Super Bowl XLIV Commercials: A Review

Evaluating the quality of a commercial begins with identifying the goal of the commercial, which you can usually decipher simply by watching it. Goals can range from awareness building, brand development, special promotions, market comparisons, and sometimes segment targeting (i.e. fashioning your ad to address a particular audience who might relate to your product more than anyone else). Usually, television advertising is difficult to measure in effectiveness because few consumers pay attention to it, and all it can often do is remind the consumer of a brand by repetition or paint a picture of what a brand stands for. The Super Bowl is special, though, because many people watch the program more for the commercials than the game—it becomes part of their conversations at work the next day, and everyone wants to be able to share their opinions about the creativity and humor that they saw. In the case of Super Bowl XLIV with 100 million viewers (many of whom are expecting commercials to be exceptional in some way—funny, creative, moving, etc.), segment targeting is probably not a good idea. All other types of ads could still work, but with such a big audience, such a big price tag, and so much potential for the ad to live longer than just the 30 second spot during which it is aired, the goal of each ad should be, above all, to be memorable. You want your ad to be one that makes it into water cooler discussions at workplaces the next day, passed around on social networking sites, and discussed in humble little blogs like this one.

Overall, I saw a bunch of disappointing ads—really, missed opportunities. I saw a few mediocre attempts, and a few good ones. But I have to say that this year there weren’t any that I was really excited about. So while I was able to pick out my favorite ads, this is really relative to an overall mediocre field. And what I also see is there is a wide range in ads that most people liked—everyone I heard from picked out different ads that they liked, proving that there really is no stand-out winner this year. Below, I highlighted my top 5 ads, as well as some honorable mentions.

5. Coca-Cola--Mr. Burns is Broke
This was a good use of one of the longest-running and most popular television shows of all time in combination with one of the world's most recognizable brands. Everyone wants to see Mr. Burns lose his fortune, and Coke can heal problems by bringing people together.


4. Budweiser--The Bridge is Out
Harkens back to "Lassie" and other old-school folksy tales, this ad stays in the theme of Budweiser for keeping the party going and rallying together by the whole town creating a human bridge for a beer truck.


3. Doritos--Dog "Anti-Bark" Collar
Doritos have a reputation of putting out some very creative, funny ads, and they often make it into my favorite list. This year's Super Bowl featured a whopping four ads from Doritos, and while two of them did not land on my good side, I was definitely not disappointed with this cute and clever ad featuring a dog taking revenge with his "anti-bark" collar.


2. Doritos--Two House Rules
Short and sweet, this cute little boy sticks up for his mama and his Doritos by laying down the law for a gentleman paying a visit.


1. Google--A Search Love Story
This ad is not only heartwarming and cute, but it is spot-on for the image and reputation that Google maintains in pure simplicity and reliability for providing information on absolutely anything. It was also a departure from the usual Super Bowl ad that features men doing dumb things like walking around without pants or getting yelled at by their girlfriends. This ad was a standout for me.


Honorable mentions:
Snickers--Betty White Playing Football,
Hyundai--Brett Favre in 2020,
Audi--Green Police,
Coca-Cola--Africa Sleepwalk

Duds:

• GoDaddy in the past tried to push controversial raciness, which worked the first time because it drove traffic to its website. But this time, they pushed it too far, we've seen it before, and now it just looks dumb and cheesy.
• e*Trade--it is time to give up on the creepy talking babies. Really. Please.
• In the Denny's commercials--all three of them--I was so distracted by the annoying screaming that I didn't even get the message that they were giving out free breakfasts. Hey Denny's, next time you want to get our attention--less is more.
• Census, I was really rooting for you. You come along only once every ten years, and this was such a great opportunity to get a huge American audience ready to take part in one of the most important and useful studies there is, and that's what you came up with? I was still confused after I re-watched your commercial online. Such a disappointment.

Next year, I would like to see the year's biggest night of commercials step away from making men look stupid (read the Dockers and CareerBuilder ads with men sans pants, or FloTV showing a guy getting dragged around by his girlfriend, or Dodge showing men making promises to their women but drawing the line at their vehicle, etc... etc...), and challenge more real issues. Coca-cola and Doritos will always be around for something clever and funny. But I'd like to see clever paired with issues we can all relate to. The Google ad was the closest thing I saw this year, and the Tim Tebow ad for Focus on the Family had potential to do that (although fell a bit short). Lets see if we can move advertising beyond half-naked people and creepy babies to make a real, artistic, pushing-the-envelope, revolutionizing statement.