.
Or betraying their best friend for a Bud.
It gives new meaning to the statement: I would kill for a beer.
Sad.
I really hated the Audi "Green Police" ad. If they were saying that Audis are ecologically friendly, why did they have to use the imagery of police-state tactics to do it? There are plenty of people who are already worried about the perceived threat to their freedoms by environmental laws (real or imagined), why feed that fire with an ad for a car?
One of the Coca-Cola ads, the one with the guy who sleepwalks his way to a refrigerator, looks exactly like a commercial from a few years ago for Yotvata chocolate milk in Israel.
Post a Comment