Commentary

Real Media Riffs - Tuesday, Feb 7, 2006

  • by February 7, 2006
OH, THE COMMERCIALS YOU'LL SEE -- Know why Ameriquest's Super Bowl commercials were the two most replayed in TiVo households? Because people didn't know what to make of them. They were funny, but confusing, which is probably why a panel of ad industry pros surveyed by marketing services conglomerate ICOM deemed them the, "funniest spots, but for a brand I forgot." Which raises a really important question about engagement: If people become so enthralled with your commercial that they actually pause and replay it, but don't remember your brand is that engaging? If so, we think the ad industry will soon be in search of another Holy Grail. Like say, "effectiveness?" If not, the Super Bowl spots signal a new trend in advertising ROI: creating spots that are either so crappy, so enigmatic, or in some cases, so downright offensive, that viewers are forced to replay them over and over and over again in stunned disbelief.


George: "Martha, did I just see what I thought I did? Did that young man just blindside his girlfriend in that Micheloeb commercial?"
Martha: "I believe he did dear. Shall I get you another cold one?"
George: "No, but can you hand me the TiVo remote?"

advertisement

advertisement

Actually, the only redeeming thing about that Micheloeb spot was the kicker, when the winsome blonde sacked the beefy jock off his barstool. That's Madison Avenue's way of saying, "We don't favor spousal or girlfriend abuse, but it's okay so long as they beat the crap out of each other." Call it an Equal Fights Amendment.


Martha: "George, I believe Leonard Nimoy just gave us the finger in that Aleve commercial."
George: "By golly, let me see that remote again."
TiVo: "Blup-blup bloop"
George: "Nah, that's the Vulcan sign for, 'Live long and prosper.'"

Some of the spots were genuinely funny. FedEx's "Caveman" spot was worth a chuckle, though it wasn't nearly as genuinely hilarious nor as repeatable as GEICO's indignant, but sophisticated "Cavemen" spots. Bud Light's revolving wall "Refrigerator" spot also got a laugh, though the "Hidden Bud Lights" spot was simply stupid, while the "Bear Attack" commercial was downright mean. Did anyone else think there was an awful lot of menace in this year's Super Bowl crop?

And we have no idea what the American public made of GoDaddy.com's heavily hyped and redundantly scheduled Super Bowl commercial. We hit the replay button several times trying to make sense of that one, but it wasn't until we saw Devito/Verdi chief Ellis Verdi's comments in Reuters' post-Super Bowl ad round-up that we really understood the GoDaddy spot. Verdi said people probably thought it was a commercial for a "porn site."

At first TiVo glance, we thought the most hilarious spot in the game was Gillette's ad for a new razor. Thinking the sci-fi like Fusion commercial was an SNL-like parody, we turned to a fellow viewer and quipped, "Watch, this razor will have five blades, and will be battery-operated." After it was explained to us that the spot, and the razor were real, we immediately rewound the commercial, saying, "We've got to get one of these." Hey if three blades are good, five have got to be better, right?

But the most bizarre and certainly silliest spot of the whole game was the NFL's own promo featuring aging action hunk Harrison Ford in a kitschy animated rendition of Dr. Seuss' "Oh, the places you'll go." That one, we thought, went somewhere we'd prefer not to go.

Next story loading loading..