Pictured above: Offending Ad

awfcom89: there have been a lot of purported “controversies” over the Super Bowl ads this year.

rosco-9000: you mean snickers has men kissing

awfcom89: right, and the countless other controversies

rosco-9000: like what

awfcom89: well anna nicole smith died

rosco-9000: that wasn’t really related to the super bowl ads

awfcom89: or WAS it? (conspiracy!!)

rosco-9000: :O omg!

awfcom89: yeah, think about it. anyway i thought we could help out fedEx today by fabricating some controversy around their “moon-base ad”, which would lead to more publicity of the ad, which, scientifically, leads to more people shipping items to the moon via Federal Express 14-Day Guanranteed Moon Delivery

(Oh there is more…)

Share This

Career Builder 2007 Spot 1Super Bowl XLI Commercial

Today it’s yet another Super Bowl post. It really seems like a lot of spots debuted during the game, and without a lot of outstanding ads they all sort of became background noise.

This campaign for Career Builders dot com aired during the Super Bowl. The commercials have a lot of pluses: great settings, good acting and characters, and three different spots to eliminate repetition.

This first ad is probably my favorite. I enjoy the remark to the furious delivery guy the most. “You don’t even work here!”.

This ad is another showcase of the “rich old white man” boss / financial figure (we see him sitting in the middle during the opening shot. Compare to the rich old white man high-priced financial adviser in the eTrade ad from the previous post. It’s an unfair generalization, that’s what it is.

Career Builder 2007 Spot 2Super Bowl XLI Commercial

And here’s more of the rich old white man, giving wedgies. Disgusting. I think I’m going to write a letter.

Again, this is more of the same from the previous ad. It’s an entertaining commercial, and is very visual. The props are also integrated into the idea quite well, there’s a water-cooler Vietcong-era trap, and a guy with pinchy paper holders all over his body.
I also like the idea that there are islands of bliss outside the office environment. The hot secretary is immune to the turmoil, as are the executives. In the final ad we also see a male security guard totally unaffected by the chaos.

Career Builder 2007 Spot 3Super Bowl XLI Commercial

And here’s the last Career Builder ad. I quite like the shot of the group being caught in the net. It actually looks like a working trap, and it’s believable that the group is snared. I enjoy little details like this.

This was a well-done Super Bowl campaign, though I think it was deliberately not a gamble, so it the ads settle for above average instead of being something that gets a lot of attention. In the long run I have a lot more respect for these kind of ads, especially when they incorporate a theme that ties into the service or product the ads are selling. The “office as jungle” has a direct meaning to their target customers. Some other themes from the Super Bowl, such as “Snickers makes men kiss each other” has markedly less meaning to most customers.

Share This

Sierra Mist Karate Commercials Super Bowl XLI Commercial

Here are three spots that I wouldn’t call the best of the Super Bowl, but were at least somewhat entertaining commercials.

First up is the other Sierra Mist commercial, taking place in a karate class. I like the beard-combover one much better, but this is still a funny addition to the family, like an adopted Puerto Rican cousin in a white bread Connecticut suburb. Sorry I’m running out of analogies here.

eTrade’s Finger Commercial Super Bowl XLI Commercial

I note this spot for eTrade chiefly for the “save Holland” line. The commercial illustrates (or in the final scene, implies) what you can do with a single finger.

I like how in these kind of commercials your boss / high priced financial broker is always the oldest, richest looking white man imaginable. I’ll tell you what that is. That’s racist. Racist like making fun of Puerto Ricans, that kind of racist.

Fed Ex Turkey Neck Super Bowl XLI Commercial

Uh. Anyway I will now review this final commercial from the leftover bin without mentioning Puerto Ricans at all.

Um. Talk about writer’s block. I was really relying on a Puerto Rican reference to get me through this one.

Anyway I like the concept of this last ad, it just didn’t have a real drop-dead funny moment that would have made it more memorable. I think part of the problem is the pacing of the commercial, when I watched it live it went by so fast it was hard to catch all of the references, especially with the three-shot.   I couldn’t tell “Ilene” was even leaning the first go-round.  Maybe cutting one out and sticking to medium close-ups might have made the comedic timing better.

¡Viva Puerto Rico!

Share This

Hot amature robot action

It sounds like there’s another controversy trumping-up attempt going on over yet one more Super Bowl commercial, this time against General Motor’s sad robot ad.

The controversy is supposedly two-fold: relatives of suicide victims and laid-off GM workers are both (supposedly) finding a reason to be deeply offended with the ad.

I’ll admit when I saw the ad, I was kind of surprised the commercial went as far as depicting the robot droid killing itself. Even though it was revealed to be a dream (warning: spoilers preceding this parenthetical statement) I will admit it is somewhat shocking imagery.

(Oh there is more…)

Share This

It must be another office birthday party

There’s nothing like hot slutty strippers to get the image of two men kissing over a Snickers out of your head.

This Super Bowl ad for Godaddy features hot, dirty strippers just slutting it up. It’s relatively ham-fisted; there’s no real attempt to hide the fact they’re just using T + A to get your attention.

That said, if you’re not going to gamble you might as well go for a sure thing. The number of people you offend by objectifying women is probably going to be much smaller than the number of people you get the attention of with an ad like this.

This “campaign” actually has its roots in trying to capitalize on scandal: This first spot was a year after the Janet Jackson *slide whistle noise* scandal, and obviously was trying to make some kind of connection with the incident. Another year later it’s just no match for men kissing over a Snickers bar. What happened to the wholesome full-frontal female nudity Super Bowl days of yore? Gone forever. Now middle America is begging, begging for some Janet Jackson titty to shock their children straight again. Well I hope you’ve all learned your lesson.

Share This