The pressure was on. The tension was thick. And then, there were yawns in between.
The Super Bowl may have been a nail biter, but the ads were a snooze.
Actor Clint Eastwood waxed for two minutes about Detroit and Chrysler. An M&M stripped “naked” at a party. And stars from the 90s were everywhere, as were dogs and babies, of course.
Companies paid an average of $3.5 million for a 30-second spot for the right to duke it out Sunday in front of the expected 111 million-plus fans. But there were it was all so ordinary with fewer surprises.
That’s mostly because nearly half of the 70 Super Bowl advertisers put their spots out online in the days leading up to the game. And the companies that did wait until game day for the “big reveal” didn’t take many risks. In fact, most settled on cliché plots with babies, celebrities, sex and humor.
“Advertisers this year are playing it very safe,” said Tim Calkins, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University. “They’re running spots that are clearly designed to appeal to a broad audience and not to offend.”
Here’s a look at the game’s ads, play by play:
SEX SELLS — OR AT LEAST ADVERTISERS HOPE IT DOES
Advertisers showed a little skin in their Super Bowl.
An ad for domain name-hosting site GoDaddy shows racecar driver Danica Patrick and fitness expert Jillian Michaels body painting a nude woman. An spot for clothing retailer H&M features soccer star David Beckham in black-and-white in his undies. And online florist Teleflora and automaker Kia both use Victoria Secret’s model Adriana Lima in their Super Bowl ads. Read the full story
Ads during the Super Bowl have been as much of an attraction as the game itself for years now, but in recent years, reactions on social media have also become almost as big.
Actor John Stamos appears in an ad for Dannon's Oikos yogurt. (AP)
By MAE ANDERSON
If you’re expecting to be shocked by all the Super Bowl ads, don’t hold your breath: There won’t be many surprises.
About 20 of the roughly 36 Super Bowl advertisers put their TV commercials online before Sunday’s broadcast. That’s a major shift: It’s up from last year when only a handful of companies released their ads before the game.
Acura put out its spot showing talk show host Jay Leno zooming off in a jet pack. Actor John Stamos already can be seen getting bonked in the head in a Dannon ad. And tens of thousands have viewed Victoria’s Secret model Adriana Lima in a Teleflora commercial.
Why the flurry of pre-releases? The Super Bowl is advertisers’ biggest stage, with 111 million-plus fans expected to tune in. But after paying an average of $3.5 million for 30 seconds, advertisers are eager to stand out in the crowded field of about 70 Super Bowl commercials. Companies figure what better way to do that than to generate buzz online. But does it pay to show all your cards, err, ads? Read the full story
I know the world in its current economic state is a leaner, meaner, less stardusty place, but is that any reason to be materialistic, ungrateful, present-grubbing brats? And to take that out on Santa Claus? He’s a jolly old elf, dagnabit!
Remember in the beginning of the recession, when commercials were all about celebrating sacrifice, and hard-working, typically American values and the hidden joys of tightening our belts? Well, forget that! Maybe we’re in some sort of recovery, but we’ve gone straight from sacrifice to soul-sucking obnoxiously. On Ebay ads, one young girl sings a carol telling her family where they can shove their homemade gifts and that they can save the sentiment and buy her good stuff, while another condescendingly disses her mom’s sweet offer of admittedly dowdy jeans while she buys another hipper pair. Just say you don’t like them. Don’t make someone offering you a gift look like an idiot. And as for Christmas carol girl…how about I just save money and don’t get your ungrateful butt anything? Who is the desired demographic they’re marketing to? Jerks?
And over in Best Buy land, two seperate ladies are enjoying the freedom of the megastore’s selection so much that they’re making it into a competition…with Santa, delivering Yuletide yo mama’s to the jolly old elf. Not that he ever did anything to them besides bring wrapped gifts to their home. But rather than, say, slipping him a Best Buy coupon or trying to write him in advance to gently refuse his services, they’re waiting up for him like suburban ninjas. They’re throwing out verbal trash-talking ninja stars. And they’re so smug about it. It’s…ugly. Again…this is the customer you want? Moms who take their “Toddlers and Tiaras”-style agression out on an ancient international holiday icon?
I ranted about this on my Facebook page today, and most everyone agreed that these ads are crazy mean-spirited, although a few people indentified with the parents who are able to now take the credit for their gift-buying savvy rather than give the credit to Santa. I get that. But…don’t be a jerk about it.
After all – he can get into your house without a key. And sees you when you’re sleeping. This is not a man you can afford to make mad with your pettiness. Just buy the gift and move on.
No commercials yet – just Christina Aguilera blowing the mess out of the National Anthem. She got the words wrong, but kept it moving. Love her, love her voice. And it’s proof that it’s live, right? Good start.
- Random McDonald’s commercial with bears, freaking out kids to eat their french fries. Wrong. Yet funny.
- Living Social commercial. So..using Living Social makes you so cultured that you become a woman? Not sure how to feel about that. Homophobic? Not sure.
6:27 p.m.
Michael Douglas has an impressive voice. My dad has cancer, so I’m extra proud of Gordon Gekko for surviving and thriving. And he’s got an amazing presence. That’s what it’s about. I love that he is tying the working class roots of this country to Green Bay and Pittsburgh. I am a Raven fan, so normally, I am not feeling Pittsburgh. But I forgive them tonight and just want a good safe game.
6:30- Ford Focus race. Young kids doing a race of some sort. That’s the Focus Rally I have heard of. Good for them. Game’s starting! Do I have time to get another drink?
6:43 p.m.
Bud Light – A kitchen renovation show where the only change done is putting a six-pack on the counter. Only funny if you like Bud Light. And I don’t. Meh.
- Doritos – A guy messes with his girlfriend’s pug, attempting to make it run through the glass sliding door to get his Doritos. And the jerk gets nailed and toppled. Sit, Puggie, sit. Good dog!
-Audi- Rich people locked in prison break out of the caviar/old money prison to a sure escape. One picks a Mercedes and gets caught, while the other takes the Audi and gets free. A long way to go to get there for that joke. But funny.
- Another Doritos commercial: OK. I don’t know why you’d want your core demographic to identify as creepy dudes who lick Doritos dust off people’s pants. Gross.
- Chevy Cruse Eco- Old people. Love it.
- Pepsi Max – A jealous couple, a hot girl and an angrily-flung Pepsi Max can. First time I laughed! It’s wrong. But funny.
6:56 p.m. Bud Light: Another endless beer spot about a musketeer-esque movie with Bud Light product placement. Hate. It. Bored now.
- Chevy Silverado – A clever take on the “Timmy’s down the well” premise of “Lassie”, with a dad using his truck to conquer wells, volcanoes and hot air balloons. Fabulously funny and nostalgic.
- “Fast Five” – The Rock meets Vin Diesel! Gonna be bad! Gonna be…Awesome!
7:01 p.m.
Pepsi Max: So. Bored.
Doritos: We saw this before the game, with the slacky guy spilling Dorito dust onto his roommate’s granddad’s ashes, reanimating him. Once again- are they conceding that their audience are idiots?
- Hyundai Elantra- Meh.
- “Cowboys and Aliens”: Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford fighting evil? I am there!
- Kia Optima: Mayans, aliens and others worship…a Kia. No offense, but…really?
- “Raising Hope”: You can never go wrong with a cute baby.
7:08 pm.
- Brisk: Eminem makes commercialism positively revolutionary. Or tries to. As Steve Zahn said in the commentary of the 10th anniversary of “Reality Bites,” hipsters were never gonna sell out until growing up and discovering that private school is expensive.
7:15 p.m. Bridgestone: The dangers of hitting “reply all,” as a guy runs around in his truck with the good tires, trying to right wrongs before finding he needn’t have worried. Funny.
- Chevy Volt- Does a hybrid compare to the innovation of the Internet and Woodstock? Probably! History is pretty.
- Go Daddy: Was not expecting the disembodied head of Joan Rivers to sit atop the body of a model. And I am sorry I saw that.
7:23 p.m. Budweiser: Cowboys, tension and “Tiny Dancer?” A winning combination.
- Teleflora: Fath Hill tries to give advice to a guy who can’t see past his girl’s rack for romantic poetic inspiration. Funny.
- Transformers 3 : Wish I cared.
- BMW X3: About the resilience and ingenuity of small American towns. Gotta love it.
- Motorola Zoom. Sweet commercial, but it seemed more like a flower commercial. Not sure it resonated.
7:31 p.m.
- Coca Cola: Creepy dragons and other-wordly monster things. Rousing and weird.
- “Thor”: A preview of a Nordic God coming to save the world. Hope he can! And hope he starts with fixing those gas prices.
- Volkswagon” I saw this early – This is the funniest ad to hit both the Xers and the kids watching the animated “Star Wars” series. Cars are magic! But cooler if Lando is involved.
7:39 p.m.
- Snickers: Another “you aren’t yourself without a Snickers” series, with famous comic complainers Richard Lewis and Roseanne Barr in a logging company. Only funny if you are over 40. But I am! So…brilliant.
- Career Builder.com: I don’t love monkeys, so I have no problem with them a a symbol for being in a stagnant job you wanna escape. Sorry, monkeys.
- “Super 8″ – I saw the early preview of this Spielberg/Abrams movie month ago and was intrigued. And now that Kyle “Friday Night Lights” Chandler is involved? So there.
7:49 p.m.
- Chevy Cruze- I wish that, when I was till dating, that I could have electronic confirmation that first dates didn’t suck. Would have saved me lipstick money. Not to mention those discarded wasted pieces of my soul,. But I digress. To cry.
- “Captain America”: OK! I could deal with that,
- Carmax- Was that Randy Savage beating some dude with a chair? AWESOME!
7:58 p.m.
- Mazda: Boring.
- Comcast: I admire the chutzpah of companies who position their companies as the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER! That takes guts. I applaud thee.
- Jaguar: Still can’t afford to buy one.
8:08 p.m.
Chatter,com – Black Eyed Pears get a promo for their half time show! How very meta!
HALFTIME!
The Black Eyed Peas look like intergalactic storm troopers. I love “I Gotta Felling,” but I hear it a lot. I mean… A LOT. But there is nothing as rousing as a clever pop song. “Boom Boom Pow” is as catchy. I met Fergie at SunFest a few years ago, and found her so sweet and gorgeous. Her mic is not working and is not as fierce as her.I love her, and the “Tron” guys dancing on the field. They have Fergie in a very high neck. Avoiding wardrobe malfunctions?
SLASH! Doing the riff form “Sweet Child of Mine.” Love that Fergie is doing the Axl snake/Davy Jones dance. Her nails scare me. In a good way. Do kids in their 20s know who Slash is? They should.
“Pump It” is a great song. Where is Dick Dale when you need him? I am so enjoying this! More than I ever, ever thought.
I always love that the rousing “Let’s Get It Started” was originally called “Let’s Get Retarded,” which is offensive and not family friendly. Good ducking, Will.I.AM.
Here is Usher in a white outfit and a bajillion dancers. I care less about this, but it’s well done. He is super skinny. The dancing is all amazing.
“Where Is The Love” is funny, considering that it features Justin Timberlake, who is partly responsible for the wardrobe malfunction of yesteryear. Don’t blame Janet alone. He pulled the fabric. But we’re not talking about that, are we. Well, I am.
“The Time of My Life?” Do the dance! Pull a Swayze! Do it! OK…so it’s some intergalactic “Tron” thing. No Baby and Johnny? No love. We bring it all back to “I Gotta Feeling.” That was a great, mostly relevant halftime show! As the song says, Mazel Tov!
8:53 p.m.
Stella Artois – Adrian Brody croons in a dark bar and takes a smitten fan’s beer. He could have mine!
CarMax: A very telling comment on society that we are more likely to believe that we are being carjacked than to believe that we are getting good service. Wow.
9:02 p.m.:
Chrysler: More Eminem, this time proclaiming the proud purpose of his native Detroit. Unexpectedly civic-minded and patriotic, even. One of my favorites.
9:21 p.m.
Nostalgic NFL Fans commercial with Seinfeld, Fonzie, Urkel, Marcia Brady et al with the “Dallas” theme playing proudly. Adore that! Oh, her nose!
9:32 p.m.
“Bud Light”: I still hate the “Here We Go” ads and regret that the Budweiser dalmatians are now involved in this madness. Something about a pool party featuring hipster dogs. Hideous.
— Pepsi Max: Another dating spot, this one with a woman running through her head with the possible future of her and her date, as her date thinks “I wanna sleep with her.” And she can’t read his mind unless he is distracted by a cold soda. I’d dump him too!
9:47 p.m.:
— Mercedes-Benz: All of the past models converge to usher in the new era, with Diddy wondering where his car went. It’s nostalgic, but Diddy ruins the moment for me. You want him to stop getting in the way of all the history.
— “House M.D.”: The world’s crankiest doctor replays the Mean Joe Green Coke moment by nailing a cute moppet in the skull with his cane. Whoops!
9:56 p.m.
Chevy Camaro: Perhaps the first muscle car ever to feature a hot teacher AND hay bales. Clever.
9:59 p.m.
- Chevy Cruze: Sue Sylvester plots against the “glee” kids in an ode to dastardly deeds and product placement! And the outcome is to be continued. I’m hooked.
10:01 p.m.
— Sketchers: Kim Kardashian kisses her trainer goodbye because her shoes help her work out better. You know you can’t look that way without genetic blessing and the hard work that often comes with A TRAINER, right? She is hot, though. Still…come on.
10:06 p.m.
And we’re done! Congrats, Green Bay Packers and their fans! Thanks, all of you, for sticking with me and commenting, and making this another memorable Super Bowl! Trying to get home from this party I am at in time to see “Glee!” Drive safe and tip your waitresses!
A few months ago, we introduced you to the guys at ilovelocalcommercials.com, whose sole goal was to make bizarre commercials all over the United States.
Well, if making a completely strange ad for a repossession service in Johnson City, Tenn., is what they were going for, then congrats! You win!
He’s already done some of the best commercials in recent memory, possibly ever, and he can turn an oyster into diamonds while riding on a horse. He is, of course, the Man Your Man Could Smell Like.
And now, he’s talking to you. Look at him. Now back to pbpulse. Now back to him!
TheNextWeb reports that the guy — played by Isaiah Mustafa, a guy with amazing comic timing — is answering select Twitter messages with videos on YouTube. All you have to do is send a message to @oldspice, and you too may see your response from The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.
Here’s TMYMCSL’s response to Olympic speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno (@apoloohno), who simply thanked him apparently:
A curvaceous brunette tries on a trousseau’s worth of colorful lingerie, checks her BlackBerry ("Meet Dan for lunch"), then heads out the door wearing nothing but a red bra and panties, a black trench coat and a wicked smile.
It could easily be a clip from Desperate Housewives, but the Eva Mendes lookalike is a plus-size model, and the scene is an ad for Lane Bryant lingerie.
And that’s when the spandex hit the fan at two television networks.
ABC deemed the ad too racy for viewers of Dancing with the Stars, and Fox demanded several re-edits before finally airing the commercial during the closing minutes of American Idol last week.
Which would’ve been fine, one of the creators of the Lane Bryant ad said, except for the double standard.
"When you say cleavage is OK for a Victoria’s Secret model but not a Lane Bryant model, then it’s not a standards issue, it’s a discrimination issue," said Michael Goldberg, chief marketing officer of Fort Lauderdale’s Zimmerman Advertising. "The amount of skin relative to the garment is the same on both commercials. It’s just you have a bigger woman."
Not sure what was odder: The surfboard, the pink lettering or the inference that going to Canada hinges on how good you look. Is that what they’d stop you at the border for?
This commercial was made by the guys behind ilovelocalcommercials.com, who are interested in making such ads all over America.
So last week, ABC refuses to air an ad for Lane Bryant, featuring plus-size model Ashley Graham, during the 8-9 p.m. block, or “family hour”. And Fox makes the same decision.
This then reaches full-on tempest in a teapot status — Graham claims that the networks are biased against plus-size models, saying that a Victoria’s Secret ad is shown with skinnier models (technically, Graham’s wrong — Fox did show the Victoria’s Secret ad, but after 9).
And since then, everyone’s been weighing in on it, including Bill O’Reilly and his “culture warriors” on Fox News, Gretchen Carlson and Margaret Hoover, who back the networks’ decision to not show it at 8, but rather at 9. ABC has since said it would be happy to show the ad at 9 and later.
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