While I only started bitching about ads on this site at the end of 2009, it’s pretty much all this site does five or so days a week.  I do have a few competitors out there, but they are few and far between.  Then the Super Bowl happens and every friggin’ site on the net is suddenly in the game for a minute and every one of them are instant experts on advertising.

This is why I held off on posting my Super Bowl reviews for a bit because I knew everybody else was going to go first and most of what they had to say was “oh, this was funny” or “this was stupid!”  However, if you notice, none of them are really talking about advertising or the mechanics that go into ad creation, they are just talking like someone gives a shit about what they think about a commercial.  If you’re looking for that kind of commentary, you can fuck off now…

Oh, stuck around did ya? Well good… you’ve got a brain in your head.

So, for my reviews of the various ads used during the big game, I’m going to lump ads together based on very similar problems I’m noticing.  For instance, this set of ads are those that don’t know how to sell their brand in the medium that was practically made for brand advertising, TV.

By the way, it’s not say that some of these ads aren’t funny or entertaining or whatever, the point is that they could be for anything up to the point where they finally slap a brand logo on the spot. For instance, look at this one below. Hit pause at about the 25 second mark, do your best to ignore the title of the ad, and then keep reading:

Now, if you paused like I asked… tell me what brand or product that commercial is promoting? You can’t tell can you? You may recall it’s for TruTV’s new NFL show, but up to that point, that commercial could be selling little football player dolls, or uniforms, or Sports Center, or whatever. It’s a great bit, I know I laughed at it during the game, but good luck on me remembering what the hell they were selling.

Here’s another one that people claim they really like, but fails at promoting the brand or product. Pause this one at about the 45 second mark and then keep reading:

Now this one was a long sucker, a full minute long spot, which means they spent almost twice as much as a regular spot, yet you have to get all the way to the end to find out it’s for a Dodge Charger. Again, up to that point, it could be for damn near anything that pussy whipped men want, but hen pecking women won’t let them have (let’s be honest here folks, there are guys who check with their chicks and then there are guys who buy a big friggin’ Mustang GT when they want one). Even if you recall this was a car commercial, after a few weeks, there is a good chance you’ll forget which car it was for because they only mention it once at the end of the ad.

I can do this shit all day, folks… here’s another one that has the same problem, besides failing on a lot of other fronts. Once again, about the 45 second mark for the pause:

What’s it for? Life insurance? A dating site? Birth control? Who the hell knows up until the big reveal at the end and you find out it’s a new line of soap for men by Dove. By the way, I think that line is going to fail miserably. Not because Dove doesn’t make great soap. Hell, I’ve used the regular stuff for years now. But if you’re a man and you’re looking at a men’s product, are you going to reach for something called Dove or Axe? If Dove wanted to break into the men’s market, all they needed to do was dump their stuff in another bottle and call it “Steel” or “Flaming Wood” or whatever and guys would snatch that shit up.

Now, I can hear the agency wonks cry, “But Jeff, those are high concept ads, we have to reveal it that way!” Do you? Do you really? Because here’s arguably one of the funnier ads that ran during the game and you know what product its selling every damn second:

Agencies should not only be embarrassed that they made those other ads that failed their brands, but that they got shown how to do it right by a commercial that was not only funny as hell, but created as part of a contest. Think it was fluke? Here’s another user generated ad for the same brand:

Who dat ad for? Doritos, Doritos, Doritos!

Here’s one more that was actually generated by an agency that is totally high concept, but still manages to get the brand in nice and early:

See that? The beaver found his new life on Monster.com way before the title card at the end, so you know what the hell the ad was selling! None of this guessing shit, no big reveal for dramatic effect. The ads just sell product. Now, I don’t think that beaver ad was all that funny, but I know some people at my Super Bowl party that laughed at it, so it worked on a couple of fronts.

My point here is that, you pay $2.6 million for a 30 second spot, even more for a full minute, plus you pay for the production of the ad, the actors, the agency and all its little workers and you approve an ad that could be for anybody? If you want an ad that sticks, you get your brand out there nice and early and often and you don’t let people walk away wondering who the ad was for later.

Sure, there are exceptions, but they are very, very rare. You could pull out the Apple 1984 ad, but ask someone outside the biz if they remember that one and what it was selling, especially since it only ran once, and you’ll see what I mean.

Get your act together before you slip something into the most expensive media placements around. Your job is to move product, and you suck at it.

J.

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5. Super Bowl Ad Reviews: See? This is why men say women aren’t funny…