Overall I thought it was a very average year for the Super Bowl commercials. I think this has a lot to do with the realization of ad agencies that smart, funny commercials work at any point in the year. Due to this, companies spend more on commercials throughout the year and as a result it makes it more difficult for Super Bowl commercials to separate themselves from the rest of the year. There used to be a huge difference in the quality of commercials during the Super Bowl and commercials you see on a random June night on NBC. It was almost like preseason vs. postseason in terms of quality of play. Now, it’s the post season year round. Without further ado, here are my thoughts on every commercial that aired during the Super Bowl and my rankings of the 3 best and the 3 worst.
Best Commercials
n These are the commercials that at the very least made me consider actually laughing. Sometimes I actually followed through with a chuckle to a hearty laugh. Some got the groan and some just a disgusted shake of the head. Either way, at least they didn’t completely suck.
Bud Light – Breathe Fire. This was the 1st commercial and it was a decent start. Wasn’t there a fast food commercial recently with a guy inadvertently setting the place on fire because of the hot food? Still, it made me chuckle.
Diet Pepsi Max – Buck/Aikman. Everyone was falling asleep in this commercial and I was envious. If I could have fallen asleep for the 60 seconds of airtime, I would have loved that. Just not very funny.
Bud Light – Wine and Cheese Party Beer Smuggling. Standard fare beer commercial. Not Super Bowl worthy but Bud Light isn’t going to knock it out of the park on every commercial.
Under Armor – A Name that Athlete Commercial, which is always fun; Oh, look there’s Vernon Davis. Vernon Davis has made a bigger impact on Under Armor than he has for the 49ers. If he they ever create a position on a football team that would enable the player to stand on the sideline in Under Armor gear, Davis would be an All Pro. He’s the offensive Mike Mamula. I was really hoping that commercial would have ended in “We must protect this house!”; that would have got me all fired up.
Bridgestone – Guy avoiding hitting a squirrel and rest of forest creatures are reacting; I believe this commercial is negated with some insight from George Constanza: “Squirrels? We got no deal with them!”
CarMax – Shipping the Ships. Pretty funny spot, especially using ‘ship’ in place of an expletive. That’s always a fan favorite.
FedEx – Carrier Pigeons gone awry. Pigeons seem to be making a comeback after this commercial follows on the heels of the 5 page Sports Illustrated article about pigeons. Nothing can stop the pigeons from taking over now.
Cars.com – Ring of Fire wrestling match. Solid showing by cars.com. If you are going to be selling used cars, might as well have people laugh at it to distract them from how painful it actually is to buy a used car.
Tide – Talking stain on shirt. Favorite commercial of the night. I don’t know why but I laughed the loudest at this commercial. It had the best payoff of the night after not knowing what was going on through most of the commercial. Plus, the guy who was wearing the stained shirt was the strangest looking dude I’ve seen in awhile.
Budweiser – Dalmatian training Clydesdale a la Rocky. Clever installment in the Clydesdale Budweiser series. Here’s how bad it has gotten for me though. I was immediately skeptical that the horse had used HGH. We’ll never know, there’s no test! That horse will live in suspicion for the rest of its life.
Toyota Corolla – Sleeping badgers. The funniest car commercial of the night and the closest to being effective. I would be interested in a car that is very quiet inside but probably not one that helps me avoid hitting a squirrel or one that apparently murders other cars, like an Audi.
Planters cashews – Perfume for ugly girl. Why did the ugly girl have to have red hair? This is a perfect example of the kind of treatment redheads have to deal with on a daily basis. The biggest victory redheads have had recently was when the lead character for the ABC show Ugly Betty was not a redhead. We still have much work to do however.
T Mobile – Barkley/Wade. Next installment in this ad campaign. I always enjoy the Barkley/Wade commercials and this one actually seemed like it was possible. I could imagine Barkley bugging Wade constantly. Only problem with this commercial is that even though it was the Super Bowl, there was probably a decent amount of viewers who didn’t know who Dwyane Wade was.
Pepsi – Justin Timberlake. Mildly amusing but more annoying than amusing. No matter how hard he tries, Justin Timberlake will never be forgiven for being a part of N’Sync. And because of that, he will always be annoying.
Doritos – Mouse Trap with Doritos. Giant mouse pummeling the guy was solid at the very end. I was still miffed at Doritos for having a musical act in their first commercial
Cars.com – Witch Doctor as Plan B. Again, solid showing for cars.com. Nothing out of the ordinary just solid all around. A Shane Battier performance, if you will.
Vitamin Water – Shaq as a jockey. It’s actually more believable today that Shaq is a jockey than an actual NBA player worthy of being featured in a Super Bowl campaign.
Bud Light – Caveman inventions. We’ve seen the caveman spoof a few too many times but still worth a chuckle.
Bridgestone – Avoiding hitting Richard Simmons. Is it bad that it would have been a better commercial if Richard Simmons would have actually been hit?
E-Trade – Talking baby with vomit at end. If you are going to do a talking baby who sounds like an adult, this is the way to do it. But again, we’ve seen this gimmick before.
Bud Light – Makes you fly. Guy sucked into airplane after being able to fly. Believing a beer can make you fly is okay but believing a man could survive being sucked into a 757’s engine is where I draw the line of believability.
Jack In the Box – Jack in hot tub. I immediately liked it because I’m on board with everything Jack does. A Jack sandwich? They nailed it with the other couple, they were just gross. Interestingly enough, it was the second commercial of the night that joked about making a sandwich with 2 other people, other being the Bud Light Carlos Mencia commercial.
Coke - Stewie and Underdog. Stewie and Underdog parade balloons battle it out for bottle of Coke balloon, only to lose to Charlie Brown. I’m a sucker for nostalgia so I was fired up to see Charlie Brown and Underdog.
Coke – Carville and Frist becoming buddies. It’s hard to look at the screen when James Carville is on it. He is just a frightening looking dude.
E Trade – Talking baby #2. Hiring a clown and then commenting on his creepiness was good stuff. Definitely the better of the 2 E trade talking baby commercials.
Gatorade – Man’s best friend commercial with dog lapping up water. I liked it, I’m a sucker for dog commercials.
Bud Light – Will Ferrell as Jackie Moon. It doesn’t bother me that all of his characters are the same. It still works. Jackie Moon is Ron Burgundy sans moustache and on his lunch break playing basketball at the Y.
3 Best Commercials
1. Tide Stainstick
2. Bud Light – Will Ferrell as Jackie Moon
3. Coke – Underdog/Stewie/Charlie Brown
Movie Previews
n If the SuperBowl is any indication of the kind of movies we can expect over the next year, you better stock up on DVD’s. Uninspiring.
Wanted – Seriously, this movie looks like it’s for people that have a disturbing fascination with guns. And Angelina Jolie. Let’s just hope its Angelina Jolie.
Iron Man – Robert Downey Jr. as a comic book hero? I don’t think so. Plus the comic book adaptation to movie just doesn’t work well anymore.
Leather Heads - This is an HBO movie. I would not go to the theatre or rent it but would probably check it out on HBO when I’m completely bored.
Chronicles of Narnia – I didn’t see the first one and won’t see this one. I credit the Chronicles of Narnia of curing me of my fantasy book curiosity in elementary school. I read them and didn’t particularly enjoy them and then I realized I didn’t like fiction fantasy books. And my life has been better off ever since that revelation.
Wall E – I wonder how much Hanks and Allen got to do that commercial, reprising their voice work for Buzz and Woody? I’d guess at least a million or two. What’s this movie about? Are the Toy Story characters in it? What did that robot just do with the vacuum cleaner? Is that the robot from Short Circuit? I could go on for 10 minutes.
Jumper - This movie looks terrible. I don’t know how else to put it.
Zohan - First comedy of Adam Sandler’s that actually looks like he’s not mailing it in since The Wedding Singer. Look at his imdb page. Click? Little Nicky? The Longest Yard? All terrible. This could be decent and it was probably the best movie preview of the night.
Worst Commericals
n These are the commercials that represent the biggest waste of money. And I don’t believe that if you make a bad commercial people talk about it and that represents a good return in your Super Bowl investment. Bad is bad.
Audi – Old man waking up with car grill in bed. A Godfather rip off for a car company is a terrible idea. Why am I creeped out by this commercial? Why would this make me want to buy an Audi?
SalesGenie – animated spot. Winner for least return on investment and company most likely to not be around for next years Super Bowl. This commercial feels like it should be playing on the 12 AM – 4 AM schedule on Spike TV between ring tone commercials and dating hotlines, not the SuperBowl.
Doritos – Contest winner singing a song. I completely forget her name because guitar playing singers are a dime a dozen. And why does Doritos care about featuring young musicians? What possible connection is there to ridiculously unhealthy but delicious chips? By the way did you know in Japan they have Honey Butter – flavored Doritos.
Godaddy.com – Danica Patrick. I’m shocked she doesn’t get the same respect as other drivers. Godaddy.com’s entire existence is based on Super Bowl commercials. It begs the question, would the company exist without the Super Bowl? And is the whole meaning of the Super Bowl directly related to the existence of godaddy.com? Chew on that for, oh 3 seconds.
Dell – Buy Dell, go Red. Odd commercial, the first one that left me confused. Go Communist? Why is Dell supporting Communism?
Garmin – Napoleon. Bad commercial. One of the worst. The whole car chase buildup, winding through obviously more modern European streets, leading to Napoleon getting out was just ill conceived. I’m more concerned that there may be people out there that actually don’t know that Napoleon didn’t exist at the same time as the automobile.
Careerbuilder.com – Heart jumping out of lady’s chest and into boss’s office. Tasteless commercial, I really didn’t like this one. Worst commercial of the night. Someone is losing their job over this one because the response is going to be overwhelming negative. Careerbuilder.com may be the only thing that was an even bigger loser than the Patriots in this year’s Super Bowl.
Sobe – Lizards dancing to thriller with Naomi Campbell. Again, who cares about Naomi Campbell. Isn’t she a terrible person who beats up all of her assistants? Why is hiring her any better than employing PacMan Jones?
Bud Light – Carlos Mencia. As soon as Carlos Mencia comes on my screen, I get negative. He’s awful.
Sales Genie – Animated panda’s. Again, worst commercials. Thank you for reminding me of how much money you wasted Sales Genie. Does your product sell tips on how to completely mis-sell products? If so, that would be ironic.
Taco Bell – Fiesta Platters – Doesn’t work in Tucson. If you are going to Taco Bell, there’s something wrong with you.
Careerbuilder.com – Firefly being swallowed by spider. Just not a good showing for careerbuilder. Might want to stop talking for awhile, careebuilders.com.
Icebreakers – Carmen Electra. When are we going to get new models and actresses for commercials? Carmen Electra and Naomi Campbell? I wouldn’t want to touch ANYTHING that Carmen Electra uses or has used. What’s next? Cindy Crawford and Christie Brinkley?
AMP – Fat guy dancing, jumper cables on nipple clamps. Bad commercial. Nothing more to say about that.
American Idol – Big Ben singing. This is going to come back and haunt Ben Roethlisberger. I would play this after every incompletion at any stadium he was playing at next year and just have the whole stadium laugh at him. How embarrassing.
3 Worst Commercials
1. Sales Genie
2. Careerbuilder.com
3. Garmin
Harmless Commercials
n These are the commercials that barely registered a reaction. They are also the category of commercials for companies that spend exorbitant amounts of money on Super Bowl airtime but refuse to actually produce a Super Bowl quality commercial. I don’t understand that at all. Why not take the 2+ million dollars and just run these commercials many more times during less expensive programming?
G2 – Derek Jeter. Enough to get my juices flowing for baseball season. Less than a month!
GMC - Hybrid. Premise of the commercial was that no one ever thought it was possible to have hybrid vehicles. Actually, most people have believed for years that hybrids were completely possible and the disbelief comes in how long its taken to actually get them.
Anti Drug commercial - Started out with guy as a drug dealer and I was expecting it to be something funny, turns out its an anti-drug commercial. There’s still something funny about that.
Hyundai – The fact that Jeff Daniels does the voiceover for the Hyundai commercials is great. It would be even better if he did them as the Dude from Big Lebowski.
NFL Ad – Chester Pitts and Ephraim Salaam. Actually a really cool story and about 100 times better than any commercial that could have potentially starred Michael Strahan.
Sunsilk – Marilyn Monroe, Shakira and Madonna. Why is the image of Marilyn Monroe being used to sell shampoo today? It that a posthumous endorsement? It was an odd trio of spokeswomen.
Toyota Sequoia – Downhill power wheel racing. Looked fun, but not sure how big of a demographic the downhill power wheel racing people are.
Hyundai – Mentioning the USA Today ad meter – Don’t worry Hyundai, noboby actually cares enough about your commercials this year to rate them. Except me, apparently.
Victoria’s Secret - Standard.
Dodge Charger – Design Center. Harmless but at the same time why would you spend this much on a Super Bowl commercial that no one will ever remember?