Well, here it is the annual "Morning After" ritual of looking back and talking about last nights Super Bowl XLIV television spots.
Lots of places to discuss the ads from the game all over the Internet. One of the most interesting places was the #Brand Bowl site put together by Mullen Advertising and Radian6. Was fun to see what ads people were talking about on the Twittersphere. According to their results the top 3 ads talked about were: 1) Google; 2) Doritos (Dog Collar) and 3) Snickers.
And this compares to the USA Today which has covered the Super Bowl ads from now 22 years with it's "Ad Meter". The top 3 ads according to consumers were: 1) Snickers 2) Doritos (Dog Collar) and 3) Bud Light (House out of beer cans).
From my perspective I felt the tone of the Super Bowl ads were definitely more light-hearted this year than last year. And that always makes them more fun to watch. I observed some interesting trends like - "no pants" and at least four spots with "hot tubs". The two spots with "no pants" for Dockers and Career Builder ran back-to-back which was not the best positioning for those two brands. I did like the Career Builder spot much better than the one for Dockers.
Two long term staples of babies and animals again made it to multipe spots. These time honored approaches always seem to do well. From the beaver for Monster to a killer whale for Bridegstone to a dog for Doritos the babies for eTrade these spots all borrow from proven well worn executional devices.
So when I sit back this morning and ponder which Super Bowl ad did I like - I would have to say that I liked the Doritos spot with the young boy telling his Mom's boyfriends the rules of the house the best. And the ad that I felt hit the bottom was the ad for Skeechers. Hey Skeechers next time if you're going to spend that much money for a Super Bowl ad to run twice - try and have an idea. Either the agency didn't have anything or the client wanted something that wasn't interesting - why waste the money?
In closing I am interested to see how Denny's does with the free Grand Slam breakfasts again - this is a terrific trial generator and love to see brands push the envelope. What other national restaurant chain would take this chance.
So what did you think? What did you like? What didn't you like?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Glad you're blogging. Good perspective on the game and the ads. I personally thought the Doritos spot with the kid was a blatant attempt to bring a minority "vibe" into the Doritos brand and the spot wasn't Super Bowl worthy. (their overall strategy has been very effective with the ad community but I wonder if the average viewer knew they were watching consumer produced spots. which is a joke because they are ad agency and production people producing the spots to win big money not because of any real passion for the brand...but I digress) I thought the Green Police for Audi and the Dodge Charger ad both tapped into universal human truths but weren't exploitative with them the way that the Jim Nance spot was for whatever mini TV it was, and the oh so painful Go Daddy spots. I actually thought the Miller High Life spot took the most interesting "risk" for the big game and it was very brand relevant. If the writing were better the Letterman, Oprah, Leno spot was the biggest surprise of the game and more "surprise" stuff should be out there since production values alone are no longer enough to set a brand apart...a la the crappy Bud spot with the human bridge...yawn.
ReplyDelete