I am among those who watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. (Sorry sports fans.) I am usually under-whelmed, and this year is no exception. The hype and dollars spent just don’t live up to the reality. What I found was an overwhelming percentage of spots devoid of any real creativity and meaningful marketing messages, instead giving in to stereotypes of men, women, and generally stupid behavior. Don’t even get me started on the bipolarity of Anheuser Busch doing ads about partying once Budweiser pops into the picture, and then flashing a tiny “drink responsibly” tagline on the screen at the end. There were a few bright spots, namely the Google “Parisian Love” search ad; it told a great story while demonstrating its functionality and benefits of the product (brilliant marketing!).
Makes me long for the days of Apple computer’s unveiling of the Mac computer. That was ground-breaking, trend-setting, interesting, and actually made the audience seem a little higher up on the intelligence scale than ‘beer=party=stupid’. And while I initially found the Doritos’s dog bark collar spot funny, it still ultimately poked fun at a stereotypical jerky guy getting his comeuppance after teasing a dog. The beaver ad for Monster.com was funny and cute, but don’t we always see ads with humanized critters? Nothing new here.
I’m not sure if it’s the large billion-dollar clients calling the shots and directing financially at-risk advertising agencies to do these commercials, or just a total dearth of real intelligent marketing by these firms. But I have hope that a continuously challenging economy will actually make people turn away from cheap stereotypical advertising and do something smart and interesting. Like Google did. There’s always Super Bowl 45, right?
