What Were They Thinking?? (Superbowl Ad Discussion)

[Arp2]

As high-tax and high-cost America loses jobs (including white-collar jobs) to India and China, SalesGenie uses an Indian in one spot and Chinese characters in the other. What were they thinking??

A beer commercial says, "our product gives you fire breath!" What were they thinking??


Funniest: I don't know. Evidently, at least for me, the funny ones weren't particularly memorable.

Likely most-effective: E-Trade, CareerBuilder, Hyundai, and Toyota/Lexus

Good but maybe not memorable: Tide-To-Go

Good but maybe not effective: Pepsi (Timberlake)

Worthless: Garmin and Gatorade

[Bob Campbell]

7 hours later I can't remember a single ad. Let me have another coffee.
And of course, I love the US, the LOWEST taxed developed counry in the world.

[Zak Tyler]

Likely most-effective: E-Trade, CareerBuilder, Hyundai, and Toyota/Lexus

thought the baby etrades were interesting. i kept watching to see what he'd do next...
Hyundai...all i could think was "now they're poorly building full size cars"

Good but maybe not memorable: Tide-To-Go

LOVED the interrupting shirt stain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! actually had to rewind the dvr for that one.

Good but maybe not effective: Pepsi (Timberlake)

agreed

(edit)
my personal favs. the bridgestone commercials. the "screaming squirrel" was HILARIOUS!!! (but i swear i've seen that one)
the alice cooper was was funny as well.

[Dr. Whiplash]

The only ones I will remember are the Bridgestone ads.

Around the bend? Richard Simmons. Just as I yelled "speed up" the driver did. (Tragically, he then swerved.) And the screaming squirrel whose life was saved by good tires.

The Sales Genie ads said, "We're ten-cent big-shots who will be bankrupt and facing criminal charges in about 16 months."

[Scott Reppert]

1. Bridgestone Alice Cooper/Richard Simmons.

2. Charles Barkley phone ad.

3. The anti-drug PSA with the dealer on the street corner.

The ringing thought that permeated my mind during almost every commercial was the truth that "if you did it with a computer, you really didn't do it"...

[Force Commander]

Check out http://www.spotbowl.com to see how the rest of the country compares.

[herdgirl72]

I'm a sucker for the Bud Light spots...the fire one and the Wil Ferrel one were the best of that bunch.

The Bridgestone's were good too...especially the Richard Simmons spot.

Etrade baby...meh...whatever....

Charles Barkley T Mobile I liked as well.

Any time Timberlake gets hit in the nuts is good too!!

[fearpeddler]

I wish simmons woulda been run-over in that spot....
I liked the etrade baby spot, but the best for me was shaq being a jockey..

[Zak Tyler]

oh ya, the dog training the clydesdale was cute... kinda "touching"

[Arp2]

Check out http://www.spotbowl.com to see how the rest of the country compares.

With people voting on only the ones that intrigued them one way or the other, the results are a little strange and, with relatively few votes on many, easily influenced. Also, I think there might be efforts from pros to get their work up....or, at least, off the bottom!

On the USA Today's Ad Meter, note that most of the top-ranked tended to come earlier in the game.....

[Big Media]

The E-Trade spots were funny but the clown spot was better than the puke spot. The Bud Light spot with the fire was cool as was the FedEx spot with the excessively large pigeons. But the winner in my book was the Clydesdale spot. Loved it.

By the way, Arp. The Bud Light ad clearly states that the ability to breath fire is no longer available with Bud Light.

[AmpedNow]

Wow. This was a year for the truly bizarre...

Best: The Bud Light wine and cheese party, Audi (that was one hot ride), the new Corolla (representing), Bridgestone (I actually need some new tires, and I remembered the ads), FedEX carrier pidgeons, Doritos mousetrap, Pepsi Max (glad they're really pushing this brand), Pepsi road service, and the Pepsi/JT (though a little overdone).

Then, there's GoDaddy, with their rejected SB commercial. Inoffensive and clever, IMO.

I guess Candace Michelle can't be anywhere near free TV anymore...

Worst: Salesgenie (I mean, wtf?), Tide to go (Dunno... Just didn't amuse me), Planters.

Good, but wtf: the Naomi Cambell/Thriller lizards... was anybody else disappointed by what was being advertised? (as weird as that sounds). Life Water? Nah, that would have been an excellent Pepsi ad, though.

Most bizarre: the Careerbuilder walking heart ad. Actually, that was outright creepy... Even cardiologists must've been shaking their heads.

The rest were just ok.

[Zak Tyler]

Good, but wtf: the Naomi Cambell/Thriller lizards... was anybody else disappointed by what was being advertised? (as weird as that sounds). Life Water? Nah, that would have been an excellent Pepsi ad, though.

only if they had pyro's at the end catching the lizards on fire

[Arp2]

Check out http://www.spotbowl.com to see how the rest of the country compares.

With people voting on only the ones that intrigued them one way or the other, the results are a little strange and, with relatively few votes on many, easily influenced.

This thing became something semi-interesting to watch. And, then, just as the internet involves computers and (as Scott has said) nothing that's been done on a computer is real, it became an absolute joke.

Believe it or not, a radio war broke out!

And, predictably, share compression was the result.

Those who've never seen anything similar complained that the whole thing must be rigged or have some flaw....you know, with all the numbers in the pack becoming almost identical.

I, of course, couldn't see the people and watch every moment, but I make the following semi-edumacated observations and guesses about what happened.

Early in the process, things played out as a "pick your favorite" kind of thing would -- as people came by, they "voted for" their favorites and, perhaps, rated a few others. Word of the site got out, and pros and communities began to show up to either bring themselves glory or save themselves embarassment. Success in altering the rankings was easy early, but, as the number of votes increased, changing one's favorite's position grew tougher.

And, then, the modern-day radio war broke out.

It was soon very obvious that many, figuring out that it was a whole lot easier to cause someone else's fave to lose rather than get one's to win, went to work on dragging the competition down -- commercials stopped climbing slowly upward and started shooting rapidly downward with only tiny changes in the numbers of votes. After being in a well-distributed range between 2.45 and 4.25, the great majority got squeezed into the range of 3.6-4.1. In the latter half of the "contest," landing in the top three (top ten or so in the final hours and minutes) meant becoming a target to be dragged down, not earning a spot to gain more love.

(With top-ranked commercials being around "4," each "1" vote had three times the effect of each "5" vote.)

Also in the closing hours and minutes, the more mathematically-inclined realized that the commercials with fewer total votes could be more easily manipulated, and they went to work on those (probably pure mischief). As finally ranked, numbers 6-9, 11-13, 15, 16, 18, 20-23, 27, and 31-35 all saw those last-minute attempts to jerk the numbers around before seeing others try to pull them back down to "save" their favorites. In other words, the final rankings do not represent what happened over most of the contest; without the end-game mischief, 1-5 probably would have been the same, but 6-9 would have been "E-trade / Investor Baby," "E-trade / Baby Investor 2," "FedEx / Pigeons," and "Pepsi / Night At The Roxbury."

Interestingly, the E-trade spots I noted appeared to become the focus of much of the action.

"Investor Baby" reached as high as #1 and became maybe the first to come under "drag it down" attacks. "Baby Investor 2" was around #5 when "Investor Baby" was #1 and, apparently never coming under the attacks the first did over and over, held its own in the 6-8 range before the flurry of mischief toward the end.

Now, believing I was seeing all this stuff right as it started to happen, I decided to try my own little experiment to see if I could define any part of the "battle." (After thinking its days were over, I've seen a startling amount of "bandwagon" going on in the election process, especially amongst the young, and have been wanting to play with it a little.) Realizing that people could open as many windows and tabs as they wished and "vote" as many times as they wished, I knew the top would see little "bandwagon" but plenty of action, bias, and mischief; consequently, I decided to see if I could define the bottom of the list.

With each having relatively few votes, and with "Pepsi / Derek Jeter" and "SalesGenie / Acme Widget" already there, I quickly and easily made the bottom five to be "Sunsilk / Some Girls," "SalesGenie / Pandaz," "Pepsi / Derek Jeter," "Dell / Join Red," and "SalesGenie / Acme Widget." Each more than tripled in ratings made since I acted upon them. You can judge the results for yourself.


(Those results really mean nothing, of course....I was just having fun talking....)

[AmpedNow]

I've seen a startling amount of "bandwagon" going on in the election process...

According to the internets, Obama and Paul blows everyone else out about 85-15.



That's a pretty cool experiment, though.

[Arp2]

I've seen a startling amount of "bandwagon" going on in the election process...

According to the internets, Obama and Paul blows everyone else out about 85-15.

No, this is more like "no one's in the lead, so I'm not sure" and "there's no frontrunner yet, so I don't know who I'm supposed to vote for."