Superbowl Ads: the good, the bad, and the ugliness.

Yesterday was the superbowl! What a great time – it was a fantastic game, good triumphed over evil, and we got to see new commercials that are hyped to be super special since they sell for so much. I’ve noticed lately however that superbowl ads haven’t really been delivering over the past few years, this one was no exception. There were some good ads, as always, but there were a bunch that made me wonder why a company would spend the superbowl ad dollars to display a unsuper ad.

Without further ado, here’s my take on the ads of the superbowl 2008:

The Good:

-The Coke spots were great – they always are, Coke does a great job. The democrat/republican spot for Coke Classic was nicely done, and the spot with the floats during the Macy’s day parade was fun to watch and nicely shot. Coke definitely caught the attention of viewers in a positive manner and continued to deliver delightful ads.
-E Trade baby spots – they were funny, and made people pay attention. At least in the room I was in, when that commercial started people started paying attention to the tv – and they laughed. The spots were relevant, amusing, drove the message home, and made us laugh. Nicely done.
-The Bridgestone spot where the squirrel almost gets hit by a car and screams – and so do a lot of other animals – was cute and funny. And memorable. Makes you giggle. All good things.
-Budweiser stuff was mostly good – the Dalmatian training the Clydesdale was nice, inspirational stuff. The ability to breathe fire from Bud Light spot was pretty funny, just because it’s absurd and out of the blue, it works. Also – the spot with Will Ferrell as his character in the upcoming movie “Semi Pro” worked well. I don’t think you can really go wrong with Will Ferrell. So, kudos Bud.

The Bad:
-Vitamin water. Shaq riding a horse. In a race. That wasn’t exciting to watch (probably because I didn’t have money on it). Honestly, I would have rather watched him shoot some free throws. And that’s not even good to see. Weird and it didn’t work.
-Planter’s Nuts – So an ugly lady walks around and everyone loves her. Wanna know why? Because she rubs Planter’s Nuts all over herself before she leaves the house. Was that the pitch for this commercial? And everyone in the room was like, “Yeah that sounds great!” Too bad no one with a peanut allergy was present during that decision.
- Sobe – Dancing lizards with Naomi Campbell? What does that even mean? And Geico should be thanking you, because they didn’t even buy a spot but people are gonna think they did…way to use a character that is more recognizable as some other brand’s property. Just didn’t do it for me.

The Ugly:
-SalesGenie.com – I don’t even think I have to explain this one. Stereotypes, no real concept, and poor production value. They should have just thrown their money into a toilet instead of putting these ads on the air.
-Under Armor – Didn’t really make much sense. You have such a cool product, and it fits so well with what is happening (the Superbowl?), why don’t you tap into that instead of giving us this weird speech from your high Under Armor horse that reminded me more of someone trying to create a master race than achieve athletic greatness. Poor.
-Ice Breakers – It’s like they got the go ahead to put Carmen Electra in their commercial and then panicked because they couldn’t think of anything to do with her. Except have a skinny guy offer her gum. Just didn’t work.



So there’s my post Superbowl wrap up. Until next year, we’ll just keep fast-forwarding with our tivo’s.

and I can't end this post without mentioning the cameo of Donkeylips from the popular Nickelodeon show of my generation, “Salute Your Shorts" in the AMP spot. Glad to see he’s still getting work.