Burger King, Ameriquest, ESPN, Beer Institute Super Bowl Favorites
So the Super Bowl is over. Was it worth the $2.6 million each marketer spent on a :30? We won't know for months but who cares. It's all entertainment anyway. You can read Bob Garfield's take on the whole thing here and marvel at his shock that the Super Bowl (oh, the horror) is commercial and that rock and roll is (oh, the horror) about making money. You can watched some of the ads Ad Age found more memorable here. You can watch all the ads at iFilm here. Or you can just go get a cup of coffee and see what your co-workers think.
We're not quite sure what our favorite is yet but for some strange reason we're leaning towards the Burger King Whopperettes commercial. Either that or the wonderfully on-message ESPN Mobile ad. The Hummer H3 ad, of course, was very good but we've seen it too many times already. A nod also goes to Ameriquest for their two very funny spots and the Beer Institute did a good job telling us we should all just go have a beer and the world's problems would be solved. Oh, wait, we said that.
Also high on our list are the Budweiser Clydesdales spot and Bud Light's "Magic Fridge."
Topic: Commercials, Good, Opinion, Super Bowl 2006, Television
Comments
Steve, the best ad of the night was ABC's "Addicted to Lost." Why isn't that included in anybody's list? Just axin...
Once again, I find myself in the confused minority of those who just don't get the appeal of the Burger King spots. The Busby Berkeley rendition seemed like a long hit for a single. Lots of production, the creepy mascot and a slightly amusing ending with the burger being built. But why is this, and all the other spots in the campaign, constantly being lauded as brilliant?
The best spot was the Bud Light spot with the magic fridge.
You know what, Terry, you are right! And I was thinking of that while I was watching but I guess it fell into the "not really an ad" category.
I thought the Master Card commercial with MacGuyver was the best.
i agree about the abc addicted to lost. dove's campaign for beauty was original and a nice break. bud's magic fridge was great.
sprint: the violence with the phone was sophmoric.
budweiser: the hype with the grizzlies (a-b shopped their marcom people around the local tv stations for two weeks trying to build buzz over this mystery spot) was overplayed, the clydesdales i admit still are cute but i totally didn't enjoy the 'streaker'.
burgerking: i'm happier watching the digitally remastered vintage football footage. that to me was damn cool. this was weird. if you have to use the phrase 'we're hard core' in a burger commercial, to me it says 'we're desperate'.
ameriquest: i'm so tired of the one-off joke then the force-fit explanation of how it so poorly ties into the company that just paid an agency a ton of money to waste :60 on the superbowl. while cute scenes, i'd be curious to see the recall from ordinary consumers on exactly WHO and WHAT this ad was for.
the bob garfield link is broken, btw. hence my blather.
Anyone else notice that DDB's Budweiser "stadium" spot was a flagrant rip-off of the Carlton "Big Ad"? It would be nice to see some original thinking next time.
did anyone check out www.jenniferlovestherobot.com.
it's ridiculous.
really bothers me that the ameriquest ads were considered good. Compared to last year I think they are horrible. Didnt look as good, the "dont judge to quickly" looked too big. The original creators left for Goodby the new team needs to get fired.
NotSoFast, the Carlton ad is a rip off itself. Of British Airways.
I know I'm an old Rock and Roller, but while the Stones were playing I was waaaaay more into seeing a Stones concert than returning to the second half of the football: a Stones concert were there happened to be some football being played.
Oh yeah ... the ads? I liked the FedEx cave men.
Didnt like H3 it was tired. I never did like it though. I'm going with the Career Builder Monkey/Jackass spot. It's particularly appealing on this brutally early Monday morning.
The problem I had with the Beer Institute ad is I have no access to what it was getting at -- I wasn't able to input the day and year of my birth in Safari thanks to some programming oversight. So...
As a whole, I enjoyed the Budweiser ads. And the Jennifer Loves the Robot ad. For the most part, though, I think the creatives were going for odd this year. So many ads were just, well, weird.
Disagree about the Ameriquest ads. Funny, memorable, distinctive, consistent in terms of branding and message.
My 2 cents.
I laughed the hardest at the Fedex caveman ad. When he kicked the birdthing then got stomped. Whopperettes were sort of funny but didn't really get me, must be a guy thing. And the full throttle ad was nothing to whine about for the trucking industry. Since I train horses, obviously my fav was the baby bud pulling the cart ad. Very clever. But will it really make me go out and buy a bud? -No, but I'd buy a clydesdale then maybe put a bud blanket on it!
There were a few outstanding ads this year - and a couple that should result in a fired ad agency.
The winners:
Disney - Showing the heroes of the day praticing their "I'm going to Disney World" was advertising gold. It did a nice job showing the WDW dream for kids of all ages.
Bud - The baby Clydesdale aspiring to pull the wagon was a touching spot cementing Bud's position as a hertiage brand.
MasterCard - MacGyver. Priceless. Nice job highlighting the use of MC for everyday purchases.
Runners-up: FedEx Cavean, ESPN Phone, Bud Wave, CareerBuilder Ass, SierraMist Security, Moto PEBL
Funny but ineffective:
Bud Light - The Fridge was a nice spot - for any beer company. I think people will remember the spot but not who made it.
Ameriquest - Ditto.
Sprint - Ditto
Complete waste of an ad budget:
I see an agency review in the future for several brands. Just because you spent a lot of money creating the ad, doesn't mean it's good.
- Gillette
- Aleve
- Nationwide
All hail the freakin' subjective nature of this business.
The Clydesdale ad was painful, trite, plodding.
Fedex ad was contrived, and I feel like the stomp ending has been done to death.
The Burger King Ad was funny, but not sure it sells burgers.
The only ad I thought really worked was Emerald Nuts. Weird, funny, uses the brand name as an essential (though totally irreverent) part of the spot – goood stuff.
Bob Garfield is like the Joel Siegel of advertising, there were like 2 ads he didn't like. I thought this year had the WORST ADS of any superbowl yet. So many ads trying to be post-modern edgy but too pussy to go all the way so you have this weird, fractured voice that does companies no favors. (imho hehe)
The Burger King spot was a waste of a lot of money (media and production dollars). Just goes to show that even a "hot" agency can come up with bad creative.
The FedEx caveman spot was the only one that made me laugh (when he kicks the small dinosaur and then gets crushed).
I've always thought the Gillette spots were bad. They don't even need to advertise because guys that use Gillette razors will buy whatever they come out with next if they think it will give them a better shave.
If I was pepsi I would ask for my money back. Those ads were so BAD that I will never drink pepsi again. I am annoyed just thinking about them.
thank you, NotSoFast (above), for pointing out Budweiser's Carlton "Big Ad" rip.
THAT ad was truly unbelievable (in a very good way). the Bud spot was a sad, and dare I say shameful ripoff.
*sigh*
Speaking of deja vu creative, what about:
- Terry Tate for Michelob and Airtran
- Doritos 3D for Pizza Hut
- [a reach] Nextel Salt-n-Pepa guys for CareerBuilder
And can we get some new campaigns for:
- Mastercard. Priceless was good, what's next?
- Disney. Unexpected when Phil Simms did it, retire it until Chris Simms wins the big one.
- Gillette. Those surreal sci-fi effects really pop with the target customer.
Agree 100% with Peter. Mastercard needs to wakeup and realize there "priceless" ad's aren't funny amnymore and rather annoying.
"I'm going to Disney World"...old..tired..does anyone care anymore?
Gillette's Creative Brief "Show razor--Use3D effects--Talk about 6 blades--Show razor". Wow ingenious!