Final Fantasy... Finally

As the title alludes to, I changed my mind. In my last post I mentioned that I missed my one week grace period to jump into the superbowl commercial talk... but hey, people missed their grace periods all the time... I think. Matter of fact, being the last one into the game might just make this post more relevant then all 5000 weblogs, podcasts, and articles that came out the day after the Superbowl. So here we are, my thoughts on the Superbowl Ads of 2010.

My Top 5 Favorite Ads (While Watching Game):

1. "Stranded" Bud light Lost Parody

"Here We Go." I'm not sure about the slogan but this commercial WAS and still is absolutely hilarious! I mean you have a shot of everyone on the island completely depressed and then when presented with the choice to get off the island or to stay and party with Bud light, they constantly choose to party. And the look on the girl's face all the while, just makes the commercial that much more sweet.

2. Doritos, Casket: Guy Gets Dieing Wish

This one was better the first time around but is still pretty funny. The girl is crying her eyes out while the "dead" guy's two buddies explain the situation. I love how its DEFINITELY not serious but yet I can almost picture some guy being crazy enough to do something so stupid.

3. Audi A3 TDI Green Police

I love how this commercial doesn't take the product its introducing too seriously. The product is ECO friendly, but yet it makes fun of the whole movement of everybody going green in a sort of 80s movie theme type of fashion.

4. Doritos, House Rules: "Keep your hands off my momma and keep your hands off of my Doritos"

The commercial definitely has an amateur look to it, but this has to get laughs. I mean, the guy checking out the woman only to have some little kid putting him in his place is just too funny.

5. Coca Cola, "Hard Times" Simpsons Ad

I was never a fan of the Simpsons show, but I love this ad. It has that Slice of Life concept going for it where Coke is there to save the day and it just makes you feel happy to see everyone having a good time and lifting each other up.

Most Effective Superbowl Ads of 2010:

1. Google: Parisian Love

So if you don't get why this ad was the most effective ad than you're an idiot and don't deserve talking to... okay, maybe that's a bit harsh. But comeone, just think for a second, the whole ad has the brand "google" just sitting there in the background, name me another commercial where you've seen the brand logo staring you in the face the WHOLE one minute ad? Count the brand display in each of the following effective ads (other than Coke) and you'll see Snickers has 6 of a possible 30 seconds, Doritos with 6-7 out of 30, Cars.com had only 4 seconds out of a possible minute, and Denny's at 7 seconds of a possible 30. So to expose your target audience to your brand for a WHOLE minute after paying the same thing that everyone else paid, all the while telling a cute story that is uniquely Google... is about as perfect effectiveness as any brand can hope to have.

2. Coca Cola, "Hard Times" Simpsons Ad

This commercial is effective for three reasons; the first is fear, the economic crisis causes us to have a certain level of fear that what's happened to Barnes is a realistic possibility for happening to ourselves; secondly, Barnes is rich enough for the vast majority of Americans to separate themselves from him and to even point the finger in blaming him for his own troubles; and lastly Coke brings it all together, a man who loses his entire fortune can still be happy when given a Coke and some love. When everything is gone, there's always Coke; that's the underlying message. Not only that but just like Google Coke shows their brand logo for just over half of the one minute ad and in a Superbowl where there was no Pepsi, that's huge.

3. Snickers, “Playing football like Betty White”

I may not have found this to be most entertaining but there is already a facebook group for playing football like Betty White. This is also likely to become a small phenomenon amongst sports players. "Playing _____ like Betty White" has started to catch on amongst many different groups already and beyond that whenever you think of doing anything like Betty White, whose there to get that Brand Impression? You guessed it, Snickers is there to get that Betty White impression.

4. Doritos, House Rules: "Keep your hands off my momma and keep your hands off of my Doritos"

Much like the Betty White and Snickers mention. The above quote is catching on and becoming a sort of mini-pop phenomenon. Keep your hands off my momma and keep your hands off my Doritos. Who gets that brand impression? You guessed right again, Doritos, that's who. The only downside to this one is that unlike playing "football/basketball/baseball/etc" like Betty White, keep your hands off of (blank) can extend to any other product and get lost in the shuffle of its own phenomenon, thus giving it less legs.

5. A) Cars. com, Timothy Richmond: With Knowledge Comes Confidence

Just like the David Abernathy ad before it, the ad takes this modern day hero and basically says even this guy uses Cars.com to find the courage to buy a car. The underyling message of course being that the rest of us, most of us not ourselves being heroes, would then definitely be able to use Cars.com to increase our purchasing knowledge and therefore confidence when buying a car. The story style is unique and even without it finishing, it keys you to the fact that its a cars.com ad.

B) Denny’s Free Gland slam. Screaming Chickens

I had to include Denny's also because at the end of the day, they were unique in presenting their message about free grand-slam meals. But more than that, they also increased brand relevance. The free grand-slam is just the promotion but even if the majority of people forget about the free grand-slam that happened on Tuesday, Denny's is high enough in their subconscious that when discussing possible places to eat our for breakfast, Denny's gets the business over other competitors.

Biggest Winners:
1. Danica Patrick-
I may not ever know what GoDaddy is, but I'll never complain about getting a chance to see Danica Patrick on TV. Not only does she maintain and increase her own brand relevance, but she gets PAID by a company to do so.

2. Google-
Not only does Google pay about 3 cents per eyeball, but they had a highly effective ad that in 60 seconds just about destroyed Bing's whole ad campaign against google.

3. The Tebow Family-
So basically Tebow and his mom were having a good time on TV in front of a hundred million people.

4. Meagan Fox-
So if we didn't already know it, Meagan Fox is a national sex symbol whose hotness can cause guys to lose their mind. So... when's her next movie again?

5. Doritos-
So Anheuser Busch paid millions of dollars to not only buy the Superbowl spots, but to have top Ad talent make top commercials. Doritos paid for the slots but had amateurs make commercials for them, paying 25,000 to the top 6 best ideas. There are incentives that if reached could earn the top participant up to two million in bonuses, but A LOT of things would have to fall in place for that to happen (which they didn't). So they ended up getting great commercials, all that were very recognizable and well liked, for a good bargain price.

6. Charles Barkley-
Who cares if he looked a bit stiff in the commercial, the fact remains that as a bad actor, Barkley continues to find work as a recognizable pitchman, and once again gets paid to increase his brand relevance. Whether you hate him or love him, it makes no difference when he's continuing to get paid.

Biggest Losers:
1. Toyota-
You're already having HUGE issues with having to recall over 5 million cars and now in case there were SOME people out there that didn't know anything about the issues, you just communicated to them "Our cars (Toyota) suck and unless you want car troubles then you best avoid Toyota for at least the near future... however long that may be." Before the Superbowl Commercial I KNEW of the issue, but I didn't think it was as HUGE an issue as it is, not only does the commercial make me less likely to buy a Toyota now, but also in the future because who knows when they'll decide to cut back on price by cutting back on say... the effectiveness of their airbag units. Who needs airbags anyways?

2. Ford-
So basically Ford's big idea was to have their spokesman interview people at a gas station about how great ford is? Audi took the same "green" concept and made it exciting and made the product a hero. The Ford ads just had the cars lounging around at a gas station... how exciting. That's definitely a waste of money. They had at least 3 spots that I remember off hand and two spots were the same exact pointless commercial. I'd be furious if I were a Ford Stockholder after that waste of cash.

3. 2010 Census (Government)-
What were they trying to communicate exactly? Not only did they waste money, but whose money were they wasting again? Tax payers? Now you have people thinking (like me) that this was 2.8 million dollars could have went to the school system... do they realize how much scholarships could have been given out for 2.8 million?

4. Dodge-
Dodge just succeeded in offending woman with this ad. Not only that, does the woman buy the car? Because if she doesn't then why are the men in this story putting up with these woman they obviously don't like if they didn't treat them to the car? I don't get it and it seemed a little offensive.

5. GoDaddy-
Year in and year out, I never find out what GoDaddy "is" or "does" from viewing their commercials. All they do is tell you that there are hot girls in their ads that want to be a GoDaddy girl like Danicka Patrick. I hear something about Domain names. They essentially spend millions of dollars year after year to simply tell me about how hot Danicka Patrick is and that's not good business.

6. Joe Montana-
I just don't get why an athlete in their right mind would be allow his name to be mentioned in an ad for Sketchers Shape Ups. Joe Montana was a football player, one of the best quarterbacks of all times. Sketchers is what many look at as a kiddy brand, this just isn't a match made in heaven... at all. I feel like he's ruining his football legacy with an ad like this.