Super Bowl Commercials

Those of you who know how into advertising I am are probably wondering why I haven't talked about any of the commercials from the Super Bowl yet. The biggest reason is that none of the ones that I saw were OMG good. There were a couple that I really liked--The trailer for Independence Day 2 was fun and I also liked the ad where the dad was trailing his daughter and her date wherever they went, but other than that? Meh.

And then there were the two that I really didn't like: The Doritos baby ultrasound ad was gross, but the worst beyond all doubt? That puppy monkey baby thing. WTF?

I'm sure the Mountain Dew executives were thrilled the next day because they were trending on Facebook and Twitter. I'm also certain that they didn't care that the vast majority of the response was extremely negative--any buzz is good buzz--but I believe that they are wrong.

Do I remember the name of the product? Surprisingly, yes I do. Win! say the Mountain Dew ad team. Not quite, say I. You see, that commercial was the weirdest thing I can remember seeing and very, very high on the disgusting meter. My reaction to that ad is so negative that I also have an extremely negative opinion of the product it was pushing. When I see that drink in the store, I can guarantee that some part of me will physically recoil. Judging by the strength of the negative reactions I saw online, I don't think I'll be the only one.

I could be wrong, but there's a line between making a bizarre commercial that people are talking about and making one that people are all talking about, but that is so repellent that it hurts the product. I believe that the Kick Start ad falls into the latter category.

My Super Bowl Top Three Ads

I was an advertising major in college and one of my favorite things about the Super Bowl is the commercials. This year had an odd selection of ads. I thought a lot of them were strange with a juxtaposition of action that seemed to have nothing to do with the product.

For example, The Chobani commercial with the bear in the general store. How does this say yogurt? Or the ad for the Maserati. It was a cool ad, don't get me wrong. I loved the visuals, the little girl, and the voice over, but I thought the ad was for some post apocalyptic movie or something. Nothing about it said car to me.

There were a lot of ads like that all throughout the Super Bowl. It's like most of the advertisers decided to film stuff that was cool and just tack their product on at the end, whether it fit logically with the images or not.

So which ads did I like? I'll post my top 3.

The best ad of the night for me was Radio Shack. I loved the humor and the fact that it was just plain fun! See how many 80s references you can spot.

I had a hard time picking for second and third place. These two ads could go in either order, but I ultimately decided on the Budweiser commercial with the puppy as the second best ad of the Super Bowl. Cute animals. What can I say?

The third place commercial--which easily could be my second favorite--is for Cheerios. The little girl is adorable and she gets a puppy out of the deal. :-)