.jpg) By Johnny Firecloud | You've seen the game. You heard too much about the game beforehand. You're sick of the game, and rightfully so. Super Bowl commercials have become more interesting than 85% of the Big Game itself, it seems. |
All kinds of "revolutionary" new ads designed to titillate and enchant us are trotted out between plays and periods, giving us a glimpse of that next crucial Bud frog catch phrase or f*cking Aflac duck moment of hilarity. The average cost for one 30-second ad spot during Super Bowl XLII was $2.7 million, and for that kind of money you'd expect the products they're peddling to smash through your TV and land in your lap. But naturally they don't, so we can only sift through the detritus of the Christmas of commercials and see if they managed to be entertaining. Budweiser seems to pour their entire marketing budget into those few short hours each year when they're sure you're not getting up from the couch. The result is laughs for everybody, especially if you and your frat brothers are trying to think up a new handshake:
The firebreathing Bud Light guy should have God freaks and PETA up in arms here pretty soon, too:
Doesn't that just scream satanism and animal cruelty? Most abstract award goes to Garmin for their Ultraman commercial. Think Beastie Boys' "Intergalactic" video with Tenacious D wannabe music.
The Jumper and Chronicles of Narnia trailers were pretty cool, as was the preview for Wanted, but I'm already tired of all this Semi-Pro promotion. Face it Will, you just can't top Anchorman. Iron Man, on the other hand, looks f*cking sick:
Coke took the decades-old Cola Wars to a new level as well, with a strange mix of a Grand Theft Auto theme and hippy-ass love and peace music. It's weird, but it's cool for what it is:
A couple of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons break free and fight over a bottle of coke, featuring a very creepy-looking Stewie from "Family Guy" and Underdog. Charlie Brown swoops in at the end and jacks it. I don't care what they're selling, I just want another twenty seconds to see Stewie knock Charlie B. on his ass.
Then of course came the Pepsi ads, most notably Justin Timberlake's sudden, painful gravitational pull to a girl's bottle:
Yelling and screaming is the new marketing trend, it seems. In a Bridgestone tire ad, squirrels and all kinds of woodland animals screamed. Another featured geriatric fitness fairy Richard Simmons screaming. A third, a coffee stain on a guy's shirt is ranting like a retard in French. That one was actually kind of funny:
CareerBuilder.com's "Follow Your Heart" ad had a good message, but was disturbing,
to say the least:
Doritos lined up some deal with Interscope, apparently, since they're willing to burn almost $3 million pimping hopeless disposable folk-pop garbage like Kina Grannis' "Message From Your Heart." You don't need to see it. Trust me: it's bad. You also don't need to see all the energy drink/vitamin water ads featuring tired celebrities hawking cheap crap. Cause in the end, that's all it really is.
Tagged:
