Every year there is much hype about the costly ads they play during the Super Bowl. Every year I miss the big game, but check in the following day to see what form of mindless entertainment was most popular. And every year I hate myself for doing so.
It is the one day of the year when no one thinks about how many commercials they’ll be watching. They actually anticipate them, gather around to watch them, and discuss them the next day. Isn’t it funny that we all spend every other day of year avoiding commercials? And yet, for some reason, we all start panting like dogs at the thought of a new crop of funny, gross, dynamic and primitive ads.
This year, there were a few that seemed to grab the most attention, that is, those that didn’t involve Godaddy.com’s scantily clad women. The Budweiser ad featuring a beautiful Clydesdale rescuing his love from the circus. It’s amazing that a story can be told in that short amount of time. Some of us were even known to tear up a bit at this one. It’s bad enough watching them at all, but crying at one of them? Oh, the humanity.
Many of the ads were extremely violent, with one of the more popular Doritos ads had a man throwing a crystal ball through a glass case and then throwing it at a co-worker. It’s funny to watch but after a few of them in a row one starts to wonder what that’s about.
Bob Dylan sold out for Pepsi, allowing his Forever Young to be used to sell the cola, with the help of Will.i.a.m. The Coke Zero ad was supposedly among the top two best, according to Advertising Age, who said the ad was “a word-for-word, shot-for-shot remake of Coke’s sainted 1980 “Mean Joe Greene” ad, this one with the Steeler’s Troy Polamalu, is interrupted by the “Coke” brand managers. Now they’re infuriated that not just the flagship’s taste but its sacred imagery is being stolen by Coke Zero.”
The other top ad according to the magazine was the moose for Monster.com. They praised it for being unlike anything else they’d ever seen, though they acknowledged it was rude and crude. Conan O’Brien had a funny beer commercial, which is going to help raise his profile now that he’ll be hosting The Tonight Show.
Alec Baldwin made yet another notable appearance doing an ad for Hulu, the online video service that now shows the ads online for all to see at superbowl-ads.com, but if you really want to see these ads you can find them just about anywhere on the web, along with dozens of articles rating them.
What no one seems to be addressing, though, is why ads are so unbearable the other 364 days of the year. If advertisers bring out their best and brightest for the Super Bowl, where do they hide them while the hacks take a crack at it?
