Super Bowl XL wasn’t exactly a thriller, with the Pittsburgh Steelers leading for pretty much the entire second half on their way to a 21-10 victory over the Seattle Seahawks.
At least casual viewers – who, let’s face it, made up most of the 80 million-plus people watching Sunday’s game – could look forward to the annual showcase of consumerism that is in-game advertising (commercials went for a reported $2.5 million per 30 seconds this year, the highest rate ever).
Except, with a few exceptions, there wasn’t a lot to get excited about there either. GoDaddy.com brought back the curvy Candice Michelle from last year’s most-TiVoed commercial, but the Internet domain registry’s spot was more about last year’s ad than anything else. Budweiser had its usual up-and-down crop of commercials, and after scoring with P. Diddy’s truck last year, Pepsi went kind of flat this time (and seriously, brownandbubbly.com? How unappetizing is that?).
As seems to be the case in the past few Super Bowls, lesser-known advertisers brought some of the most the most creative spots to the table, this year serving up pirate mascots (Sharpie) and druids (Emerald Nuts) and a superannuated himbo (Nationwide Insurance) amid the Budweiser Clydesdales and movie trailers. Here’s a look at some of the highlights:
Most Valuable Beer: Bud Light’s “Magic Fridge.” The ad continued a long line of Bud Light commercials that highlight the absurd lengths guys go to in order to safeguard their beer – in this case, installing a refrigerator that spins behind a wall when the supply is threatened. Of course, on the other side of that wall is a group of guys worshiping the strange and wonderful refrigerator that periodically appears before them. The clincher: The we’re-not-worthy genuflecting at the end.
Best Deployment of Non-A-List Celebrity, Present Day: Sierra Mist’s ad featuring Kathy Griffin and Jim Gaffigan as airport screeners after Michael Ian Black’s Sierra Mist.
Best Deployment of Non-A-List Celebrity, Vintage: MasterCard’s MacGyver ad, in which we see how Richard Dean Anderson acquires the everyday household items he uses to save the world. Somewhere, Patty and Selma Bouvier smile.
Best Recognition of Super Bowl Demographics: Dove. Recognizing that a likely audience of more than 80 million people is bound to include, oh, 40 million or so women, Dove aimed straight for the women in the audience with a spot emphasizing female self-esteem. Based on a highly unscientific survey of the women at the Super Bowl party I attended, it worked: The spot was a favorite.
Best Football-Related Spot: Michelob Ultra Amber’s “you were open, now you’re closed,” with a small edge over the annual Bud Clydesdale game, which featured a sheared sheep streaking.
Most Welcome Self-Parody: Fabio, who was willing to age himself by about 50 years for the Nationwide ad.
$2.5 Million for What Now?: Anyone figure out what those people in hazmat suits were hawking? Or why an independent movie (“The World’s Fastest Indian”) that has barely grossed more than the cost of its ad chose to buy time during the most mainstream of all events?
Best Wordplay: Emerald Nuts, for its non-sequitur ad featuring three guys wielding big knives and a short guy in a crimson robe doing a business deal. After a little bit of that, we get the tagline: Eagle-eyed Machete Enthusiasts Recognize a Little Druid Networking Under the Stairs. That spells E-M-E-R-A-L-D N-U-T-S.
Best Carryover from Super Bowl XXXIX: Job site CareerBuilder’s second ad, in which the guy who works with a bunch of monkeys converses with a woman in an office filled with jackasses. And we’re not cursing; we mean literal, donkey-type jackasses. Extra funny: They were wearing suits.
Best British Farce: Sprint’s fourth-quarter ad using the Benny Hill music as a ringtone, complete with leggy British woman in a police uniform and an elderly gent in his skivvies.
(c) 2006, Zap2it.com.
Visit Zap2it.com at http://www.zap2it.com
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
Comments are no longer available on this story