Hey buddy, you work in advertising, right? What did you think of the Super Bowl?
February 6th, 2008 by caseyBefore I get too far into this, it’s probably worth noting that this post represents the views of me (Casey Ingle) and not necessarily The Next Engine or Campbell-Ewald.
This is the time of the year where I get calls from family and friends to “talk shop”. You know, because I work in advertising and this whole Super Bowl ad thing; because that’s what everyone in advertising does, make tv commercials, right?
Well this year I’ve had it. I’m not returning any calls, I’m not even talking about it. If you want to read reviews of the ads, go here. Michigan State University’s Ad professors do a real bang up job of reviewing them. I refuse.
This isn’t one of those death of the :30 spot posts. This is one of those what the hell are we doing posts. If I was a marketing client or CMO (which I’m not) and investing a healthy portion of my marketing budget on one single event (which I wouldn’t), it would seem I’d want to actually get something out of it. I’d want to start a real dialogue with consumers, maybe I’d want to introduce my brand, maybe I’d want to tell them something new, or maybe I would just want them to know that I was thinking about them. I’m not sure any of the ads did any of that. I’m not sure any of the ads did anything other than make people annoyed that they have to put up with this crap. I think the biggest winner of the Super Bowl ad blitz was TiVo. 97.5 million people now have a reason to go buy one.
We have to get smarter about what our jobs really are. We are in the idea business and now is the time for new and fresh ones. We have to take responsibility for creating value for brands. We need to provide new experiences; experiences that people give brands credit for and want to share with friends. It’s time for intelligence and creativity to work together, they cannot be separate notions anymore. People are too smart for that these days.
Call me crazy, but nipple clamps, Richard Simmons and dogs training horses left me feeling kinda empty.
What about you?
Tags: advertising, super bowl ads, tv commercials
February 6th, 2008 at 11:55 am
I agree with your observations Casey. Many of the commercials left me asking the question,”do they think I’m stupid?” I didn’t learn anything new about any of the products being “advertised” during the superbowl. I must admit the Budweiser dog training the horse, a la rocky balboa, did tug at some nostalgic heart strings. However, it didn’t make me want to buy their beer. I was recently discussing Go Daddy with someone and they felt that Go Daddy cared more about their image versus giving the customer quality service. The commercial proved that point 100%. Sure it was somewhat clever but, they didn’t give me a reason to use them for my web hosting needs. They paraded around a bunch of attractive women and made dated jokes about britney spears. Over all I was slightly amused but, mostly unimpressed with this years crop of superbowl ads.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I’m only slightly embarrassed to say that I only kind of paid attention to the game, and even less to the commercials. The meta-commentary on the marketing blogs I keep up on was less than inspiring.
February 6th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Nipple clamps? I must’ve missed that one. Was it for Sales Genie?