Madison Ave, you wasted millions today

The Super Bowl is over and the commercials have been aired. As someone who has never been a member of a focus group and annually reviews the latest offerings of the overpaid minds of Madison Ave, here is my review of what we watched this last Sunday of football.

Well worth 3 Million dollars for the viewership-

Budweiser- An annual top tier producer of top notch commercials. This year 2 of the top five commercials involved the Clydesdale's. One with the dancing horse and the other with the immigrant horse.

Doritos- Used slapstick comedy to sell the product and their two spots were funny.

E-Trade- They used the baby in advertising once again and they skirted the major money of game-time but still put up great ads. Kudos.

Average commercials-

Grease Monkeys from Castol oil

Pedigree-Get a dog

Coke Zero- remake of the Mean Joe Green Coke ad from the 70's. This ad connected with me and my friends however meant nothing to the 20 somethings watching.

Coca-Cola- ad where people morphed into cartoon characters from video games, and as the Coke Zero ad meant nothing to the 20 somethings, this ad meant nothing to me. Maybe it balances out? Maybe a waste of 6 million dollars.

Bridgestone- This company spent heavy this Super Bowl period. Obviously they are betting on folks putting tires on their old cars instead of buying new cars. The Mr/Mrs Potatohead ad was ok, they sponsored the halftime show, but the second half ad where astronauts were walking around a virtual Mars and then turned around to find their rover on blocks and the tires were stolen. Very funny, however, it wasn't Mars they where they were walking, it was Florida Ave. in Washington DC or downtown Detroit.

This year's Super Bowl saw a few shining lights in selected commercial spots, but once the Champion was crowned, the game was over, all the wings and 9 layer dip consumed, we have come to the giant waste of money list of commercials, and there are many this year.

Losers-

The worst commercial this Super Bowl was without a doubt, brought to you by Pepsi. Pepsi had several ads hawking their new "manly" diet drink and they crossed over the line to the stupid by wasting 3 million dollars to stage a faux McGyver episode, named Pepsuber in the commercial. Obviously Pepsi didn't run this ad past focus groups before signing the 3 million dollar check. Perhaps one of the worst Super Bowl ads I've ever seen.

Overstock.com- Carlos Boozer- Loser ad
Careerbuilder.com- Loser
Land of the Lost movie promo/faux Today show ad- Sucked
Cars.com- Sucked out loud
Hyundai- major loser

Hulu.com-
I don't know what this company is or does, but after trotting out the fat Alec Baldwin who quickly advertises himself as a TV star, does nothing to make me want to search for hulu on the net. The Baldwins disgust me. Every last one of the non talented members of the clan. Hey Alec, weren't you going to move to France in 2004? Are you still here? Your weight gain in the past few months is making Jessica Simpson look like Paris Hilton. Please speed up you exit of this country and take the rest of your non-talented family with you. Bye-bye now.

GE-
Oh, the parent company of NBC, MSNBC, CNBC decided to jump into the advertising realm. I don't believe they paid 3 million for 30 seconds. The advertisement in the 4th quarter, showing a likeness of the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz singing, If I only had a Brain, while touting their website for ecomagination, was just sick. If I only had a Brain was a great music selection for the advertisement because no one at GE, or for that matter at any NBC associated networks has a brain. Go Green, GE wins. Current unlucky shareholders of GE have lost however because no one running the company has a brain.

Cash 4 Gold-
Half way through this ad I thought it was a spoof, once I realized it wasn't, I felt very sorry for those folks involved.

Well, I'll wrap up the commercials here. I've not gone to any websites yet to see who texted in which commercials folks enjoyed the most or been involved in any survey. You read my posts here, and it's raw, as I feel it, I post it. Regular readers know about my affinity for animals in advertising. I've not gotten to figure out how many ads involved animals just yet, but I was in a room with over 100 people today and when the Castrol ad "Grease Monkeys" came on and the guy kissed the monkey at the end of the ad, there was a collective, aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh, from all the women in the room. So lesson learned here for free, once again, you have a product to sell with advertising budget for TV, involve an animal and if you can kiss it and escape local felony charges, put it on TV.