Super Bowl Ads in Review: Top 5 of 2011

Once again, we're shown that marketeers and the general public have, shall we say, slightly different takes on the Super Bowl commercials.  USAToday's AdMeter* put BudLight's lame dog-sitting party spot at #1.  Go watch it if you want to.  Dogs walk upright and serve beers... Whatevs. Tied at #1 was the cute but predictable spot for Doritos with the pug and a glass patio door.  Neither ranked well with the experts.

Conversely, the big winner last night has to be Volkswagen.  Not only did it score right behind the two dog spots in USAToday, it was the first SB ad I saw leaked on the Facebook, which tells you it was going viral even before it aired... a great sign.  And after it aired during the game, the twitterverse went wild with positive remarks.  And it scored very well with the experts.  

While the buzz the Super Bowl ads create is on a slightly bigger budget than my clients can typically reach, here's my top five. 

#5  E*Trade Baby.  Sorry, I'm not even close to sick of this concept.  They're just funny.   



#4  Verizon iPhone 



#3  NFL: "American Family" Grey Group

#2  Chrysler: "Born of Fire"  Wieden & Kennedy/Universal McCann

BTW, this work of art is rated at #44 on USAToday's AdMeter.  Unbelievable.   Obviously that's because there were no monkeys, dogs, or people getting hit in the face and/or crotch. 

#1  Volkswagen Passat Mini-Vader



I also note that this is far and away the most popular of the YouTube, with 16 million views and counting.  What's fanny is that this ad completely obscured another VW ad that was nearly as good, the Black Betty Beetle.  VW FTW! 

*USA TODAY assembled 282 adult volunteers in Bakersfield, Calif., and McLean, Va., and electronically charted their second-by-second reactions to ads during the Super Bowl. Shugoll Research and Trotta Associates chose the volunteers, who used handheld meters to register how much they liked each ad. A computer continuously averaged the scores. Scores are the highest average for each ad.

 So that's my Top 5.  What's yours?  

Live Blogging the Super Bowl Ads

Snickers with Betty White and Abe Vigoda playing football and getting tackled into the mud?  = Win!

"Holy crap I want a Hyundai" -- The Boy.  "I don't think that's ever been said before."  -- The Mom. 

Tebow ad -- that was it?  That was the big deal?  It was so uncontroversial I almost missed it. 

Boost Mobile - Super Bowl Shuffle redux. - LOLs from the 42 and 31 yr olds. Kids clueless. 

Doritos dog collar - kids laughing.  Melanie "Yawn, we've seen this commercial for a week."

Robin Hood trailer -- Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe?  This aint no Kevin Costner movie.  "I wanna see it!" -- The Boy.

Doritos - "hands off my mom, hands off my doritos."  kids laughing again

Bud Light meteor - yawn

NCIS head slaps getting laughs.

Simpsons commercial... Eventually gives itself away as a Coke ad, much to the delight of the room.  (Interesting take on the zeitgeist with Burns going broke, BTW.)

GoDaddy's yearly tantalizing ad... not so tantalizing.  Danica is Danica, though, so that's good. 

Doritos - Melanie tells me this yet another "user-generated" ad... It's a miracle?  Yes, it's a miracle they've got any money left as this is their 3rd commercial and we're not even out of the first quarter yet.  She also tells me Portsmouth-local filmmaker Lars Trodson submitted one... I'll have to check that out. 

Bud Light - T-Pain - certainly different. 

Monster.com  - Fiddle-playing beaver?  That's a win. 

Bridgestone - killer whale "Now that was a bachelor party!"   Pretty good.

BTW, I'm also watching the Wall Street Journal's live blog: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/02/07/super-bowl-2010-live-blogging-the-ads-and-the-music/

Joe Montana for Skechers Shape-ups... meh.  And I love both Skechers and Joe!

Cars.com - heroic everyman still nervous about buying a car... Great production values... Excellent extension of the long-running ad theme.

Budweiser "bridge out" -- interesting and entertaining, but still not up to what budweiser commercials used to be. "We used to wait for the Budweiser ads."

Mark Sanchez women's heart health ad:  Melanie "Good I guess."

Letterman/Oprah/Leno - LOVE IT!

CareerBuilder.com - Giving new meaning to "Casual Fridays."  Outstanding ad. 
 
Dockers - "I wear no pants!"  OK, what are the odds of two pantless-theme ads running back to back?  Melanie: "I wonder if Dockers is pissed their ad ran right after CareerBuilder's, which was better?" 

Bret Favre in 2020 - Another great Hyundai Sonata ad.  Hyundai has really come to play today. 

Bud Light "Lost" -  Melanie: "That's their best one so far."  "That's not saying much."

Dove Men - "Be comfortable in your own skin" -- Hmm... I think I liked it.  Melanie liked it, too.  But she's not a man.

Dodge Charger - Mans Last Stand.  Can I get a Hell ya?  HELL YA!  Very impressive effort from Dodge.

Teleflora - flowers in a box.  Ummm... What?  Who cares, I'm still buzzin' off that Dodge commercial!

Kiss - Dr. Pepper -  The "little kiss" part makes no sense to me.  But it is Gene Simmons and the gang, so that's good.  I mean, c'mon, it's KISS! 

Punxsutawney Polamalu  -  Got LOL from Melanie.  I don't get it.  And what's with the midget Kiss followed by midget football player?  Did CBS actually put these back to back on purpose, like the no-pants thing?  Weird. 

Flo TV -  That gets a whistle and a wow out of me!  Melanie LOL'd at the spine-removal joke.  "Mmmm lavender." 

Intel - Robot gets insulted by the praise heaped on the new core processor.  Very cute.

Flo TV - My Generation "where were you, where will you be?"  This. Is. Fabulous.  Touchdown!  This is a brilliant ad, tying the half-time performers with a montage of great moments in history.  This beautifully demonstrates the 'value' of the Flo TV, beyond the simple wow-factor of live-TV streaming to your pocket.  Melanie, never one to shy away from hyperbole, says "This is my pick for best commercial EVER, and also best of the Super Bowl."  I don't know about THAT, but it's five stars for sure.  

MetroPCS - Indian call-in show.  LOLs from both of us.  "You will be milked at regular intervals!"


VW Punch Dub -- Fantastic and star-studded!  How does Stevie Wonder do it???

Free Grand Slam Breakfast from Denny's is back!  YAY!

Homeaway.com -- Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo reprise their roles from National Lampoon's Vacation, with hilarious results.  Special cameo by the Family Truckster, resplendent in wood grain, was a great touch. 

Bridgestone - Sorry, they're just not bringing it this year. 

KGB text service - LOL moment there.  Probably better than the one they were going to run but didn't.

Coca-Cola - Sleepwalking man on safari.  Great production values, but they probably should've quit while they were ahead with the Simpsons ad.

E*Trade - New baby, same great results.  Outstanding as usual.

Census - Snapshot of America - That's a nice tagline for the Census.  Commercial itself was pretty good, too.  Melanie thought it was "confusing but mildly amusing."

Google ad -- I thought it was pretty awesome, Melanie said it wasn't really doing it for her.  I think it is effective in that it simply demonstrates how pervasive and integrated Google is in our lives. 

Kia - Sock Monkey and friends.  Robot doing the robot!  Excellent.

Bud Select 55 - Using ELO song Don't Bring Me Down means that's an automatic win in my book.

Acura ZDX - This one was on earlier, but I didn't comment on it.  Gorgeous French-looking woman watches Acura go by.  This must be the Acura upgrade of the new Honda Crosstour that looks so good.
Vizio Internet Apps - Impressive production.  Love David at the Dentist making a cameo. 

Pop Secret + Emerald.  They said it's awesome + awesome = awesomer.  Uh, where's my does not equal sign on this keyboard???

My worthy counterparts at WSJ are waning.  "I have to admit I’m starting to lose the will to live. One spot is seeming to merge into another at the moment. And I’m looking out for them."  LOL!  Personally I feel better now than I did at the beginning, when I felt I couldn't keep up with the pace.  Now the game has settled in and so have I.

Dante's Inferno - Neat looking video game with awesome fx and Bill Withers layin down the "Ain't No Sunshine." Nice!

Budweiser - Clydesdale makes friends with calf.  Sweet, touching spot with a message "Nothing comes between friends."  Melanie: "FINALLY, Budweiser shows up!  Loved it and made it made me cry a little!" For me, however, I was confused.... didn't they do this ad before?  Maybe last year?  Seemed like deja vu to me, which I guess isn't all bad. 
 
Honda Crosstour -- Love the car, love the squirrel, but most importantly, I love how it looks so different from everything else.  Very cool, very distinctive animation. 

NCIS -- This baffles me.  Why does CBS feel the need to fill this space, this super valuable TV real estate, promoting their #1 show?  I mean, if I'm not watching NCIS by now (and I'm not) then what is their point?  93 million viewers?  How many more do they need?

Audi Clean Diesel - "Green Police" spoofing Cheap Trick's Dream Police.  Outstanding.  Nice car, too.

Taco Bell -- Charles Barkley does some... thing.  Like a rap, spoken word poem... This is not good. Melanie: "Charles Barkley should stop doing things of any kind."

Doritos - at the gym.  Another bizarre entry.  Got a chuckle out of Melanie but I'm as baffled now as i was 4 Doritos commercials ago.

Bud Light - bookclub.  Guy crashes the gal's bookclub.  I like it.

Hyundai Sonata - "Think about it."  I think a lot of people who had never considered Hyundai before... are. 

E*Trade - This 2nd entry not feeling it so much.  They introduced girl babies earlier... Why not go back to them now and build on it. 

Denny's - screaming chickens making many appearances here toward the end.  We'll allow it.

{SAINTS WIN!}

E*Trade - Babies on a plane.  Very good variation on the theme.  You know these fourth-quarter ad-buyers are sweating it out, hoping for a close game.  And they got one.

I'm going to wrap it up here and wait for the so-called experts to deconstruct some of these ads.

Go here http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2010admeter.htm if you want to review and rate the ads.

Crowdsourcing + Cause Marketing = Next Big Thing?

Coke is still it, still the real thing, and still the market leader.  But that pesky Pepsi is really innovating with their marketing lately.  I recently saw the TV ad for the retro Pepsi Throwback product.  You know, the "new" soda that eschews high-fructose corn syrup sweetener for real actual sugar.  Take a look:



The throwback beverage in and of itself is brilliant, given the well-deserved beating HFCS is getting these days.  And although we've seen the retro football theme before (e.g., Gatorade, Coors Light), and despite the fact that Pepsi has already played Dylan's "Forever Young" (with Will.i.am) to good effect in other commercials, the ad is effective in its execution.  So bully for Pepsi.  

In fact, the ad above is a perfect fit for next week's Super Bowl, right?

Hold on to your helmet there, sport!  This morning I see Demi Moore (who at 47, looks impossibly good) on MSNBC telling us that Pepsi will not (repeat NOT) be advertising during the Super Bowl.  Instead, PepsiCo, which reportedly dropped $33 mil last year on the big game and had advertised there for the past 23 years, will spend $20 mil on an ongoing philanthropic campaign called Refresh Everything. 

This, ladies and gents, is another great example in cause marketing.  Why would Pepsi choose to punt on the Super Bowl in favor of cause marketing? 

• Long-term impact.  In this case, trading a 30-second ad or two for a months-long campaign.
• Good will.  Any time a big corporation "gives back," it adds to its brand equity.
• Interactivity.  Allowing customers to vote online engages them and leverages social media.

Of course, Refresh Everything is on Facebook, Twitter, and there's an iPhone app, as is de rigueur. 

Another highly visible example of cause marketing is the Chase Community Giving Project on Facebook, where fans can vote cash (totaling $5 mil) to their favorite charities.  Closer to home here, Irving Oil recently ran its "New England Neighbor" campaign where customers could nominate local non-profits to receive grants.  But let's give credit where credit is due.  Stoneyfield Farms, a New Hampshire company, was doing this back as early as 2004!  They pick three non-profits, then let yogurt-eaters "bid with their lids" on which should win a grant from the delectable diary company.

All these are variations on a theme of crowdsourcing, i.e., letting the collective wisdom of the masses direct your initiatives.

So combine the feel-good philanthropy of cause marketing with Web 2.0-ready "Ask the Audience" style crowdsourcing, and you could have the beginnings of a major sea change in marketing over the long term.