Super Bowl XLII Commercials: A Disappointing Year for Super Bowl Ads

According to Fox Business online, more than 139 million people from more than 232 countries watched last year's Super Bowl., which means it is big business. Because of this, a number of companies put a lot of work into their advertisements for a big hit at the Super Bowl. They know that a lot of people are watching, and there is potential for a huge payoff if their ads are a success. But what is success?

To me, an ad has to do two things: First, it has to grab my attention and be good enough for me to remember it for more than the 30 seconds it is showing. And secondly, I have to not be so distracted by the ad itself that I can't remember the product they are pushing. For example, one of my favorite commercials from years past was the "Cat-Herding" ad. It was one of the funniest, most memorable commercials out there. The problem is that I have no idea what the ad was pushing. So, while a commercial wants to be funny and get the audiences attention, it cannot be so out there that the audience forgets what it is advertising. So, those are going to be my two criteria for this year's Super Bowl ads. I am only going to look at advertisements that aired after the start of the game.

On a side note, I knew that I was going to get sick of all the American Idol advertisements that were aired during the Super Bowl.

The first commercial that tried to make an impression was an Audi commercial that referenced The Godfather scene where the Hollywood producer finds his horse's head in his bed and starts screaming. In this ad, an older gentleman is in the same type of house and bed and he pulls his sheets back and the front of an old car is lying there with oil all over the bed. Then the ad states "Old Luxury has been put on notice." The ad worked for me because I'm a huge Godfather fan, but if you are not, you might not get the ad. However, since it is people who grew up with the Godfather who can probably afford that Audi it is probably going to reach its market. While not funny, it still was effective. However, the Audi part of the commercial was almost too short, and I didn't get the make of the car, so they could have expanded on that.

The Diet Pepsi Max commercial just tried way to hard to be funny. While some of the nodding off was funny, after a while it just got annoying, and I knew what they were advertising before they even stated it. One word: lame.

The Bud Light wine and cheese party was quite funny. Some girls are hosting a wine and cheese party, and the guys all brought some Bud Light and a TV disguised as cheese or wine. Quite funny. Beer commercials are usually pretty funny and its tough for some to stand out, but this one was quite good.

Garmin, who makes GPS devices had a pretty good commercial that had a very small car going through traffic and getting directions from a Garmin GPS device. Once the car reaches its destination, Napoleon gets out of the car. Pretty funny and effective. You knew exactly what they were advertising because it was a focus the entire time and it got your attention because at first there looked like no one was driving the car, but then it was Napoleon.

All right, finally there were a couple of truly funny, laugh-out-loud commercials. The first one was a Planters Peanuts commercial. A fairly ugly woman is walking around town and guys keep eying her and running into stuff as if she is the most beautiful person in the world, so you are wondering what is going on. Then near the end, she cracks open a can of cashews and rubs some all over her body and that is the reason why so many guys are attracted to her. Pretty funny stuff.

However, the Doritos commercial is the funniest so far. A guy cuts off a piece of a Dorito and puts it on a mouse trap and sits in front of the hole waiting for the mouse to come out and take the bait. However, when the person grabs a bunch of chips for himself, a person in a huge rat suit bursts out of the wall and starts beating him. Hilarious.

Halftime was dedicated mostly towards local advertising, which was rather boring, so hopefully there will be some more memorable commercials in the second half.

Bridgestone tires had a great commercial that had not only Alice Cooper, but Richard Simmons as well. The commercial started out by having a someone driving at night and swerving to miss a deer. The next "animal" that appears is Alice Cooper, and the driver swerves to avoid him. The final animal is Richard Simmons doing jumping jacks, and the driver steps on it and it looks like he's going to hit him, but at the last minute is able to avoid him. I think it might have been funnier if he would have hit him.

Unfortunately, that was about the only memorable commercial after halftime. So all in all, there really was no big commercial that was great this year. The Bud Light commercial at the Wine and Cheese party was a good one, as well as the Planters commercial and the Doritos rat commercial. However, there really was no eye-opening commercial from a company that I had not heard of. This was a disappointing year for commercials.

Matt Egan, "An International Super Bowl: Who Wins: Who Loses?", Fox Busniness