Welcome to Super Bowl XLIV on CBS.
MEN ARE FROM MARS (THE 15-YEAR-OLD’S VERSION OF THE RED PLANET) – this plays out either as sex sells (the objectification of women) or boys doing dumb things.
· GoDaddy does it with a contrived twist, submitting a homophobic spot to CBS, knowing its rejection would build buzz and drive traffic to the spot’s online presence and awareness of different spots on the broadcast. The rejected spot was a former football player who turns into a flaming entrepreneur using GoDaddy. Instead we get a spate of sexy and mindless spots like a couple of guys logging on to GoDaddy (on a web TV set up) to test some domain names to be greeted by a super hot clip from Danica Patrick, and, they get a different clip for each domain name they enter. Talk about immediate gratification. Other spots had lots of sexy, but boring women talking about how hot that other spot was and how you can see it online. It will probably work, but I don’t have to like it.
· Bridgestone Tires was pretty noticeable, sponsoring the half-time show (more on that later). In the first spot a car-full-o-guys with a whale in the hatchback race to deliver it to the water. At the end of a pier, the young guy driver pulls a half-donut maneuver that launches the whale safely into his natural habitat. Speaks to the product’s benefits, yes, but a little too much of “guys doing stupid things.” In another spot, a male driver would rather give up his wife rather than his tires (misogyny rules).
· Doritos crash casket was one of these. A supposedly dead guy is in his casket full of Doritos during his funeral. He’s munching away watching the game on a small monitor inside of the casket. He bursts out of the casket in exuberance and his buddy saves him by going to the front of the church and singing a redemptive tune as if a miracle of rebirth just occurred. Huh?
· There are other examples from Game XLIV, but they’re so boring and soulless, they’re not worth dignifying.
MEN ARE FROM VENUS, WOMEN ARE FROM MARS – Shakespeare did this best in “Macbeth” and “Taming of the Shrew.” But in this year’s myriad iterations, the men are completely emasculated, whipped by the women in their lives. Must be some kind of commentary on the current state of American men.
· Dockers’ first Super Bowl entry shows men in their skivvy’s traipsing around in fields ready to transform into enlightened men wearing pants…big surprise, Dockers. (N. B. CareerBuilders.com first spot directly followed this Dove spot showing people in their underwear in the workplace redefining casual Fridays, completely killing the surprise factor. Shame on CBS for not orchestrating the flow better.)
· Dove realigns its focus from women to men, also giving us a male coming-of-age story. This time showing a man fully evolved into using grooming products.
· Snickers, which is my favorite in this category, simply puts the cutest woman on television, Betty White, at the Kennedy compound playing football with the guys. Once she gets her candy fix, she transforms into the male fighting machine she can be. Three things make this work: Betty, her impossibly perfect baby blue and white sweater, and the slo-mo camera footage that gives us more time to look at the first two reasons, Betty and her sweater.
· FloTV, a new entry (which I’d never heard of and is also in the Gadgets category) has an ad with a guy shopping reluctantly, but obediently with his gal. He yearningly sees bits and pieces of The Game as he moves around the mall. FloTV shows us how mobile TV can help you bring the game with you.
· Bud Light's entry features a guy leaving the house while his lady is just starting her book club (probably ready to discuss a Jane Austen novel). When he sees they’re serving Bud Light, he’s instantly “in,” discussing the virtues of romantic love or some such thing. Would have been funnier two years ago when “Jane Austen Book Club” was in the theaters.
· Dodge Charger’s repressed guy can’t make any of his own decisions about what he wants to do in life. “She who must be obeyed” is always off screen, but omniscient. She owns his every decision except….what car he drives. The Charger is “Man’s Last Stand.”
VROOM VROOM – horsepower equals virility.
Of this year’s auto brands in the Super Bowl, most are foreign. That may speak to Americans’ decreased trust in Detroit (even though foreign and American are all the same car companies these days). As expected, lots of spots this year.
· Hyundai owned this category in terms of coverage. It sponsored the half-hour “Hyundai Kickoff Show” and had a strong presence throughout the game. The auto maker tried to establish its gravitas by touting stability control features, the love and care of the making in an Alabama plant, and dependability in a spot looking 10 years hence, juxtaposing Brett Favre 2010 as Super Bowl winner with the reassurance of the brand’s known reliability. My favorite was the simple Sonata spot using a play on words on classical musicians’ sonatas, while showing a Sonata being artfully dipped in a vat of paint, finally resolving to a card about its better paint quality than Mercedes’. Surprising theme, except that I recently learned that paint color is one of the top three criteria (features) for people making car decisions.
· VW also tapped the paint color theme and married it with childhood car games in “PunchDub.” It showed people of all types and ages in various situations, hitting their companion and saying “yellow one” when they saw a VW. The last example in the string was Stevie Wonder saying, “red one” and an incredulous Tracy Morgan asking how he did that. This spot used a unifying cultural meme to show its 13 models, not to mention their paint colors. A sweet, thoughtful ad.
· Others deserving special merit were Audi’s spoof on the pressure of living a green life monitored by the “Green Police” and Kia Sorento’s sock monkey and other toys coming to life. The forgettable car ads were Ford Fusion, Mitsubishi Lancer, Acura, Lexus RX, Honda Accord, and mostly Toyota, given all they have going on, they ran old unmemorable old ones. Did they pull some newer or better ones that would make them stand out?
DOGS AND BABIES ALWAYS SELL – A nod to the chicks (literally and figuratively) and the softer side of men.
· Budweiser’s Clydesdales are back and well they should be. Their fuzzy white fetlocks are enough to make you swoon. This year’s episode of the massive equines begins with a foal and a young calf running together along a fence. Three years later, the two big, male beasts (lots of horsepower here) are reunited. The spot resolves to the tagline, "Nothing comes between friends, especially fences." Kind of schmaltzy, but I love horses, so it wins.
· Denny’s was another big one in this area, with a string of spots that worked best if you saw the first one. A voiceover announces to a gaggle (?) of chickens that the Grand Slam Breakfast is coming soon, intimating that egg production must go up. The chickens usher out a primordial scream, which inevitably makes the corners of your mouth turn up. The subsequent spots throughout the game continue the spoof, showing chickens from all walks of life, even male ones with ties (don’t they know only the girl ones lay the eggs?) hearing about the egg-laden Denny special and joining the screaming chorus. I liked them. Funny and memorable.
· Doritos had an ad with a man on a bench taunting a dog with an anti-bark collar to “speak” if he wanted a Dorito. The dog then turns the table on the guy, putting the collar on the human and victoriously grabbing the bag of Doritos. My 5-year-old loved this one.
· E*Trade had several ads with babies talking to us from high chairs and from an airplane about…different stuff. I think it was meant to make the analogy between keeping your dating options open and having a diversified portfolio? The kids were adorable and I watched every moment to see if their body language tracked with the moving mouths. But I got nothing from the ads about the product or a call to action (to go to the site). An example of where the trickery gets in the way of the brand and its message.
· Diamond Foods switched out the concept and had a bunch of humans acting like trained dolphins in a water show, jumping for the reward of Emerald Nuts and Pop-Secret popcorn. Call this one "Stupid Human Tricks."
COME ON GET HAPPY – Food, drink and the Super Bowl equals love.
· Doritos “House Rules” example has the cutest little boy ever eating Doritos as a man arrives to take his mom on a date. As she goes to the next room to finish getting ready the boy delivers the house rules to the suitor, “Keep your hands off my Mamma; keep your hands off my Doritos.”
· Coke’s arrival is actually noteworthy in the context of the cola wars. This is the first time the Atlanta-based purveyor of sugared water has advertised in the Super Bowl without rival Pepsi being present. Pepsi owned the category for most of its 23 years, only going head-to-head with Coca-Cola for the past few. As for Coke’s three spots, the most memorable was the Homer Simpson spot featuring a billionaire who lost it all and gets down to the real world level at a park, is offered a Coke by a regular “Joe” and by association, happiness – all in the joyful town of Springfield.
· Snicker’s Betty White ad could be here also.
· Budweiser had a number of entries in this arena. The first was the house made of beer cans (which was close to belonging in the Men are From Mars category). The best one was the human bridge made by residents of a town whose only egress is that bridge. They come together, lay themselves upon each other to get the Budweiser truck across the broken bridge into town. There was a spoof on “Lost,” an invasion of asteroids that can't stop the party, a direct lift from the “Whassup” spots from years ago, and a spot for Select 55 looked like an afterthought. Overall, Budweiser’s Super Bowl presence was uneven in quality. And, the message was all over the place.
THE GADGET – what’s the coolest technology I absolutely need to know about?
· Google wins this one hands down. It’s a beautiful little narrative love story set to music, beginning with a man entering “study abroad” into the search window, thereafter entering various searches that speak to the evolution of his relationship with a Parisian woman, and ending with “how to assemble a crib.” This ad owned me every single second, made me smile, and reminded me of how great Goggle is.
· FloTV gets a nod for a grown up spot called “My Generation” showing the influence of TV on our lives. It’s selling the medium first and the device second. (The other spot in Men Are From Venus sells the device.) This ad is a bit reminiscent of last year’s Pepsi spot, “Forever Young,” which I simply adored.
· Motorola's ad for a handheld device plays on America’s celebrity obsession and teases the viewer with the possibility of Megan Fox taking a photo of herself in a bathtub and sending it out into the net. The spot shows the wacky possibilities if she did, but doesn’t get too raunchy.
· Cars.com was almost in Vroom Vroom, but on second thought, it was really about the gadgetry of the site. This was a solid spot about the guy who over-excelled at everything from childhood into adulthood. But when it came to buying a car he as out of smarts. So he goes to Cars.com and is replete with knowledge and confidence.
· Intel’s was a cute spot about tech geeks at lunch in a cafeteria talking about how brilliant of an innovation Intel was in front of a little robot invention of theirs whose feelings are immediately hurt. Hard product to sell; cute way to “humanize” it.
GET THE HELL OUT OF MY BIKER BAR – this is the spot (or interview) that simply doesn’t belong.
· Focus on the Family’s pro-life PSA is a clever play on an old theme of putting people where they don’t belong…like Betty White in the middle of a scrimmage. But this one is a non sequitur simply by its presence more than by its creative content. The spot uses Heisman Trophy Tim Tebow’s mom to imply what would not have happened if she’d had an abortion. And it has a bit of humor with him tackling her at the end. It’s a pretty good spot. But the real problem is not the spot itself, but that CBS rejected the “Man Crush” spot for a gay dating service, yet not this one. In the past they’ve rejected ads from Moveon.org and United Church of Christ based on political and advocacy reasons. They have that right to reject spots, but should apply those standards fairly. They should either take them all, first-come first serve OR have fully transparent criteria for what passes muster.
· Katie Couric’s interview with President Obama during the pre show. Huh? What was that doing there? I guess CBS's news guys wanted a piece of the action. Lots of eyeballs on it for sure, but it was just wrong. Like the guy from AT & T’s coverage ads says when his headless image walks around hitting walls. Again, CBS having trouble with flow and contextualization.
MY TURN – the entertainment industry’s chance to sell themselves.
· The best here was the unexpected pairing of Letterman and Leno (who was appropriately self deprecating), along with Oprah playing referee while they watched the Super Bowl. It sold “Late Show With David Letterman” and was a huge endorsement for Leno. This looked like a slight of hand, but was the real deal. It caught my attention.
· Then there were CBS’s ubiquitous ads for CSI, NCIS Survivor and the CBS News franchise. They were business as usual, but I was struck by how much better CBS is doing with hit shows these days. Remember when NBC ruled the networks?
· Katie Couric’s interview with President Obama during the pre show (see above). Still wrong.
· The Bridgestone Half-time Show was a complete debacle. I’m not sure whether Bridgestone owns this or CBS, but I’m going to put it at CBS’s doorstep. The Who? Who picked The Who? This was the most uncool, grueling performance I’ve ever seen at a Super Bowl half-time. The 12 minute medley was like living their 40 drug-hazed years minute by minute. Why not play three iconic songs that suit their aging voices? And then there was the light show, meant to divert our attention from the awful performance. The one moment that showed a hint of talent was the harmonica ditty. There’s simply no comparison to last year’s Springsteen presentation.
· The feature film ads all looked the same to me – all dungeons and dragons. These movies are perfect for the 15-year-old Men Are From Mars viewers. Not one I’d go to, except “Alice in Wonderland,” but then they don’t expect me to come. Then there was the Scorsese film, “Shutter Island.” Looks like signature Scorsese. I’ll see it on DVD.
Fun as it was to watch all of this, what was truly noteworthy is how slowly the old advertising stalwart — the 30-second spot – has entered the 21st century. The advertising industry has been notoriously slow in understanding the value of multi-platform media exposure and building participatory audiences.
This year finally, some 90% of Super Bowl advertisers are playing these spots before and after the SuperBowl and on another platform. Online, these spots garner some 100 million+ hits in the days after the Super Bowl. A few of these pre-game campaigns co-opt the “wisdom of the crowd” approach and encourage the audience to vote on what spots see the light of day (or night) during the Super Bowl. Last year’s game changer in this arena was the Doritos spot, created by two brothers from Batesville, Indiana, who won an online contest before the game. This year, Careerbuilder and Budweiser, among others, prompted viewers to go online during the game to vote on their favorite ads.
But there are significantly more opportunities for cross-channel or transmedia promotion than advertisers harness, not only online, but also to mobile devices. (What I call on air, online and on-the-go campaigns). Motorola Droid should have blown this one out of the bath water. They didn't. Neither did the movie spots. What about all of those beautiful online movie preview sites; they make those for what reason? From what I can tell, the best cross-channel integration and promotion was done by Google, E* Trade and Boost Mobile via it's "Shuffle" campaign.
It will be interesting to see what kind of audience engagement and interaction (logging online and to mobile devices, Tweeting, participating in chats and blogs etc.), burnishing of brand image, and ultimately purchasing the product or service these ads prompt. That’s the real measure of their success. Then you can truly determine the ROI of these multi-million dollar expenditures. Too often the ad agencies that create them care mostly about audience response to and awards for the creative itself.
In sum, in that arena there wasn’t too much breakthrough creativity in this year’s Super Bowl ads. Luckily, the parts of the TV event in between the commercials with the pigskin and endzone was pretty gripping.
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