In a different kind of Movement, Chevrolet will send eight teams on a road trip to Austin for SXSW. Departing from San Diego, Detroit, Lansing, Chicago, Atlanta, South Florida, North Carolina and New York in early March, the teams will be given a series of clues to various destinations along the way and be asked to participate in several challenges (50 per team in all some of which will be "crowd sourced") such as using OnStar to assist someone along the way, stop at an animal shelter and give a dog a walk, grab a pen from a Chevrolet dealership, stuff the trunk of the vehicle full of balloons, meet up with a Twitter follower and give them a ride in the vehicle, sing in a public place and more.
Drivers and their teams will blog their adventures on a Posterous blog. GM is clear to point out speed to Austin is not part of the challenge. Winners will be determined challenge performance and the level of audience engagement they engender along the way.
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.
Hey, didn't some other brand just do the "your ass will look better if you wear our shoes" thing? Now Reebok's doing it. Or was it Reebok in the first place? We're too busy at a conference having fun to take the time to find out. And besides, why analyze an ad when it needs no analysis? A hot ass attracts eyeballs. And in advertising, that's half the battle. And it might even sell some shoes.
Now go buy some Reebok's so we can claim we know what we're talking about as opposed to appearing to be some sort of ad hack with nothing better to do than leer at women's buttocks like a Neanderthal who's been away from his woman on a long hunting trip.
There were no standouts,commercially speaking, in last night's Super Bowl. Unless of course, you believe USA Today's Ad Meter which ranked the Betty white/Abe Vigoda number one. Or if you believe the Mullen/radian6 Brand Bowl which, through social media comment and positive sentiment, gave top honors to Doritos (the brand, not an individual spot). Or if you place credence in Bob Garfield's watch-them-all-before-the-game approach then the top slot goes to Audi.
Or if you are a fan of Adland's Ask Wappling, the love went to Volkswagon's Punch Buggy ad. Or of you can't get enough of Make the Logo Bigger's Bill Green then it's Google's Parisian ad. Or if Hulu is your gig, then the top slot was Doritos to own for its consumer-generated House Rules ad. Betty White's Snickers ad and Google's search ad faired well there too. As did the hottie-in-a-tub Megan Fox ad for Motorola...which distracted us enough to mostly miss the VW Punch Buggy ad which followed. We know. Predictable behavior around here at Adrants.
Or if you can't get enough Barbara Lippert, Budweiser's Clydsdales or Bud Light's Asteroid. Or, well, she really isn't clear on which one she liked best. (In a later article, she named Google her fave.) Or if you're a commenter on Bob Garfield's Ad review, then honors, it would seem, should go to Google. Bob didn't even comment on the spot because, well, he watches all the ads (at least the ones that have been released), forms his opinion and files his story before the kick off. he misses in-game context and late/un-released commercials.
But it's not just a movie commercial! Which we don't even pay attention to. It's an ad for the new Universal Studios Harry Potter attraction, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. So pay attention to this. Oh wait. Don't bother. It's lame. If you've seen any of the movies, you've seen this ad.
But the ad was done by a tiny shop outside London called Rosso Media which created, shot and post-produced. So be nice. Oh wait, We weren't very nice. Sorry guys.
You've seen the teaser for Kia's first Super Bowl commercial, right? We've seen the whole thing. Sorry, can't link until it airs during the third quarter.
It's not bad. It's fun. But it's really just a longer version of the teaser. No real surprises. Well, except for maybe a lady wearing a yellow bikini in a hot tub. You know. These are the things marketers have to do to appeal to the stereotypical block head who watches the Super Bowl, right? But the ad does end with a focus on family. No, not that kind of focus.
Once again it's the battle of the Twitter Super Bowl hashtags. Last year, there were about four that played prominently. In fact, we had one of our own. Can't even remember what it was. And we don't care. This year, we're letting someone else do all the work. An agency with, unlike us, an army of talented creative and technical people who can put stuff like Brand Bowl 2010 together.
So make sure you leave a tab handy in your browser for Brand Bowl. You can see how the ads rank based on tweets and other metrics. You can log in right from the Brand Bowl page and barf your Super Bowl commercial opinion for all to see. Oh, and there's a sweet link to Hulu where all the ads will be house once they air.
So for this year's Super Bowl Twitter hashtag, we're putting our money on #brandbowl. Sorry #sb44, #sbad, #sbads, #sbads10, #superbowlads, #admeter, #superbowl and all the rest of you.
It's a journey. It's a math problem. It's a religion. It's American football. It's a Super Bowl commercial! Well, not really. It's just a pre-game commercial but still.
This Gatorade commercial is a creative collaboration between NFL Films and Smuggler director Henry Alex Rubin (he of Whopper Freak-out, Adidas Brotherhood and Murder Ball), and is voiced by Common (Terminator Salvation and American Gangster).
It's kinda fun. Poking fun at things. The dude is old! And yea, we have no idea what Favre's career will look like in ten years but Hyundai wants us to know your car will still be under waurentee. Here's the outtakes and here's the Facebook page. Hmm. Blueberries. GPS balls.
- Check out Whose Voice is That? It's all about celebrity voiceovers and they've just posted a Super Bowl commercial roundup that looks at ten classic Super Bowl spots making great use of the narrator and/or voiceover.
- "The Real Men and Women of Madison Avenue," an exhibit that celebrates the contributions made to American business and to popular culture by the real stars of Madison Avenue, is coming to San Francisco for its first public showing outside of New York City at the Academy of Art University's 79 Gallery on New Montgomery Street February 24, 2010 for a one-week showing.
