Super Bowl Commercial Retrospective

We’d like to look longingly back at the commercials from the 2008 Super Bowl, but we really can’t. The field was for the most part mired in mediocrity, with very little humor or cleverness. Worse still, there were loads of just bad commercials. Take the Salesgenie.com ads for example- they sucked. An apparent attempt at ripping off the “Erin from E-Surance” ads, they were neither clever nor well-executed. Par for the course considering some of their past efforts (little kid talking about how much Dad works and then Dad bringing home a puppy). A puppy!

Even commercials that we thought showed promise grossly disappointed. Take the two water spots for example: the Sobe “Life Water” ad with Naomi Campbell and the lizards dancing to “Thriller” had so much potential, and yet went nowhere. The premise is great- lizards re-enacting Thriller and the duality of Michael Jackson no longer being a human. Unfortunately, there were too many execution problems with the commercial. First, there needed to be a background- give us some hazy fog, a cemetery, something dammit. Second, the constant switching back and forth between the lizards and Naomi Campbell was ill-timed and pointless. In fact, Naomi Campbell was pointless for the entire spot. Again- the spot was a good concept but went absolutely nowhere.

The second water commercial was Vitamin Water’s “Horse Race” ad featuring Shaq riding a horse. Again- loads of potential in the concept, little delivery in the execution.

Finally, and most disappointing, were the Budweiser ads. Bud can usually be counted on for some quality entertainment but they must’ve fired their ad department this year. The worst of the bunch was the caveman ad which, besides being annoyingly cliché while trying to take advantage of the current “caveman fad”, just wasn’t funny or compelling, and was barely watchable.

As further proof that I continue to slip away from the general population’s likes and dislikes, here’s USAToday’s favorite commercial according to AdWatch- it’s a little clever and mildly watchable, but a $3 million ad buy for this?:

You’re welcome.