Review of the 2006 Super Bowl Ads

Let’s get down to it: This time of the year is electric for us ad folks. It’s the Super Bowl (can I say that without paying fees?). This year, I’ve got to be honest–I was a bit disappointed. There were a few good ads, but in general a lot of mediocre and poorly planned ads. Overall, I’m giving it a 6/10 year for SuperBowl ads. Luckily, there were still quite a few gems in the bunch. If you missed the commercials, head on over to Google’s archive of all the ads, man I love technology sometimes. So let’s get into the details:

The ones I liked

Degree’s Stunt City

Although I’ve seen this ad before, I still love it. It completely portrays the brand, and is an impressive piece as a whole. I think what makes this spot is how unbelievable everything is… yet so well choreographed. It just feels like about 20 Jackie Chan’s running around in a city. Love it.

Budweiser’s “Secret Fridge”

I absolutely loved this spot–probably because I’m dead on their intended audience (21 year old males). It’s something our age group can completely relate to: those potheads next door that’ll do anything for some beer, and completely willing to believe anything for it… even a magic fridge.

Budweiser’s “The Wave”

Love it. Excellent direction, excellent idea, excellent execution.

Bud Light’s “On the Roof”

Once again, perfect execution for the target audience. While I’m not a middle aged guy looking for a low-calorie brew, trying to escape the old ball and chain, I still think it’s great.

Emerald Nuts

The geek in me can’t help but love these ads. They’re clever, they’re short, and they literally spell out the product. Perfect combination of product and humor.

The one’s I’m impartial to

FedEx’s “Stick”

I want to like this ad. The spot is entertaining, it’s funny, but damned if it doesn’t feel like a copy of the Geico caveman commercials. Great idea, but someone else already came up with it. Not for me.

Burger King’s “Whopperettes”

I like the general concept of this ad, but I think the overall execution failed somewhere in the direction of the spot. It just doesn’t click.

The ones that completely failed to me

Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty”

Ahem Can someone say proof your spot before you show it on millions of TV’s? I couldn’t read the text during the game (white on white is not a good combination) and I still can’t read it on the compressed version. Not everyone has a ginormous HD TV at home, and I’m willing to bet a great deal of their audience couldn’t read what was going on.

Pizza Hut’s “Sex”

Here’s some sex, do you like sex? I sure do. Oh by the way, Pizza is good with sex.

Cadillac’s “Escalade”

Apparently the new car is so crappy, they can’t show it for longer than three seconds. Instead they showed us 25 seconds of randomness, followed by no information about the product at all.

Hummer’s “Monster”

Again with the random scenes of things completely unrelated to the product. Half machine half monster? Sorry, not buying it. This ad made me lose respect for the once rugged Hummer brand.

Gillette’s Fusion ad

Are you kidding me? Here’s 29 seconds of completely unrelated material, followed by a vibrating machete that’s bound to slice off your face. Come up with something that at least slightly relates to the brand.

Summary

So, overall I think the major problem with the ads was the lack of creativity. Ads aren’t out there just to look “cool” like the Fusion ad, but they need to sell the brand and the product. Year after year, Budweiser hits the nail on the head. They definitely came out the winner this year–as they have in years past.

An interesting side note to all of this, I think nearly every single ad this year was pushing a web site. No, nothing spectacular, but it goes to show how much the web has been integrated into our lives. No longer to ads just make you want to drink Pepsi, but they want to you to go to brownandbubbly.com and learn more about the brand and the campaign.