Last night, I suffered through a football game in which the team I was rooting for lost. I was in it for the ads in any case, and that also was a bit underwhelming. As I had predicted, there were lots of ads for movies (about 10 by my count), some of them not opening until late summer. The beer ads were as always for Budweiser, Bud Light, and Bud Lime, plus one for Heineken (again, that I saw). There were ads from CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com and Avon touting the time to change your career. Other advertisers included:
In the automotive category: Hyundai, Toyota, Audi, cars.com, carmax.com, Bridgestone tires, Castrol Oil
Beverages (non-alcoholic) : Pepsi, Coke , SoBe Lifewater, Super G (I think this was Gatorade)
Food: Taco Bell, McDonalds, Cheetos, Doritos
Products and Services: Etrade, GoDaddy.com, H&R Block, Teleflora, GE, Cash4Gold.com, Overstock.com, Kellogs Frosted Flakes, Pedigree adopt-a-dog campaign.
Overall, some of the best (and more memorable) ads came from the usual suspects, Pepsi and Coke. Pepsi seemed to have taken over the Obama logo and used Bob Dylan and Will.I.Am. Coke went the animation route (this is after all the company that brought us cola drinking polar bears). Budweiser had two memorable commercials-one in which business people are having a budget meeting while drinking Bud Light (what?) and one of the recommends, albeit jokingly that they cut out the Bud to save money and gets booted out the window. The other featured the Clydesdale horses recounting their epic immigration to the United States. Bridgestone used Mr. Potato Head. SoBe used ballet-dancing football players.
My least favorite ads by far were for GoDaddy.com. Not only were they juvenile but they were also sexist. I am not sure what their target audience is for their services, but unless they are only trying to appeal to teenage boys and immature men, they missed the mark. I also did not like the CareerBuilder.com commercial. There was something so patronizing about it. Just like last year, I didn’t get the Doritos ads. And Cheetos ads were funny, but disturbing: women who eat snack foods can tap in to their inner witch.
I think when the tallies come out, this year was not the year for Super Bowl ad spending. Many of the ads (and some of the funniest, actually0 were for NBC and their shows. I especially liked the one dealing with the LMAO. That was funny.
If you missed the game, but want to see the ads, you can go to Hulu.com.
About Deborah Brody
Deborah Brody writes and edits anything related to marketing communications. Most blog posts are written under the influence of caffeine.
