Super Bowl Ads 2009: Do the big brands really gain the most?

It's inevitable, I cannot have a blog that focuses on marketing, advertising, and television without mentioning the Super Bowl ads. There's not much to say about them though. From a creative standpoint it seems like Doritos' ad was the winner. This is according to USA Today's popular Ad Meter as well as an online poll taken by Hulu (whose own Super Bowl ad returned decent poll numbers):

This proves one thing: Americans LOVE watching people getting hit in the crotch. Next Super Bowl I better see 30 seconds of random crotch hits followed by the State Farm Insurance logo. Tagline: State Farm is there through the good times ... and the bad. INSTANT HIT!

An annual tournament-style competition by Cleveland advertising agency Liggett-Stashower returned different results (video courtesy of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com):

Super Bowl ads go head to head

I tend to agree with these results more. Those E-trade babies have not gotten old yet, and Miller High Life had a clever (and cheap) idea.

But will any of these ads cause you to take action? Did anyone run out to the store and buy some Doritos, or at least THINK about buying Doritos? Did anyone stand in line at Denny's this morning to earn your free breakfast?

There is always a lot of talk and hype about Super Bowl ads, but in the end it is usually the well established brands that earn the most buzz: Frito-Lay, Pepsi, Budweiser, etc. But what about the smaller up-and-coming brands? They have the most to gain (or lose) from a Super Bowl ad. Were there any ads for a company or product that you had never heard of, that you may now consider using?

I think Hulu will see a huge spike in traffic after their ad with Alec Baldwin. Online buzz for the Jack Black/Michael Cera movie "Year One" will probably increase after their funny trailer. That is a movie that has largely been kept under wraps until now (Unlike "Transformers", "GI Joe", etc.).

Who do you think are the winners and losers of this year's batch? Read more!

Adventures in Product Placement: Saturday Night Live & Pepsi

Wow! That was quite a Super Bowl. Well, it was quite a 4th quarter at least. As a Cleveland Browns fan I was pulling for the Cardinals, but their defense just couldn't stop the Steelers when they needed to. Oh well.

So what did you think of the commercials? Any favorites? General reaction seems to be that the Doritos' Crystal Ball ad and Budweiser's' Clydesdale in love ad were the favorites (Watch all the ads and see viewer's quantitative response at USA Today's Ad Meter). Towards the end of the game did you catch this odd ad from Pepsi?:


For those of you unaware MacGruber is a recurring character on "Saturday Night Live." On the show, each MacGruber skit is broken up into 3 parts and aired throughout that night's program. The premise is always the same: Placed in a tough spot, MacGruber tries to escape MacGyver-style (nice cameo by Richard Dean Anderson in the skit), only he never makes it in time because of some ridiculous argument. The 3 skits usually have a common thread that becomes more and more absurd with each skit.

This past week's episode of "Saturday Night Live" (with host Steve Martin) featured 3 MacGruber skits all about Pepsi. The above video, which was repurposed during the Super Bowl, was the 2nd of the 3 skits. Here is the 1st and 3rd:




Funny? I think so. They're as funny as any of the other MacGruber sketches. But they aren't comedy sketches, they are ad time purchased by Pepsi and aired during commercial breaks. "SNL" and Pepsi chose to blur those lines a little when airing the ads on Saturday night.

Known for their commercial parodies, "SNL" begins and ends each commercial break with a short bumper to let the audience know they are leaving parody territory and entering the real world of advertising. These bumpers are usually quick images of NYC cityscape with the "SNL" logo or an announcement of who's' hosting next week. These MacGruber commercials all aired IMMEDIATELY AFTER the bumpers, tricking the audience into thinking they are still watching the show. It worked on me, I didn't fast-forward over them.


Is this OK? Bumpers have been a staple in children's programming for decades; used as an ethical way to tell kids they are no longer being entertained to, they are being pitched to. As adults, we're just supposed to recognize that. If the MacGruber ads aired during the middle of the commercial breaks I don't think anyone would raise a fuss. "30 Rock" has done this in the past. Instead, they are being treated as sketches by "SNL" and NBC (even being listed as such on their respective websites), and as advertisements by Pepsi. Which one is it? I don't think you can have it both ways. "SNL" should just admit they created some "SNL"-themed Pepsi commercials. There is nothing wrong with that. But there is something wrong with passing them off as 3 minutes of air time not purchased by Pepsi.


What do you think? Would you be OK seeing more of this? Read more!