Stupor Bowl Ads – But a Hell of a Game
It was Super Bowl time again, and once again I had a hard time caring about either team who was playing. As a Cowboys fan, it’s really tough to root for the Giants. But I found myself doing so anyway because I dreaded the thought of hearing all of the ‘Greatest Team Ever’, “Tom Brady is God” and “19-0” b.s. for the next year. If the Patriots win (and it’s 7-3 with 6:13 left in the 3rd quarter now), it will be an endless repetition of how great they are. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a good team and one of the best to have played. But the best? Even without the cheating aspect, I don’t know that they could have held their own against the 49ers of the 80’s, the Cowboys, Dolphins or even Steelers of the 70’s head-to-head.
So, with limited vested interest in the game itself, that left the other half of Super Bowl Sunday – the ads. Sadly, they even more disappointing than last year. There were a few standouts, but most of them were the same boring stuff you see at any time of the year; more poignantly, there were some ads that were simply awful. I mean, the concept that they would spend this much money to put up the crap they showed is mind-boggling. My view (for what it’s worth):
The Good
- Coke – “Parade Balloons”: This is what I expected to see for the Super Bowl. Great concept and really well done.
- T-Mobile – “Charles Barkley”: Very funny, and a perfect play off of Barkley’s reputation (can you imagine him being needy?)
- Sobe LifeWater – “Thriller”: Very amusing – and much better than that stupid Geico gecko.
- Planters – “Unibrow”: This would have been higher, but that women was hard to look at. The wedgie at the end, though, was classic.
- Pepsi – “Justin Timberlake”: Funny commercial. He’s actually gained credit in my eyes since his SNL hosting gig.
- E-Trade – “Clown”: It was only okay until the closing line.
- Super Bowl – “Chester Pitts”: Simple but cool story – gotta love an oboe-playing lineman.
Crap!!! Patriots scored. 14-10 and just about 2 minutes to go. This might be over… but that leads right into…
The bad
- Sales Genie – either one: Absolutely dumb commercials, and moderately offensive. Using pandas with accents didn’t make it any better. Were they serious?
- Cars.com – either one: Continuing the trend of having two commercials that both suck, Cars.com was just missing it.
- Doritos – “Mouse”: Dumb, dumb, dumb. Not sure how an ad agency managed to sell this one.
- Toyota – “Badger”: Huh? Animals are standards at the Super Bowl, but … huh?
- CareerBuilder – “Heart”: What was this about? Your heart not being into your job? Dumb concept.
Woo-hoo! Giants score! Giants score! (FYI – you’ll never hear me say that out loud again).
Jay Alford (Penn Stater) just sacked Brady with 19 seconds… We Are State!
The tension is building – hell of a throw by Brady, but incomplete. 10 seconds.
GIANTS WIN! Heck of a game and the Giants deserved this win. Sorry, Tom – no perfect season for you; and we won’t have to hear about the ‘greatest team in history’.
Sorry I missed the game but sounds like it was a great one for sure! Thanks for sharing the details for us that don’t get FOX!
a co-worker just was explaining the Doritos commercial as being the best ad of the super bowl. sit on a jury of your peers sometime, you’ll see why there is such crap on TV or how W won the last two elections, people are for the most part, extremely dumb
I know – my ‘peers’ scare me quite often. After all, Bush got elected … twice.