The Love Advertising Blog

Last night, people gathered around their televisions to watch one of the biggest TV events of the year- the Super Bowl! Party invitations were sent out a month ago and meals were planned a week in advance. Die-hard football fans got together to reminisce about their Fantasy Football teams, and placed final bets on the color of the Gatorade poured on the winning coach. Even non-football fans attended parties to get in on all of the fun. While some wouldn’t miss one second of the football game, others didn’t miss one second of the commercials.

What did I do? I probably did the opposite of most viewers. I got in my sweats around 5 p.m., set the game to record, an headed to the grocery store. The game was about midway through the 2^nd quarter when I finished dinner. I started the game from the beginning and then fast-forwarded through the game to only watch the commercials and of course, the halftime show by Madonna. Sitting alone comfortably in front of the television, I was really able to focus on the ads. I guess you can say that I take my commercial watching pretty seriously.

This morning, I collaborated with our Senior Art Director, Adam Faust, to evaluate and reflect on all of the Super Bowl advertising. Traditionally, we evaluate the ads based on its hilarity, but there is a lot more to it. A few other tidbits that came to mind when watching this year’s commercials;

Social Media. This was the first year that social media played a huge role before, during and after the game. We were given previews of several Super Bowl commercials weeks before game day, and others were launched entirely on the web and shared throughout various social media outlets. This is a good article from Ad Age that shows the impact of social media on this year’s Super Bowl game.

Other opportunities.   Some local and national advertisers took advantage of the Super Bowl without having to purchase a spot during the game. Some advertisers created an entire campaign to promote a Super Bowl special offer. Check out what Papa John’s did this year

We decided to get the entire agency together over pizza to dissect the ads. Here is what the folks at Love Advertising think about the commercials. Well…

1. We often times see the same advertiser run a commercial year after year, so we are able to anticipate what ads we think will do the best based on what they ran in  prior years. Some of them pay off while others are a big let down. While Bud Light had some good contenders, we thought that the Bud Light “Platinum” ad was a disappointment. Another let down was the Coca Cola Polar Bears campaign. However, Doritos kept up their pace with “Sling Baby” and “Man’s Best Friend.” And with all the social media buzz over the Honda “Matthew’s Day Off” ad, a take-off of the movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, we could only expect nothing but greatness. We saw greatness, and it definitely paid off.
2. Automakers definitely took over the night, but which one was the best? Our successful consensus went to Audi who decided to play on the vampire pop culture trend with “Vampire Party.”
3. Who was our favorite celebrity appearance? Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno in the Acura “Transactions” commercial.
4. There were several ads that made a big impact; for instance, the Best Buy “Innovators” commercial made us want to go invent something that will change the world, and who wouldn’t want to rescue a dog after seeing the Bud Light “Rescue Dog” commercial? But it was the Chrysler “Halftime in America” ad that touched us the most.
5. Which ad made us laugh out loud the most? The “Happy Grad” commercial for Camaro had us rolling, and the dog, or “underdog” that moonwalked across the finish line in the Sketchers “Go Run” commercial was hard to beat.
6. Our overall favorite ad goes to the M&M’s “Just My Shell.”
7. And the worst ad of the night went to TaxAct.com with “Feel the Free.” Not only did this ad had nothing to do with the product it was also just kind of gross.

We’d love to hear your take on this year’s ads, best, worst, most impactful?