I have lots of friends on both the traditional and interactive sides of the advertising business, but I have to tell you, the traditional folks are the most fun to fuck with about branding.

You see, my theories about traditional advertising are that the ads themselves have a real purpose in the world – to solve specific goals for the brands and products that they are advertising.  Goals such as increasing brand awareness, increasing product sales, and so forth are commonly used and are even made more specific by adding on certain audiences, like males 18-34 or whatever.  Now, if you can pull off getting that done and make a really great, groundbreaking or funny or heartwarming or whatever ad in the process, all the power to you.  However, you don’t get to just do the last part and skip the first part.

Folks that work at traditional ad agencies these days tend to forget that first part.  They churn out ad after ad that features all sorts of gimmicks… over the top humor, timely cultural references, beautiful design, great music, and so forth.  All of which will win them the big prizes at Cannes, but don’t tend to move a lot of product without actually imparting the message of the brand.

The ads of Super Bowl XLV were no different – lots of well produced ads that were funny, clever, visually stunning, and so on, but only a few that will actually cause any sort of brand or product recall.  In my book, that makes them a failure.

Traditional ad folks hate it when I do that.

I can understand why.  I may be an interactive marketer, but I’m still a marketer.  Let me tell you, despite what you see in the movies and on TV about this business… it’s a real pain in the ass.  Both sides of the equation, both the clients and the agencies can suck ass because they just don’t get it, don’t want to get it, or can’t afford it.  Then on top of it, you end up putting a crap load of work into something to make it really creative and effective, only to have it shot down for a whole host of bizarre reasons like, “my wife doesn’t like it” even though their wife isn’t the target market, or “we have to use this star because we have him under contract” when that guy says nothing about your audience or “let’s do something with NASCAR” because the President of the company wants good seats to the race, despite the fact that NASCAR has nothing in coming with your brand.

I get it… I really, really do.  However, that doesn’t get you off from doing your damned jobs.

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This morning, both Advertising Age (and Adfreak) and USA Today put out their articles on the best ads of the Super Bowl.  I could have seen the Advertising Age picks from a mile away and was pleasantly surprised by the results of the USA Today.  That is, until I saw that USA Today actually polled real people rather than asking for the opinion of folks from the advertising business.

Advertising Age (and Adfreak, who is owned by them) thought that these next two were some of the best ads of the game and will pretty much tell you to go get fucked if you think otherwise.

First off, “The Force” from Volkswagen:

So, I get it… it’s damn cute to see the kid run around trying to use The Force on everything in his house. However, if you think it about it… honestly think about it… up until the time the car shows up, that ad could be for anything. Seriously, it could be for Star Wars costumes, the release of the Star Wars movies on Blu-Rey, sandwich bread, whatever. Then the car shows up, but even then, you’re not completely sure.

In fact, I did an informal poll on my Facebook this morning and, if they could recall what it was for at all (which a lot did because this ad was leaked before the game and went viral), they couldn’t remember which Volkswagen car it was actually for in the first place. Believe it or not, most of them actually said it was for the Jetta, and not the Passat, which was the correct answer.

So cute, funny, well produced, but fail because of lack of recall of the product.

Next, “Imported From Detroit” from Chrysler:

Now this was a gorgeous ad… seriously, I really loved this ad and wanted to not give it shit, but on second watch, I could see it already had problems. Clocking in at 2 minutes long, it’s the longest Super Bowl ever, which means it cost a lot of money to produce and show at the big game.

Yet, with all that thought and energy, most people in my poll thought this ad was for Detroit itself or Chevy. In fact, this ad was for the Chrysler 200, which is a brand new model for this company. MTV thought this was the best ad of the game as well, but that was probably because it had Eminem at the end of it and was kind of bad ass. Meanwhile, most people I asked remember the Lipton Brisk ad that Eminem also did for this game and frankly, I would agree.

Meanwhile, the fine folks that served on the panel that became USA Today’s picks thought the following two were the best (with “The Force” coming in third, btw):

First, “Pug Attack” from Doritos:

Me and the crowd of people at my house laughed our ass off when we saw this ad. Meanwhile, I actually saw one of the readers of Ad Age say they didn’t like this ad because they thought it endorsed cruelty to animals. You see what kind of shit I have to deal with here?

Over at Ad Age, they would probably say that it was a cheap joke or unoriginal or whatever, but the real reason they hate this ad? It was because it wasn’t produced by an ad agency. This, like last year, was one of three ads that Doritos chose from a contest. Frankly, if I were a creative guy, I would feel pretty shitty, too.

Second, “Dog Sitter” from Budweiser/Bud Light:

Let’s get it right out in the open… Budweiser makes some damn funny ads. I don’t care who you are, if you’re not laughing at the Buds ads, you’re just acting like a stuck up prick who is holding back because you stopped drinking Bud after college. Look, I upgraded to better beer too, but I know funny and just about any ad these guys put out is both funny and memorable.

Back to Volkswagen… Now Volkswagen is known for being really good at branding themselves. Hell, they did way better in another spot for the new Beetle that showed up in the same game:

About two seconds into this commercial, I asked my crowd at the house who this ad was for (because, like a lot of ads, they were waiting to reveal it until the end) and almost all of them said “VW Beetle” because of the black beetle that was running around in the ad. Now that’s some damn brand recall… and nobody said a word in the entire ad.

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There are plenty of other spots that did or didn’t follow the rules, and maybe I’ll get to those when I have some time later (I do have to work for a living). Everybody seems to be going nuts about the Justin Bieber/Ozzy Osborne ad, which I have to say is pretty funny and does a pretty good job at getting the point across, but my dislike for the Beeb taints my view of this one.

By the way, my favorite from the game… Budweiser’s “Wild West,” which did a great job at branding and caught me completely off guard when they broke into Tiny Dancer:

What do you think? Which were your favorites?

– J