A Sports Fan Paying Attention to the Commercials
As I wrote last week, I really didn’t have a big interest in watching the Superbowl. I was more interested in the commercials to begin with (more on this in a bit). I’m not afraid to admit I was among the masses who figured this to be an early ’90s blowout (besides in 1991 when the Bills’ Scott Norwood missed wide right in Superbowl XXV).
The Giants weren’t supposed to have much of a chance against the dynamic record setting offense of Tom Brady, Wes Walker, and Randy Moss; the veteran defense led by Tedy Bruschi, Junior Seau, and Rodney Harrison; and the genius/cheating of Bill Belichick and his film crew.
I was hoping the Giants would win, not because I like the Giants or anything (being from the South, I’m an anti -New York sports fan), but because I do happen to admire Michael Strahan. The man has a huge gap between his teeth, and I can respect any celebrity unconcerned enough about their personal appearance that he/she doesn’t care to fix a dental problem.
So like I stated, I began watching the Superbowl like the majority of America…not for the football but just for the commercials. With this as my purpose, I decided to give a 1-5 rating(with 5 being a hilarious top-notch commercial that represents the product well and 1 being a “Why the hell’d they waste that much money?”) to each commercial from a sports fan’s perspective. I also got everyone at the small Superbowl party I attended to give their sports fan rating for each individual commercial.
There were 70 or so commercials, excluding the NFL and FOX’s own self-promotions. Listed below are the top and bottom 5 rated commercials from the Superbowl (based on the average rating):
Top 5 Overall:
5.00 - FedEx Carrier Pigeon: FedEx definitely has a hit with their carrier pigeons. The only commercial to get solid 5s from our sports fan review made everyone laugh and got multiple laughs from all but one person in the room. Add in the subtle humor at the end when the guy pulls out his key to turn off the car alarm makes this the unanimous #1 Superbowl commercial.
4.67 - Diet Pepsi Max: With “What Is Love?” playing, everyone is nodding off without their Diet Pepsi Max. When you first see Troy Aikman and Joe “I’m Nowhere Close to the Level of My Dad” Buck, you have no clue what is going on and suddenly Buck breaks into the headnod leading off the headnod montage, which is where this commercial gets its high ratings from.
4.50 - Wall-E: How can you not like a Disney/Pixar movie? The duo hasn’t failed yet, Wall-E definitely looks like it’ll be another hit.
4.33 - Bridgestone Tires Screaming: I first thought this commercial was going to be a spoof of the commercial where the squirrels are purposely causing cars to swerve and wreck, but Bridgestone has good product placement and relating the product to the commercial. Everyone is scared for the squirrels safety, but the male driver knows about his Bridgestones…doesn’t hurt that he has a high-end luxury car, either.
4.33 - E-Trade Baby: When a baby throws up, it usually isn’t funny (unless it’s on a girlfriend or something), but E-Trade does a good job of showcasing their product, and then they get to the humor, which also works well to show how easy it is to use their product (even someone who can’t control their own puke can still use E-Trade).
The Bombers (Bottom 5):
1.33 - Salesgenie.com: Salesgenie.com bombed twice in my opinion. Their second commercial doesn’t make the bottom five, but it was nearly racist and quite dumb as well. Their first commercial is racist and also dumb. I know it’s generally tough for web sites to put the big-time money together for a primetime commercial, but I’m curious if Salesgenie may have purposely made awful commercials knowing they would get discussed and remembered more for having the worst commercial rather than if they had an average Superbowl ad.
1.50 - GMC Hybrid ‘Never Say Never’: This commercial would have been fine if it was just hoping to inspire, but having an inspirational/personal motivation commercial doesn’t necessarily sell cars. This was the worst of the automotive commercials because it was long and had little relation to the product. On the other end of the spectrum, positive honorable mention goes to the Hyundai Genesis and the Audi R8 commercials. Both were top of the line automotive commercials that had me intrigued by the vehicles even though I have a fairly new car.
1.50 - Gatorade Dog Commercial: Simply put, this commercial sucks. It had several people turning their heads to someone near and uttering ‘I don’t get it.’
1.75 - GoDaddy Danica Patrick ‘Exposure’: Basically, GoDaddy is known for their nearly-obscene commercials with scantily clad women, which I have no problem with. I believe the ‘Exposure’ commercial on their web site is one that was originally rejected by the Superbowl commercial people, so GoDaddy combined and tried to get the best of both worlds…had people watch their rejected commercial and have people visit their site. I applaud the effort, but the commercial that is supposed to intrigue the Superbowl viewer enough to visit godaddy.com isn’t very intriguing.
2.00 - CareerBuilder.com ‘Follow Your Heart’: There were several commercials that rated out around 2.00 including IdeaCast.com, Garmin’s Napolean commercial, and Vitamin Water’s spot with Shaq as a jockey, but CareerBuilder.com’s commercial was just gross. My first thought watching the commercial was that the woman’s implant had exploded out of her chest. Alas, it was just a beating heart. Yea, really weird. Interesting idea…good slogan…doesn’t work. A picketing beating heart is a no-go for me.
To view all of the commercials, check out www.myspace.com/superbowlads.
Shotgun Spratling
| 2.5 |
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