First of all, I did not see all of the Super Bowl because of travel delays. I hit about mid-way into the first quarter. A number of you have written for my take on the ads.
I have yet to see all of them of course, but I watched diligently for 7/8ths of the game. I was alone so no distractions. I was trying to watch and remember them. Sad truth. I can only remember one, Pepsi Max. I also remember some dancing lizards and a female dancer, but I have no recollection of what product it was, much less what I was supposed to remember that was special about it. And upon prompting I did remember the dog training the Clydesdale, but that was theater. It did not even resemble advertising.
In the next few days I am going to review each ad from the Killer Brand point of view. There was absolutely nothing with the exception of Pepsi Max that I even would have approved as a client, much less spent $2.5 Million to run once.
I was not impressed.
While I agree that most of the ads this year we’re off-target and more concerned with how they’d rate in USA Today’s Ad Meter, I offer up an ad that ran during the game that I think was on-target and effective.
1) The Talking Stain (Tide Stain Stick). The ad engaged viewers immediately, focused on and sold the benefit of the product effectively (use the stain removal stick and maintain focus on you – not the stain on your shirt). It’s online components of a user-generated ad contest and ability to “erase” stains on the site demonstrate the purpose of the product. Wonderfully executed.
The Coke spots (the floats and Carville/Frist) were good too. the floats were theater, buut the Carville/Frist as played on Coke’s 30 year old theme of bringing people together nicely in my opinion.
-Jay
The only advertising I remembered was that the Super Bowl Ads would be on http://www.myspace.com/superbowlads after the game. It wasn’t even a commercial, but the announcers mentioned it at least twice. Maybe a few. I vaguely recall Godaddy.com’s corny commercial. I use Godaddy.com weekly, yet I hated their commercial. What do domain names have to do with Danica Patrick and the other Godaddy Girls? I use Godaddy because they are one of the cheapest and have always provided us great customer service. I even talked to a guy there named Michael Jackson once. I got a laugh from him.
BTW… I’m enjoying your book. I randomly dropped by the local Barnes and Nobel and went straight to the Marketing Category. Your book cover certainly stood out from the others. So did Punk Marketing. I was also considering the purchase of FOCUS by Al Ries and . Anyway, your back cover talked about “Focus” and two other concepts. I sat down had a coffee and read the first few pages of each. I left without a book. When I got home I researched the reviews on Amazon.com and found your website and read some of your blogs. Your blogs really stimulated my thinking. Anyway, I checked out iTunes to see if you had an audible version so i could listen to it while I was at the gym after work. You didn’t, so I went and picked up the book at Barnes and Nobel. I wish there was an audible version to. I’ve only master the art of bike reading.
Frank,
I’m sorry to hear of your travel delays. Although, I hope that means you caught the last 5 minutes of the game. After almost 4 ho-hum quarters, bowl ended with a bang!
I’ve got some good news to share. All of the ads are posted online in the order in which they aired. You, and anyone else, can view them at MySpace-dedicated profile: http://www.myspace.com/superbowlads
Look forward to your thoughts.
Hello Frank,
I really am looking forward to your take on the advertisements.
I think you mentioned in your book that advertising agencies often do their clients a disservice by trying to “entertain and shock” rather than trying to communicate effectively a compelling benefit of the brand.
Friends who watched the game certainly remember the guy electrocuting himself with the nipple clamps and Will Ferris appearing in a beer advertisement suggesting the viewer “suck on one.” But none of us could actually remember the brands being advertised. And while some thought the Will Ferris segment was very funny, the thought of drinking a bottle of beer suddenly seemed, well, unappealing.
There were a number of times when I didn’t have a clue what brand was being advertised until the last five seconds. I assume this isn’t a very effective technique to building a Killer Brand either.
Look forward to your next posts!
Ernst