Good, Bad and Strange at the Super Bowl

It's time to once again ignore the game itself and focus on the most important facet of the Super Bowl: the ads. This year presented a few hits, plenty of misses and an abundance of "what was that?" moments.

Return to Greatness
Let's start with the comeback kid of this year's bowl advertising: Doritos. You may remember their awful user generated effort from last year. This year they came out with two spots. The first was another gimmick, introducing Super Bowl viewers to the winner of an emerging artist contest. The reason this gambit succeeded is that the winning artist, Kina Grannis, is pretty good. But it was Dorito's second ad that made me laugh out loud. In it, a man baits a mousetrap with a Dorito and is then attacked by a giant mouse. Solid comedic gold.

Almost There
Two ads almost deserve to be inducted into the Super Bowl advertising hall of fame. In Bridgestone's second spot of the bowl, Bridgestone's tires enable a driver to avoid hitting a deer, Alice Cooper and then, after a moment of indecision on the part of the driver, Richard Simmons. In that moment of indecision, when I thought the driver would smash his car into Mr. Simmons, I was ready to stand up and cheer. But Bridgestone, or perhaps their agency, chickened out and swerved to avoid Richard along with the inevitable controversy that would ensue.

Budweiser's Clydesdale Training ad was an obvious parody of Rocky, and would have been epic if only the Clydesdale in question had ran up the steps of the Philadelphia courthouse. Without that, it was just OK.

What just Happened?
Several spots left me wondering what could have possibly convinced their parent companies that this was a good way to spend several million dollars. CareerBuilder.com's Follow Your Heart ad was definitely the winner in this category. Seeing an animated human heart rip itself out of a woman's chest and schlurp its way out of her office doesn't seem like the best way to build your brand, but it was certainly memorable.

The Funniest
It is a simple fact of life that if you are drinking soda and Will Ferrel comes on screen, you will snort that soda through your nose. Jackie Moon endorsing Bud Light was the funniest moment of the Super Bowl. If Bud Light doesn't put up billboards that say, "Bud Light, Refreshes the Palate and the Loins" and "Bud Light, Suck One" they've missed a golden opportunity. Sadly, the rest of the beermaker's offerings were disappointing.

Very Personal Favorites
There were two ads that I thought were brilliant, but I somehow doubt impacted the greater American audience. The first was Garmin's offering in which a very short Napoleon is able to navigate Paris with the help of his GPS device. The driving, the vehicle, and the conceit of Napoleon being short were brilliant, but how many football fans will be inspired by a short Frenchman to buy a GPS?

The second was Coke's ability to bring together James Carville and Bill Frist. Now, I'm a pretty hardcore political junkie, and it took me about half the commercial to remember who Bill Frist was. I loved the ad, but I'm afraid that the demographic of political junkies who love football might be a bit small for Coke's ad to have the impact they'd hope for. However, they made up for it in their other spot in which a giant Stewie baloon is defeated by Charlie Brown. Another personal favorite. I mean, Charlie Brown finally got something he wanted. And it was a Coke. Absolute brilliance.

The Best
My personal favorite of the game was Audi's introduction of their R8. I doubt there's anybody in the car world that doesn't respect Audi's engineering, but they're often cited for their lack of "soul". By suggesting that the new R8 cut the front off another luxury car and placed it in a wealthy man's bed, a'la The Godfather, Audi's perfectly imbued the model with "awesomeness". When it was over I wanted to stand up and cheer. What person with a beating heart and a spare $100K wouldn't want to buy one?

The Rest
To watch the rest of this year's ads, you can head over to Spike. And don't miss Seth Stevenson's insightful take on the subject.

From Airwaves to the Interweb

By Andrew

Part 1

Hayley’s article on ABC’s streaming video service got me thinking about the changing landscape of television. This thinking turned into an article far too long for a single post, so I’ll break it up into a series over the next couple weeks.

There once was a time when television viewers could imagine that they were connected with hundreds of thousands of other viewers watching the same show at the same time. This is no longer true. As the number of delivery options available to consumers expand, the market is segmented into viewers watching the show on cable, satellite, broadcast television, online streaming, digital downloads, and DVD box sets. While this expansion brings choice to consumers, it also represents a battle between the networks and their local affiliates. To the networks, all revenue is the same, and there are plenty of ways to glean that revenue. Local affiliates are limited to revenue they receive from local advertisers.

Let’s take NBC’s The Office as our example. I was watching an episode the other week and noticed Kevin using a shredder with “Staples” prominently displayed on its front. In typical Kevin fashion he was using it to shred a salad. While NBC doesn’t disclose the amount that Staples paid for that product placement, I’m sure it amounts to a significant source of revenue for the network. NBC will also receive revenue from the sales of DVD sets which include the episode, and receive a cut of paid-for ad-free downloads from places like the iTunes store. Essentially, the broader the market, the more opportunities NBC has to make money off of The Office.

Local affiliates are far more limited in their ad revenue. From that same Office episode, the only money local affiliates made was what they could charge local advertisers for ad spots during the show. Local affiliates don’t get any of the money from Staples’ product placement, or DVD sales, or iTunes Downloads. In addition, more people watching shows in alternative mediums means fewer people watching on the local affiliate’s station, making it harder to justify advertising costs to local advertisers. Local stations already have to deal with the segmentation of viewers between over the air broadcasts, satellite TV, and cable. Now, they’re also losing viewers to online streaming, DVD sales, and digital downloads.

This seems to paint a pretty grim picture for local broadcasters and advertisers. Is there any hope? Stay tuned to find out… [To be continued]

All the advertising "news" that's fit to blog

By Andrew
Trying to learn about the advertising world, but having trouble getting started? Fear not. I’ll share the few places that keep me coming back every day, along with my completely subjective ratings.

Advertising Age

Advertising Age is the US News of the advertising world. It covers all the big industry stories; which agency got which huge contract, how economic trends influence advertising, and all that sort of business. Just the facts, along with a healthy dose of bias towards its advertisers.

• Truth: 4/5
• Beauty: 1/5
• Humor: 1/5
• Innuendo: 2/5

Twenty Four

Twenty Four is an excellent print advertising blog. It posts several new print advertisements from the big design houses every day. It’s perfect if you’re looking for inspiration, or trying to see the craziness that design students are coming up with.

• Truth: 4/5
• Beauty: 5/5
• Humor: 2/5
• Innuendo: 3/5

Adrants
Adrants is an often sarcastic, sometimes insightful blog that covers developments in the advertising world. More of a gossipy New York Post than a Times. A good place to get the dirt on the industry.

• Truth: 3/5
• Beauty: 2/5
• Humor: 4/5
• Innuendo: 5/5

Copyranter
Copyranter is a bitter, caustic, irreverent, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny blog by a copywriter who lives in New York and purports to hate the industry.

• Truth: 3/5
• Beauty: 1/5
• Humor: 5/5
• Innuendo: 5/5

AdVerbatims
Concerned that people in advertising might be just as susceptible to moments of idiocy as the rest of the world? Realize your fears with quotes from AdVerbatims. Proof that sometimes, we just don’t make sense.

Where else can you find truths like “Their eagle soars more than our eagle”?

• Truth: 4/5
• Beauty: 3/5
• Humor: 5/5
• Innuendo: 3/5

NotCot.org
NotCot.org is a user-generated design site. Its unique layout visually presents a list of recently discovered design-related products. Plus, if you find something that’s missing, you can add it yourself.

• Truth: 3/5
• Beauty: 5/5
• Humor: 3/5
• Innuendo: 2/5

There are doubtless hundreds of other useful advertising and design sites, but these are the few I check every day. Feel free to comment in with any beauties I may have missed.