For the first time in many years, the ad blogs didn’t live blog the Super Bowl. The reason for the change? Simple. One word: Twitter. With at least four different hashtags (words that let you follow a particular Twitter stream), a cascading waterfall of real-time opinion flooded through for all to see. Thousands of people could live tweet their thoughts in 140 character bits instead of a few attempting to type 3,000 words a minute to publish three stories per ad break.
The Twitter stream we arranged along with AdFreak, AgencySpy and Adland was #superads08. It was near impossible to read every tweet but some information did bubble up. People liked the CareerBuilder spot. They liked the Pedigree ad. They liked the Hulu ad. The like all three Doritos ads. They liked Pepsi’s Bob Dylan spot.
They hated both GoDaddy commercials. They hated H&R Block. They hated SoBe Life Water. They hated Toyota’s Faces. There was debate over the Teleflora ad which not so subtly made fun of, shall we say, less that beautiful people and just how much backlash that spot might generate.
A service called Thummit asked Twitter users to give each ad a thumbs up or a thumbs down and tallied the results here. Oddly, Bridgestone topped the Thumbs Up list with its Hot Item spot. That was followed by the Doritos remote control spot, Coke’s Heist and Monster.
Topping the Thummit Thumbs Down list were, no surprise, GoDaddy’s Shower and and Baseball commercials. They were followed by Toyota Faces, H&R Block’s Death and Taxes and Cheetos Chester the Cheetah.
Over at the USA Today Ad Meter, Doritos topped the list with Free Doritos (Crystal Ball) followed by Budweiser’s Circus, Budweiser’s Stick, Bridgestone’s Potato Heads, Doritos’ Power of the Crunch and Car’s.com.
And at Advertising Age, Bob Garfield, while he didn’t like it, dubbed the Cash4Gold spot the best since he figures it will have the best ROI with the assumption the economy sucks and everyone will, in fact, send their gold to Cash4Gold for cash. We actually liked that spot purely for it’s dramatic difference from your average, run-of-the-mill Super Bowl spot. It stood out and that’s half the battle.
Our favorites, in no particular order were CareeBuilder, Doritos Power of the Crunch, Cash4Gold, Hulu, Doritos Snow Globe, Pepsi’s Pepsuber, Pedigree, Pepsi Max I’m Good, Coke Heist and, yes, we admit it, the SoBe commercial. The Conan O’Brien Bud Light commercial was funny but the joke is about ten years old. Monster.com just left us with a big whatev.
The GE Scarcrow commercial showed promise until it was bogged down with typical big utility voiceover ruining what could have been a quaint and memorable commercial.
A lot of people liked the Denny’s commercial but the stereotypical goomba joke is tired and old and was played out before anyone had ever heard of The Sopranos. Another receiving a fair amount of love was the Mean Joe Green remake for Coke Zero featuring Troy Troy Polamalu. The original spot is a classic. The new spot brings back the Coke brand managers. However, the original ran in 1980 and, classic as it is, not too many people under the age of 35 are going to remember it. That said, it does do OK as a standalone shtick.
The Budweiser Clydesdales were a let down this year. The Clydesdales have become a symbol of pride for both Anheiser-Busch and for America. They are proud, hard working and, in a way, symbolic of American life. To have turned them into silly jokes is just sad and wrong. Remember, these are the same horses that gallantly cantered their way to the New York skyline post-9/11 and bowed in honor of lost America lives.
This year’s theme? Getting run over by a bus. Both Jack in the Box and the guy in the Doritos Power of the Crunch get run down by a bus at the end of each of their commercials. Hey, two makes a trend, right?
All in all it wasn’t a bad year. It wasn’t a standout year either but those are few so we can’t complain.
You can see all the ads at Adland, Advertising Age or CastTV.
Let us know your thoughts in comments.
Or Super Bowl Faves: Doritos, Cash4Gold, Pedigree, CareerBuilder
For the first time in many years, the ad blogs didn’t live blog the Super Bowl. The reason for the change? Simple. One word: Twitter. With at least four different hashtags (words that let you follow a particular Twitter stream), a cascading waterfall of real-time opinion flooded through for all to see. Thousands of people could live tweet their thoughts in 140 character bits instead of a few attempting to type 3,000 words a minute to publish three stories per ad break.
The Twitter stream we arranged along with AdFreak, AgencySpy and Adland was #superads08. It was near impossible to read every tweet but some information did bubble up. People liked the CareerBuilder spot. They liked the Pedigree ad. They liked the Hulu ad. The like all three Doritos ads. They liked Pepsi’s Bob Dylan spot.
They hated both GoDaddy commercials. They hated H&R Block. They hated SoBe Life Water. They hated Toyota’s Faces. There was debate over the Teleflora ad which not so subtly made fun of, shall we say, less that beautiful people and just how much backlash that spot might generate.
A service called Thummit asked Twitter users to give each ad a thumbs up or a thumbs down and tallied the results here. Oddly, Bridgestone topped the Thumbs Up list with its Hot Item spot. That was followed by the Doritos remote control spot, Coke’s Heist and Monster.
Topping the Thummit Thumbs Down list were, no surprise, GoDaddy’s Shower and and Baseball commercials. They were followed by Toyota Faces, H&R Block’s Death and Taxes and Cheetos Chester the Cheetah.
Over at the USA Today Ad Meter, Doritos topped the list with Free Doritos (Crystal Ball) followed by Budweiser’s Circus, Budweiser’s Stick, Bridgestone’s Potato Heads, Doritos’ Power of the Crunch and Car’s.com.
And at Advertising Age, Bob Garfield, while he didn’t like it, dubbed the Cash4Gold spot the best since he figures it will have the best ROI with the assumption the economy sucks and everyone will, in fact, send their gold to Cash4Gold for cash. We actually liked that spot purely for it’s dramatic difference from your average, run-of-the-mill Super Bowl spot. It stood out and that’s half the battle.
Our favorites, in no particular order were CareeBuilder, Doritos Power of the Crunch, Cash4Gold, Hulu, Doritos Snow Globe, Pepsi’s Pepsuber, Pedigree, Pepsi Max I’m Good, Coke Heist and, yes, we admit it, the SoBe commercial. The Conan O’Brien Bud Light commercial was funny but the joke is about ten years old. Monster.com just left us with a big whatev.
The GE Scarcrow commercial showed promise until it was bogged down with typical big utility voiceover ruining what could have been a quaint and memorable commercial.
A lot of people liked the Denny’s commercial but the stereotypical goomba joke is tired and old and was played out before anyone had ever heard of The Sopranos. Another receiving a fair amount of love was the Mean Joe Green remake for Coke Zero featuring Troy Troy Polamalu. The original spot is a classic. The new spot brings back the Coke brand managers. However, the original ran in 1980 and, classic as it is, not too many people under the age of 35 are going to remember it. That said, it does do OK as a standalone shtick.
The Budweiser Clydesdales were a let down this year. The Clydesdales have become a symbol of pride for both Anheiser-Busch and for America. They are proud, hard working and, in a way, symbolic of American life. To have turned them into silly jokes is just sad and wrong. Remember, these are the same horses that gallantly cantered their way to the New York skyline post-9/11 and bowed in honor of lost America lives.
This year’s theme? Getting run over by a bus. Both Jack in the Box and the guy in the Doritos Power of the Crunch get run down by a bus at the end of each of their commercials. Hey, two makes a trend, right?
All in all it wasn’t a bad year. It wasn’t a standout year either but those are few so we can’t complain.
You can see all the ads at Adland, Advertising Age or CastTV.
Let us know your thoughts in comments.
Steve Hall
RECENT ARTICLES
Lazy people who become highly disciplined often practice these 10 simple habits
People who light up every room they walk into usually display these 8 subtle behaviors
10 little things to start doing now to get ahead of everyone else in 5 years
People who are naturally quiet but highly observant usually display these 8 subtle behaviors
If a man feels proud to have you in his life, he’ll usually display these 9 behaviors
Dad Uses Hot Daughter to Sell Car on eBay
TRENDING AROUND THE WEB
My husband and I have weekly date nights where we leave our daughter with the nanny and go out for dinner and drinks — and the number of people who’ve called that selfish taught me that most couples stop prioritizing their marriage the second they become parents, and then wonder why they feel like roommates
Global English Editing
People who aren’t genuinely good are almost never cruel in obvious ways — they operate through these 10 conversational patterns subtle enough to make you doubt your own read of them
Global English Editing
I’m 73, my daughter is 44, and if you asked us both to describe our family we’d tell you two completely different stories — in hers I was controlling and unavailable, in mine I was holding everything together with both hands — and the distance between those two versions is the exact space where most parent-child relationships go to die
Global English Editing
Most people don’t realize that meditation doesn’t teach you who you are – it teaches you who you’re not, and the terrifying freedom that comes from realizing you’ve been defending an identity you never chose
Global English Editing
I worked full-time while raising a one-year-old and maintaining a marriage and by month ten I was overwhelmed in the supermarket aisle because I realized I had optimized my entire life for efficiency but forgotten to leave space for joy
Global English Editing
I’m 38 and I just realized my Boomer parents don’t call me for advice — they call me to hear their own thoughts repeated back in a younger voice because somewhere in the last 5 years they stopped trusting their own judgment and my job isn’t to have answers anymore, it’s to make their answers sound valid, and I don’t know when that shift happened but I know exactly what it cost them to need it
Global English Editing