Super Bowl Ad Winners and Losers: VW Gets Gold; Groupon Craters
Super Bowl XLV: It was a great game, with loads of drama, tension and creativity -- often under difficult circumstances -- from all players concerned. (There was some football too, apparently.) This year had more highlights than usual and it felt less cheap, and more of a spectacle, than 2009 and 2010 when the recession cast a pall. Excess is what the NFL and its advertisers do best, and there was plenty of that this year. Volkswagen's Darth Vader and Eminem stole the show, congratulations to them. As for the Groupon disaster. Oh boy. Read on ...
- You can see all the ads on YouTube here.
Loser: All of Coca-Cola's ads were kind of weird. The cinematic, heavy production of Coke's ads felt at odds with the simplicity of its message (and it's product). The border guards ad seemed to be channelling Sergio Leone; "The Siege" was torn from the Lord of the Rings. I guess that was the point but the payoff was often too slight for the runup.
Winner: The E-Trade talking baby strikes again! This cheap but effective device has been running for years and shows no sign of losing steam. Tasteful (this year, at least) funny and effective.
Loser: Anheuser-Busch's creative brief appears to be stuck in the late 1980s. The main theme seemed to be, "Guys are stupid -- now run with it!" Traditionally, the problem for Bud is that a lot of their advertising is shown to various distributors and wholesalers for approval before it runs. This ads-by-committee method has its limitations, as only the blandest product possible can get to market. Much like their beer. The exception: Dogs playing poker.
Winner: Too many car advertisers but it didn't feel cluttered. Their ads were all so different, and almost none of them relied on beauty shots. This is how good advertising works. The Chevy Cruze Eco ad in the old folks home was particularly good.
Loser: Too many movie ads made all the films look the same. I get that Thor and Captain America are separate movies, but based on the advertising it's a distinction without a difference. Ever since the trailer for Independence Day in 1996, Hollywood blockbusters have been stuck in a movie ad rut.
Winner: Jack in the Box. Who was laughing at whom in this parody of patriotism? Expect a boycott call from Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck any second.
Loser: GoDaddy. As a human being, my intelligence was insulted; and as a man, another part of me was insulted by GoDaddy's effort. Neither Danica Patrick nor Jillian Michaels appeared naked in the "uncensored" version of the ad on the web site, as predicted. The kicker to the ad relies on the lamest pun possible on the double-d's in the GoDaddy name. Everything about GoDaddy's commercial was manipulative and cheap. The Joan Rivers spot was just as bad.
Winner: Eminem for Lipton Brisk and Chrysler. It's hard to make Detroit look like a place you'd want to visit but Chrysler managed it. On YouTube, this spot was one of the most viewed within 24 hours of the game. And Lipton's claymation just keeps getting stronger.
Loser: HomeAway's ad was too busy to be understood. There's so much going on in this ad and almost none of it is explaining the vacation home concept. What was that big onion-dome building at the end? Maybe next time, show the vacations? Just a thought.
Winner: Angry Birds' Rio tie in. Pure genius. Spoiler alert: The tie-in actually looks more interesting than the movie. The secret code that opens a new level to the addictive iPhone/Android game can be seen at 0.27, right after the monkey falls over.
Dropped pass of the game: Groupon: What the heck? The coupon giant's first Super Bowl ads were eagerly awaited and then ... this. Making fun of whale extinction? Shrugging your shoulders at rainforest destruction? There's a lot to say about the situation in Tibet, but making light of human rights abuses to sell restaurant discounts was the worst thing this nascent brand could have done. That fish curry may have been amazing, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. Hopefully, there's a conference room at Groupon HQ in Chicago where a brand manager is getting yelled at by his or her C-level bosses this morning.
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