Super Bowl Ads – The Great, Pretty Good, and Ugly

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Congratulations to Sean Payton, the Saints, and the city of New Orleans for their Super Bowl victory last night.  Capitalizing on a near-perfect performance by Drew Brees, and an untimely mistake by Peyton Manning, New Orleans marched to its first Super Bowl victory in franchise history.

While the Colts and Saints battled it out on the gridiron, corporate sponsors and advertisers sat back and watched their advertising dollars at work.  This year’s advertisers struck the jackpot, with Super Bowl XLIV becoming the most viewed television program ever.  With a 30-second spot going for just over $3 million this year, that kind of viewership should help marketing execs justify the ridiculous costs.   While viewers and the night of the big game are important, they represent only the tip of the iceberg that is “Super Bowl Advertising.”

The buzz and viral fallout caused by Super Bowl ads has begun, and the next couple weeks will ultimately determine the level of success achieved by a Super Bowl ad.  The $3 million spent for 30 seconds during the game can generate publicity worth multiples of the original cost.  Or it couldn’t.  Here are a couple ads that cover the whole spectrum during last night’s game.

The Great

Google’s ad, affectionately titled “Parisian Love”, was outstanding.  It demonstrated the product, internet search, and turned it into a love story that captured the attention of the 106.5 million viewers.  Not many ads captured silence and attention at my Super  Bowl party, but Google’s achieved it easily, as well as several minutes of conversation amongst female attendees about how great it was.  And, as of Monday afternoon, the ad is already closing in on two million YouTube views.  The combination of product demonstration, story telling, and buzz makes the ad a success, and money well spent for Google.

The Pretty Good

Doritos had one of the largest presences at the Super Bowl this year after continuing its “Crash the Super Bowl” campaign, which allows fans and consumers to submit their own commercials, then choosing winners to air during the game.  This year’s winners were titled “Casket”, “Underdog”, “Snack Attack Samurai”, and “House Rules”, which is shown above.  Doritos received over 4000 entries for its contest, which is an outstanding number given the effort required to submit.  The “House Rules” ad mixes humor, an association with video games (prominent aspect of the chip’s target segment), and appeals to a wide range of demographics.  The wake of the ads hasn’t been as dominant as Google’s, but if you factor in the contest prior to the ads, Doritos is doing just fine.

The Ugly

While Super Bowl ads are known for being over the top, Emerald Nuts’ “Awesomer” ad was just painful to watch.  I did not find the people swimming around like a dolphin/whale show, eating nuts and popcorn, or the failed mathematical attempt at humor conclusion appealing on any level.  Maybe I just didn’t understand the ad, but it didn’t leave me viewing Emerald in a higher light.

What were your favorite Super Bowl ads?  Do you agree/disagree with my mini-review?  Were you cheering for the Saints or Colts?