I enjoy watching the Superbowl for the ads, although I thought that several of the commercials didn’t deliver on their brand promise. Some were somewhat offensive. Others just plain confused. I must not be the “target market” for most of the advertised products.
Here are my favorites, by quarter: If you are looking for a quick and easy way to rewatch the ads by quarter, I like this link.
For a thorough review of what other Marketer’s think about the ads:
- Igor Mordkovich’s post Superbowl 41 Ads… What the Hell Was That?
- Seth Stevenson at Slate: Were the Super Bowl Ads Any Good?
- Search Marketing Guru’s: Superbowl Commercials, 30 Minutes Later - Name Your Top 5 Ads
- BusinessWeek’s David Kiley: Why I Think Coke Won The Super Bowl Ad Contest. Not Bud.
- UPDATE: This sent in vai comments from Zag Studios: Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim for 2 of these links.
If corporations really want to make consumers happy, they should forego costly Super Bowl ads and instead invest in a Chief Customer Officer, a single person of power charged with putting him or herself in the customers’ mind.
But instead they spend their time and money making sure their ad is funny and entertaining, which doesn’t mean it sells more products. A good marketer surprises consumers by giving them new ideas on how and why to use a particular product. Ads developed by typical people or starring famous celebrities may get laughs, but are unlikely to generate sales. For every dollar you spend you should be seeing a dollar back and I sincerely doubt that these companies are generating an additional $2.6 million due to these Super Bowl ads.
Marketers need to stop thinking that marketing HAS to be creative. It HAS to sell goods and services. Sometimes the least creative marketing is the most effective.
Mark Stevens
CEO of MSCO
http://www.msco.com/blog
Here’s another Superbowl Ad review link for you complete with videos of the funny commercials:
Scoring the Superbowl Ads 2007: Five Star players and a Couple of Goats.
http://www.zagstudios.com/superbowl_xli_tv_commercials.html