• by Amanda , February 5, 2007

This was a pretty exciting year for football fans in the Midwest. Every college student I know watched the SuperBowl. If they weren't cheering for the teams, they were waiting for the ads. Being a college student and having direct access to this demographic, I wanted to offer a few observations and reactions from my friends concerning this year’s advertisements.

The user generated commercials were among the favorites for the evening. The GM commercial with guys stripping for the HHR was received pretty favorably though some thought the whole concept was confusing and creepy. Doritos scored big points with the college crowd by extending their commercial contest to viewers. We college-agers like to support one another so anytime we can cheer on a fellow student’s success we are happy. Plus, the commercial was just really funny.

I know there has been some controversy on the Nationwide Insurance commercial with K-Fed working at a fast food restaurant. All of my friends loved it. Never underestimate how much we like to poke fun at pop-culture figures.

Budweiser, as always, had some of the best commercials. The “Rock, paper, scissors” commercial was the favorite, and some of the commitment-phobic guys were pretty entertained at the auctioneer/reverend wedding commercial. The ax-murder/hitchhiker and the “Fist bump” commercials received quite a few laughs too.

Overall, there were a few observations worth noting. Ten people watched the game beginning-to-end in our living room Sunday, and almost everyone noted that the commercials were forgettable. After the game I asked which commercial was the favorite. It took several minutes for any of my friends to actually recall an ad specifically. Bad news.

Surprisingly, one of the favorite ads of the night was the warm-and-fuzzy Frito-Lays "Enjoy the Game." One of the least favorites was the American Heart Association's heart v. disease commercial - the heart was too likeable to see beaten up.

The violence in almost all of the ads became grating. Really, how many upper-middle class, white guys have to be beaten up for us to find a new source of humor? Also, several of my girlfriends mentioned that all of these ads showed men as ignorant, useless, overweight alcoholics.

Which brings me to my next point… Half of the people in my living room on Sunday were women. Believe it or not, making fun of men in ads is not a way to target the female audience. The only ad directed at women was the Revlon commercial, and there was nothing particularly entertaining about it. A lot of us watch football. We don’t watch football to please guys or to look at the cute quarterback. We watch football because we like the game and if you are advertising during the biggest advertising event of the year you need to start considering women as viewers too.