The Super Bowl in Review

This year is mostly depressing, really. We do have a wide range of super bowl spots from overall suck to poorly conceived to poorly executed and at the far end of the spectrum, flat out racist. It's unfortunate that on our industry's most bloated night, we can only come up with 3 or 4 thumbs up ads...

By far the winner of the night for me was Tide. A simple concept, but interestingly executed and still uncomfortably funny. It may have lost points just because I was waiting for the skittles logo to pop in the whole time. But still, by far my favorite of the night.

Coke made a good showing, so I'll give them the second slot. I can't say Carville and Frist had the best chemistry on screen, but it's a good effort. And this year, it frankly doesn't take much to get near the top. On a side note, Carville is married to uber-Republican strategist Mary Matalin. Wouldn't it have been better if the spot had something to do with that? I seriously doubt most the country knew who either one of them were anyway...

Third goes to Fed Ex. At least they got something out of their production dollar. It's a good looking spot that'll probably give them some good use. Still nowhere as good as last year.

Fourth, back to Coke. It's a good spot, but I think I may just be suffering from the high expectations Coke built up last year. When you hit so many home runs, it's that much harder to leg out a triple from a double.

And fifth I'll throw to the boys over at Dallas' Richards Group. Both the Bridgestone spots were funny and entertaining and scored up near the top of every ad tracker.

Honorable mention goes to Audi for the Godfather. It feels like something is missing, but it's an intriguing spot at the very least.

And the big losers, Career Builder sucked it bad. I wonder if they're regretting the decision to ditch Cramer Kressalt this morning. My guess would be yes. Whoever made that decision is a fucking moron. Geico should have let the Cavemen die. It was already ruined by the awful ABC show, and the only way to save it would have been to bring the original Cavemen back. I hate these guys for ruining a funny bit. And, Sales Genie. Hopefully racism does not mean sales and they consider either stopping the non sense or hiring some proper help next year. Under Amour should be mentioned as wasting a fuck ton of money for an overproduced mess. It looked like they cut corners, used an unoriginal idea and tried to say or nothing or too much. I haven't really figured it out yet.

And that's all for this year. Many more like this and these day after write ups will probably stop being written. At least Miller picked up the pieces a bit today.

Comments

[Katie Chatfield]

I'm really enjoying 'fuck ton' as a unit of measure.

[El Gaffney]

it's one thing to try to be the worst, but it seems like vin gupta's actually strategy this year was to get pr for "racist ads". that's disgusting. and sadly he'll probably get another 25,000 paid subscribers this year. the animation company should not be left off the hook. naomi campbell should be involved in the implementing the punishment.

[erin]

Tide was by far #1 on my list. It will go in my Best Strategy for 08 list fo sho. And Coke, yeah, they did it again: branding goodness.

And yeah, Under Armour, where did they come from? Underwear Heroes are so last season.

Great sum up Paul.

[everysandwich]

It was nice to see Coke come back with solid stuff with a broad appeal, and Tide was pretty funny, I thought. Kept flashing to that Austin Powers scne with Fred Savage. I must admit with a little guilt that I laughed at the etrade baby, and I thought it was very well written, even if the concept isn't especially original.

[Mom]

Actually, I liked the James Garville ad. And, a lot of people know who he and Mary Matalin are. Really.
And, one more "f" word, and you are grounded:)

[Cam Beck]

OOOOOoooooooh! Paul got PUNKED by his own mom. :)

[Cam Beck]

Or, on second though, someone pretending to be Paul's mom. (Is that you, Tim?)