Adrants Makes Up Awards for Super Bowl Commercials

Every year we talk about the Super Bowl. Mostly for its entertainment value as compared to the blood, sweat and tears of the play-off season. As far as football itself goes I'm a fan of two teams: the Patriots (don't get me started on their 09-10 season) and whatever team is making Peyton Manning cry. This year's Super Bowl was good for that.

While the game sometimes offers up some action, each year we gather 'round the onion dip mostly to watch and talk about the ads. This year was no different. In terms of the ads, we had a few of the usual stand bys: Celebrity Sightings, Babes in Bikinis, and Stupid Human Tricks (category renamed from the former: Guys Doing Stupid Shit). All were present and accounted for in this year's game too. In this wrap up report, here's the good, the bad and the ugly.

Bridgestone Tires, "Now THAT'S a Bachelor Party!"

My daughter and I have a game we play while watching commercials. We try to guess the product before it's shown. This one comes onto the screen with three panic stricken guys in an indistinguishable SUV. Oh yea and there's a killer whale between them, tail hanging out the back. She yells "Sea World!" I pause to think. Are they trying to say the experience is so intimate it's like having Shamu in your car? I decide no. I say "car commercial!" She balks. We wait. The terror builds as they speed up, heading straight for the end of the pier, full-on Thelma and Louise style. Then with deft and elegance they reverse directions, come to a screeching stop, and successfully drop the whale safely back into the ocean. Driver looks around, all take deep breath and he says "Now THAT'S a Bachelor Party!" It's an ad for Bridgestone tires. They/re that can handle anything! Point well made and Award for: Best One Liner.

Bud Light "Book Group"

This ad was kind of generic. A guy heads out to escape Girls' Night. In this case, Book Group. He spots Bud Lights on table for guests and decides to stay. Commercial plays out with his baseball team trying to mingle and speak intelligently about the book none of them, clearly, have ever read while enjoying the beer. Yawn.

But wait! The best part comes from @Nicole...on twitter when she tweets "Great. Now my husband wants to go to book group. First rule of book group: don't talk about book group" The tweet saves the day! Award for: Best Ad Tweet of the Night

Late Night with David Letterman,

First, what a coup d'état getting Leno, Winfrey and Letterman all in a room together! Read the article how they did it - I think you'll enjoy finding out NBC was a co-conspirator! Second, they get bonus points for having no part of the commercial's plot leaked to the press before the the gane. And last, it had super concept and great direction as the cast and plot unfolds. Perfect length too. Short and Sweet. Award for: Surprise of the Night

VW Slug Bug

The game of my childhood, "Punch Buggy." If you squint you can still see the bruises on my left arm. A great throw back to the fondness of silly childhood games. However I'm calling foul on VW since now they want us to smack each other around every time we see any kind of VW on the road. Not buying it. Does the expression "jumped the shark" mean anything to you guys? However the who's smacking who was funny evolution and unraveled nicel and the cherry on top was Stevie Wonder who could tell what color the VW was simply by his refined sixth sense. Awesome. Award for: Best Use of Irony

Dodge Charger

The Charger ad was clever concept, I liked the idea. For all the yucky stuff we HAVE to do we get to drive the car we WANT to drive. However, I think they excluded about 50 percent of their audience with it being a male focused thing. I'm a girl I want a charger. They're hot and I recognize this. Am I not deserving? I gave birth. To another human. Enough said. The stuff us girls do makes us just as deserving. Now the endlessly long list of stuff guys have to do was WAY-Y to long, and included the inane. That said, this would have been an OUTSTANDING :30 "He said, She said" style spot. Award for: Honorable Mention

Google Paris

They don't really need my vote, the stream was flooded with "Awww" from every corner of the globe last night. It was cute. It was heartfelt. It told a wonderful story complete with happy ending. One tweet pointed out most deftly that it was the least expensive and most effective one to make. Award for: Most Squishy (in a good way)

Megan Fox for Motorola

Megan Fox in a bathtub: Hot. Megan Fox photographing herself in tub: VERY hot. Megan Fox tweeting her photo of herself in bathtub: Destroys Infrastructure of America. Who knows, maybe the world. Funny? Yes. But only because it's true. Award for: Funny Cause it's True

Plane Crash for Budweiser

Yes. This is the "Lost" ad. Girl walking among plane crash survivors. It's a desperate scene. People, debris and equipment are strewn about. She shouts "I've found the radio, we can call for help." There's a small stir of interest. Man on opposite end of beach yells "I've found the beverage cart, we can all have a Budweiser" The crowd goes wild. I laughed out loud. The ad competed in the Megan Fox "Funny Cause it's True" category as far as I'm concerned but then I moved it into its own category. Award for: Best Ad Using Pop Culture Hit as Backdrop

Career Builder "Casual Friday"

Everyone's in their underwear at the office. They call it casual Friday. Ever feel like that one guy in your office that doesn't fit in? Ya, well maybe it's time for a new gig says Career Builder. It was a funny concept but again like the Charger ad the gag went on for about 20 seconds too long. Also awkward, round and out of shape people in their underwear isn't exactly a Super Bowl staple. Until this year. Dual Awards for: Bold People Baring All, and The Courage to Sell Not Using Sex

And a few more we didn't give awards to:

Betty White and Abe Vigoda for Snickers

A gay kiss, it's not. You're hungry. You're not performing. You get heckled by a team mate who says "You're playing like Betty White man" Oh yea? Well at 88 years old the Golden Girl is still racking up quality gigs and plenty of must see screen hours. She's funny, sharp witted and brave. She has done everything you can in the industry except play in the NFL. You've got to admit, this spot was funny.

Go Daddy

Note to Bob Parsons: It's a DEAD HORSE. Get off!

Monster.com

In a big "huh?" moment, we noticed Monster.com feature a Beaver making his way to Carnegie Hall with, you guessed it: practice, practice, practice and a little help from Monster. It was a cute and clever ad to show more specialized search functionality. An additional benny is the illustration of what we all know to be true: playing Beaver well leads to success in life.

HomeAway.com

Love Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo! Loved them in the first movie, loved them in the last, and every repeated joke in between. They look old, which makes me sigh, but the throw back to the Griswold's was nicely done! Makes me wish they could have worked Rusty in. I don't know diddly about your service, HomeAway, but awesome use of 80's pop culture.

Audi

Here's the thing, I love being green. It's a good thing. But if I'm gonna be buying an Audi, it's because it's hot and fast, not because it's green. Nazi reference of Green Police is a buzz kill too. Sorry I know it's sixty plus years later but Hitler jokes still aren't funny.

Cars.com

Genius confused by buying a car. Now that's comforting. Don't we all feel the same way sometimes? There's some who don't like the Royal Tenenbaums' reference but I love the obscure. It was a great ad, effective and enjoyable. Especially when he saved the cheerleaders (ok, not really).

E*Trade

Talking babies are creepy. They have always been creepy, please burp up a new idea.

Kia Sock Monkey a la Breaking Bad

Kia is not tame. It's wild like the Sock Monkey fantasy. It's wild like Sock Monkey in Vegas; wild like Sock Monkey at the disco; wild like Sock Monkey getting an embroidered tattoo! Awesome, awesome, and more awesome yet. Oh, but wait. It's only a toy. And so is the Kia. Since the base model Sorento has a 4-cylinder engine that 'boasts' 175 horse power, it's, well, not so wild. However the ad was a "Departure From the Expected" and for that I'm awarding bonus points!

Census 2010

Yes, it's required by the constitution that produce a count every now and then of Americans. And yes, I really enjoy the collaborative effort of all the celebs in the first ad and now in this ad as well. But, all the love aside, I can't help but do the math: Super Bowl ads cost an average of $2.5 million per minute and our gorgeous, lovely and brilliant country is approximately $12.3 trillion in debt. Adding it up makes me wonder to myself if this is the best use of government funds? Hey if I had to cut back on the mani-pedis you have to cut back on some extras too okay? Dear U.S. Census Bureau, Please don't spend our federal money on overpriced Super Bowl ads. Love, Me. OK, so $2.5 million is a drop in the bucket and won't come close to reducing our debt but still. It's all about perception.

Denny's Screaming Chicken

The screaming chicken was a funny concept. The first time. It was funny when you did a screaming chicken in space but after the third one I needed the screaming to stop. Sadly, it made me want to become a vegetarian Sad for two reasons: I love meat and oh ya, cause I'm pretty sure that's NOT what you were going for.

This year's net Super Bowl rating: Lame