As we suspected, Anheuser-Busch and Ameriquest scored highly in USA Today's Annual Super Bowl Ad Meter ranking.
The brewer took the number one slot for is Bud Light commercial in which a hesitant sky diver jumps out after a six pack. Also placing in the top ten were AB's "American Troop Thanks You" spot (3rd) and it's cell phone ad in which a guy sees a pic of his girlfriend with another guy. As we also expected, the Ameriquest spot in which a babbling cell phone user is misinterpreted to be a robber placed number two on the list. The mortgage company also placed i8th for its spot in which a guy, after struggling with his cat and a pot of tomato sauce is seen by his girlfriend holding the cat in one hand and a knife in the other.
Napters placed last on the list for its commercial promoting it dead-on-arrival Napster To Go music rental program.
If you're already overloaded with Super Bowl commercial commentary, here's more. USA Today, at 2 PM EST, is hosting a live conversation with Ad Age ad critic Bob Garfield. Here's your chance to ask him when he last changed his hair style and other important things like why one GoDaddy spot was banned and the other wasn't.
Freelance copywriter Kimberly Freeman offers her own personal take on Super Bowl 2005 commercials. Her top pick: the FedEx Kinko's spot.
Far too busy to visit every detail of last nights Super Bowl extravaganza, Strategic Public Relations points out the McDonald's Lincoln Fry promotion, along with it's odd website detailing a couple's experiences after finding a French fry that has the profile of Abe Lincoln, also has a weblog as a component. But after spending a few minutes with the blog, it's clear it's fake. Just another manufactured part of a campaign. We can't understand why marketers feel the need to do this.
Continuing its "Priceless" theme, Mastercard gathered every major grocery brand around a table for dinner including the Jolly Green Giant, the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Vlasic pickle pelican. For a minute there, we didn't know what brand we were supposed to be taking in. Sometimes these brand mix things work. Sometimes they don't. Not sure this one did.
FOX wants us to believe it actually paid itself $2.4 million for the promotional spot it ran for its series "24" by claiming, in the ad, it was worth it. Wait until the accountants see this one.
We admit it. We're a sucker for emotional commercials and we're especially moved by emotional military commercials. During the Super Bowl, Anheuser-Busch ran a minute long commercial, set in an airport, showing troops returning while travelers in the terminal stood and applauded their efforts. Very moving. It reminds us of the 2002 Anheuser-Bush spot in which Clydesdales kneel to New York City following 911. We give high marks to this one. View the commercial here.
OK so frequency can be a good thing in a media buy but three spots in the Super Bowl that are exactly the same? Waste of money. At $2.4 million per :30, it likely costs less to produce a spot than to air it so Ford could have easily ponied up more money rather than bore us with three identical spots - two within five minutes of each other.
To the classic James Bond movie Live And Let Die accompanied by a massive display of fireworks. He also performed 4-5 more of his classics from the Beatles days delivering one of the best half time shows in memory. Janet who?
The latest weblog from Weblogs, Inc., AdJab, has launched and is blogging, with an apparent army of bloggers, what appears to be every Super Bowl commercial. Doesn't anyone just watch the game anymore?
