For all those tuning into watch the always much anticipated Superbowl XLVI, especially in Britain, it’s easy to pave over one of the biggest traditions in the States; choosing your favourite ads, for which they are plentiful. Each year, companies invest millions into developing the defining ads, and with a Superbowl ad slot the single most expensive in broadcasting at around $3.5million per 30 seconds, there’s as much to lose as there is to gain. But the rewards can be spectacular, with 2012′s game brining in over 111 million viewers in the U.S. alone, it can be a relatively cheap form of advertising, if it works. Last years success stories were as diverse as a grateful beaver to a mini Dark Lord, and this years endeavours would take some beating to top Jim Beam’s touching biopic which found crowning glory in 2011.
So without further due, we present you our favourite (and least favourite) adverts of this year’s Superbowl. Enjoy.
Doritos – “Baby Sling”
Doritos got the right ideas with their superbowl advertisement campaign. Instead of spending time and money designing and promoting their own ads, they set up a competition for fans to produce a Doritos commercial, and the winner gets $1million dollars alongside their ad featured during the big game . ‘Crash the Superbowl’ as Doritos coined is now in its 6th year and each year they whittle the top ads down from over 6000, to just 5. All 5 contenders were fantastic, but our favourite, and eventual winner of 1 of 2 sought after spots has to be “Sling Baby”, in which a spoilt, contemptuous pre-pubescant gets his comeuppance when he pushes his sweet grandmother and innocent baby just a step too far. Despite signalling that horrific endangerment of children is better than selfishness, as ad is pure, cute gold, and even more impressive that it’s a fan made production.
Honda CRV- Matthew Broderick’s Day Off
One for the film buffs, Honda’s rehash Broderick’s iconic film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” was used to show that sometimes, just sometimes, there are better things in life, and a Honda CRV is one of them. Packed full of references to the original film, and using all the fancy gizmos of the flashed up Honda, Broderick is able to avoid his foolish boss and live life likes it’s meant to be, by singing in oriental parades and scaring small children in museums, obviously. Broderick is then so wrapped up in his relaxation day; he manages to get his car stolen by a runaway valet. Just another day in Hollywood it seems, but we still loved it.
Chrysler – It’s Half Time America
Now we’re not American, but this one runs deeper than that. Despite exemplifying the U.S.’s fortitude towards the crippling economic crisis, Chrysler create a society fighting back, and offers up some awe inspiring words of wisdom from the one and only Clint Eastwood. Beautifully shot with a delivery nothing short of perfect from Eastwood, he paints a world of hope and togetherness in the face of a misty future, and a determination to lead America back into prosperity. Now Chrysler could be criticised for exploiting hyped U.S. patriotism and disenchantment with the economy to essentially sell a product (an expensive one at that), when supposedly no one has any money and should be focusing on ‘rebuilding’. But for what it’s worth, this was a fantastically creative effort from Chrysler, who cleverly captured the hearts and possibilities of an American public wavering. Plus, we’d have Clint Eastwood as our gristled cheerleader any day.
Toyota Camry – It’s Reinvented
One of the funnier ad’s we’ve seen, Toyota show how inventive they’ve really gotten with their new Camry by claiming they just “couldn’t stop inventing” afterwards. Now the ad doesn’t actually show what’s been reinvented with this new car (we assume not the wheel – get it?) but it’s clever nonetheless. And who wouldn’t want a time machine baby?!
We had a pretty tough time deciding between this Camry advert, and the more serious, sentimental attempt from Toyota, which you can see here, but we’re confident we went the right route.
Volkswagen – The Dog Strikes Back
Now this ones a bit of marmite. We loved the concept of the advert in itself; a fat dog must lose weight and avoid all the finest temptations in order to fit through the doggy door and chase the volkswagen of his dreams. But the unnecessary addition of the star wars reference tolast years advert drew it back somewhat. Why did we need to be reminded on how successful last years advertising campaign was? Sure it was nicely intertextual but essentially, it was a fairly lame attempt from Volkswagen to further milk the massive success of ‘LittleDarth’. Despite this, the advert was made a whole lot more impressive when tagged with the teaser advert released pre –game, which brilliantly recreates the “Imperial March” theme using just the barks of dogs. Now obviously, with the recurrent Star Wars theme, the main problem is the stretched link between that and the dog? Is there even one? The Star Wars reference just seems superfluous and ‘stuck on’ at the end, which is disappointing. But nonetheless, the original ad was brilliant, and huge credit has to go to whoever choreographed that teaser which was essentially perfectly executed and deliciously nerdy.
Acura – Seinfeld
Probably one of the more higher budget ads this year as securing Jerry Seinfeld’s signature is far from cheap, but his hilarious performance deserves credence. In order to get the 1st ever Acura NSX, Jerry must use all at his disposal to convince the 1st in line to hand over the keys. Deliciously creative and amusing, Jerry finally gets his man until Jay Leno turns up to steal them away, offering up a flying squirrel suit; who wouldn’t want one of them? So essentially this one delivers what Seinfeld’s name signifies; fantastic stand up from one of the legends of comedy. A novel idea for Acura was made even better by the whole host of additional extended content they posted online, making it one of the stand out superbowl hits, notching up nearly 18 million viewssince the end of January.
Bud Light – Rescue Dog
It would be impossible to feature the best ads of the superbowl without one on beer, and Budweiser wins for us this year. Combining 2 of man’s best friends, Budweiser create the dream pet; a dog that can give complete companionship and (probably more importantly for these guys) a loyal delivery servant of the holy suds. A real life rescue dog, and a nice touch from Budweiser to raise a quarter of a million dollars to help rescue dog’s, which we think paves over any ‘playful’ slave labour from the lovable ‘Weebo’.
Worst Ads
Bridgestone – “Performance Sports”
Bridgestone tyres went the sport route by making a series of 30 second spots that highlighted their new infusion of noise absorbing “Serenity” technology into the worlds of basketball, American football, ice hockey etc, revolutionising the games as we know them. A strenuous link to sport at best is made even worse when the supposed Bridgestone ‘experts’, fronted byPS3’s ad starlet Kevin Butler can’t even fathom a supposed purpose for this innovation. The best line has to be “how will this revolutionise the game?” “It’s quite”. Just in case the NBA started playing their games during nap – time at pre-school, we can’t really see the advantage. In fact the noise of the basketball is pretty endearing, it would have worked so much better if they’d decided put a stop to that incessant squeak of basketball shoes, the noise that’s actually annoying. But then there would be no link to sport!
Furthermore, the quietness doesn’t even transcribe to the American football ad, but instead it completely ruins the game by allowing for complete control of the ball, essentially ruining the sport as a competitive spectacle. Nice going Bridgestone, now keep your hands off ‘soccer’.
Audi – “Vampires”
Okay so vampires are cool again thanks to Twilight, or at least they are to teenage girls. So when Audi decided to market their £30,000+ car to ride that wave, did they not realise that most people that age probably don’t have those funds at their disposal? It’s also quite confusing. Is the ad proposing that the uncontrollably power of Audi’s mighty LED highlights is enough the say ‘#SoLongVampires’ and kill them all off? But we thought vampires were cool? So inadvertently, buying an Audi is such a momentous choice, it makes you idiotically turn your friends into speckles of vampire dust and ignore a chorus of deathly screams so you remain smooth. And since when was the power of headlights a selling point? Especially if it turns you into a mass murderer. It doesn’t work Audi, just no.
Fiat 500 Abarth – Seduction
This ad aims to depict the sensual, sleek sexiness of the new Fiat 500 Abarth by personifying it as a sensual, sleek sexy Italian woman, who becomes worryingly bi-polar in her reaction to his this mans gawk. So after a series of sexual cliches, including the ‘longing pull of the tie’ and the ‘speck of coffee foam falls provocatively on cleavage’ our man snaps out of his daydream to realise it’s really a car beside him. 2 problems. Not only does our man display a concerningly overwhelming sexual attraction to cars, to which therapy may be a serious option, the ad reminds us that beautiful cars are exactly like beautiful woman – open to objectification by men. Obviously.
One for Discussion
1st Bank
1st bank went the risky route by making a deliberately dull ad encouraging viewers to go to the bathroom, safe in the knowledge that they won’t miss one of the ‘exciting ads’. But to what effect did this have? Was this really worth the $3.5million placement cost the Superbowl charges? But was it original enough to create a memorable ad? We really couldn’t decide, so we’ve left it to you. Have a look and tell us what you think, because we sure were stumped by this one.
What are your best and worst Super Bowl Adverts of 2012? Do you agree with our list? Let us know by leaving us a comment!
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