Super Bowl Bust

The Super Bowl, it’s now more than just a football championship game, it’s the showcase for America’s top consumer brands and a chance for savvy marketers to show the country just how good they are. This is such an important stage because a great Super Bowl ad can bring a brand out of obscurity and put it on the top of everyone’s mind, as did Apple’s famous “1984” spot launching the Macintosh, and more recently GoDaddy.com series of attention grabbing spots that have men everywhere glued to the TV waiting to be sold domain names. It’s the one time during the year where Americans get up to go to the bathroom or the kitchen during the actual program so they don’t miss the commercials. So what happened this year? By the fourth quarter I was staring at the TV stunned at what had been unfolding in front of me all night. There were a few that were perfectly acceptable, but somewhere in the process of buying the time for the $2.6 million spot (plus the hundreds of thousands it cost to conceive and produce the thing) someone forget they were selling a product and communicating it’s core benefit. The following is a breakdown of a few of the spots that got it right, a few that got it wrong and a few that make my head hurt when I think about how it ever could have made it through the extensive development and approval process these things have to go through.

The Good

Emerald Nuts - Boogyman
This ad by Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco is just flat out good advertising. Emerald Nuts has used the Super Bowl to build their brand over the past few years, but this year’s effort was the first one to actually get it right. How does this one succeed over the others? It actually communicates the benefit of the product being promoted (last years just spelled out the name of the product). Consumers can relate because late in the work day everyone is dragging and not very sharp; this spot communicates that by snacking on Emerald Nuts you could boost your energy levels and get through the end of the day. Using Robert Goulet as a “boogyman” character that creates havoc around the office when no one has the energy to pay attention is unexpected and quirky enough to draw people’s attention to the message being conveyed. Well done all around.

Nationwide – Rollin’ VIP
Ah Kevin Federline, what can I say? I can say he finally found his true talent; making fun of himself and Nationwide was smart enough to pick the perfect poster child to communicate someone’s life going terribly askew almost overnight. Unlike the previous Super Bowl execution of this campaign with MC Hammer, this one works because the KFed reference is so current and is so worthy of this level of ridicule. The team at TM Advertising in Dallas really nailed it, communicating the urgency to purchase your insurance from Nationwide because you never know how fast your whole life can change and you better get covered before it’s too late. My only problem is that I actually now feel bad about the disdain I expressed in a previous entry for the former Mr. Britney Spears. I regret it because this spot has made him endearing and I was perfectly satisfied with the world not liking him. It takes a big man to make fun of yourself as a wannabe rap cliché on such a big stage.

The Bad

Sierra Mist - Combover
This ad was created by BBDO in New York, one of the country’s legendary advertising agencies and a true Madison Avenue powerhouse; so how could they have let this happen? The ad basically communicates that drinking Sierra Mist is a good decision and that drinking Sierra Mist is such a good decision it could make up for bad decisions, such as growing a long beard to use as a comb over while wearing cut off jean shorts and roller skates to work. The joke of course is how ridiculous the bad decisions are; unfortunately it’s just not funny and fails to really sell me on why I should buy Sierra Mist over the other two hundred brands in my convenience store’s freezer.

GM – Robot
This sport was disappointing, primarily because I was starting to enjoy it and really connecting to, of all things, an assembly line robot. Poor GM robot got let go from the plant and you just knew it was going to end well for the little guy, until he commits suicide. Suicide? Now it turned out to be a dream sequence but the fact is a large American auto maker just made a commercial about letting someone go and because all that someone knew was working in the plant, it was unable to find a decent job and took their own life. In a time when this scenario is not a nightmare, but in fact a reality to thousands of recently laid-off auto workers, I’m stunned at how insensitive GM is to have not realized how bad this came across. Now I know the spot was meant to communicate that GM does not tolerate mistakes and is committed to producing quality products. Unfortunately that message is barely sent and is lost almost immediately in the sequences that follow the robot’s journey to a heart-breaking end.

FedEx – Moon Office
If the purpose of this spot was to let me know that FedEx now has a distribution center on the moon and they have a fleet of spaceships to supports my offices on Venus and get packages to my clients on Mars, then I would say well done. But since it's 2007 and not 2057, I have no idea what they’re trying to communicate. I think it’s that they’re pioneers, but I had to watch it four times to even pick that up; and if so, who cares? Please tell me what you’re doing for my delivery needs right now. The special effects are well done, but good special effects can’t make up for a weak concept. Even the one shot at humor at the end when the guy floats off and gets nailed by a comet is rather sad and not funny at all. Last year’s FedEx dinosaur spot, which did a great job communicating "reliability", but also ended with someone getting killed unexpectedly (interesting trend for your brand guys, FedEx=Death), was still one of the best of that year’s crop, so it’s amazing to see how far they missed the mark this year. This is another spot from the esteemed agency BBDO and has really made me question more than ever if Madison Avenue agencies have lost touch with consumers since good advertising executions no longer are coming out of New York, but instead from former advertising outposts like Miami, Portland, Richmond, San Francisco, Dallas and Minneapolis.

The Ugly

Snickers – Mechanics
This ad was so bad I spent the rest of the game wondering where the entire marketing profession made a wrong turn and actually considered leaving marketing and turning to a more respectful career, like a job as Kevin Federline’s personal assistant. Gay jokes? Snickers spent more that $2.6 million to air a really bad gay joke? Everything about it is so flat out bad it’s just hard to fathom how this came into existence. Having been through the process multiple times and knowing how many hoops an idea has to jump through to see the light of day, I just can’t comprehend how this bad idea did not get shot down instantly, much less have traveled the long road to advertising’s biggest stage. None of what happens or is said in this spot communicates anything about Snickers and why I would want to buy it. The best I can guess is they’re telling consumers that Snickers is so good it drives you to homosexuality. Of course since the men in the ad freak out about kissing each other, they also offend gay people. This results in a situation where gay men and straight men have been equally offended and therefore all men are now less likely to purchase a Snickers bar. This ad was created by yet another New York agency, TBWA Chiat Day, which has seemed to throw basic marketing principles out the window in favor of something with extreme shock value. Here is a tip for the next one, since the new tagline of Snickers is “Most Satisfying”, Snickers should try spots that end with people being satisfied rather that horrified.

Chevrolet – Car Wash
This spot was the winner of a student competition, so I’m going to try to be kind since the concept did not come from a professional. Of course this spot, along with the almost as bad amateur spot for Doritos’s are good example for why you should leave this to the professionals. I know everyone thinks they can do advertising, but people actually go to school for this and suffer through years of low paying gigs just to get to a point in their career where they might, just might be able to work on a Super Bowl ad. So why are we now opening it up to competition from the general pubic? I’m not sure, but I do know I leave the accounting to the CPA’s and surgery to the MD’s, so can we leave advertising to the ad gurus from now on please? Okay off my soap box and back to the Chevy ad. This ad just does not work; it’s not entertaining and tells me nothing about the car. All it really seems to be is a bunch of guys stripping and throwing themselves on this car for no apparent reason than “it’s hot in here” and they feel compelled to wash a car that is not even dirty.

Well that wraps up my review for this year’s Super Bowl ads; I’ll be spending the next 12 months attempting to forget most of these and hope everyone is back in peak form next year.

Jake Crocker is a Partner and Brand Marketing Director at Martin Branding Worldwide, Inc.