There are doubtlessly a gazillion critiques of last night’s Super Bowl Ads. Not being a TV ad expert, and prone to skipping them with the Tivo, here’s my favorites based on those that demanded a rewind by me and my son.
1. eTrade’s barfing baby and creepy clown. Call me weird, but a baby talking in an adult voice into a web cam who blows lunch and declares the clown in the background to be “creepy” hits me where it counts.
2. The weird sales lead dot com company that uses patently racist stereotypes — Ramesh the Indian sales schlub with seven kids who talks like Gunga Din — and Ring Ding the Chinese Panda. These spots cost $2 million, right? So why would someone use colorforms and furniture outlet animation to fill the slot? I know! The ads are so bad that they pop out from among the slick beer and car spots. This is the Nasonex Bee school of animated ads. Make them so horrible that the viewer is compelled to watch out of sheer disbelief.
And Fox pushing the whole catalogue of ads onto MySpace? It’s a YouTube world, but Rupert has to push his investment. I enter MySpace only at gunpoint.
That’s it. I want an Audi R series. The Patriots got beat fair and square in a great game, but I still think American football is dumb sport and any portents of “history in the making” were just an illusion. The spectacle is what it is all about.
Update: yup, SalesGenie confirms the strategy was to suck.
Here is an alternative to traveling into MySpace land for the commercials.
USA Today (bonus of the live ad meter tracking) http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2008admeter.htm
the best ad was the Toyota Corrola spot with the suckling carnivoress. I just love the last scene showing only the face of sbarling fang-toothed creature headed for the driver.
Jim
P.S. I’ve seen heavily armed and seriously kevlarred game wardens beat freaking feet when a badger gets aggressive and starts advancing towards them.
couldn’t agree more! Puking babies rock.