Superbowl 50 Ads - PuppyBabyMonkey!

I am continuing my tradition of watching the Super Bowl primarily for the commercials, and then blogging my response. I did enjoy seeing the Denver Broncos win this year, not only because of my high school friend who abandoned me  the DC area for Denver but because they needed some redemption for their terrible playing in the Bowl a couple years ago. But truly, the ads are much more interesting to me than that football stuff.


Even with that being said, I didn't find too many standout ads this year. And no Clydesdales :(. But there were singing sheep (!), and many, many dogs. Dogs seemed to be the theme of this year's crop of ads.


That and ads on products relieving digestive upsets. There were only two, but it seemed like a lot. But considering that ads for products fighting IBS and related issues have really been all over the place for a couple years now, it's not surprising they would make their way to the Super Bowl. I mean, the food associated with the big game is not the most digestive friendly to begin with.


But back to the dogs. My favorite of the dog ads had to be the Heinz ad featuring "wiener dogs" running into the arms of loving humans in Heinz ketchup condiments. It was both unexpected and adorable.


And then there was Honda Ridgeline, the creator of the Queen-singing sheep ad. I mean who doesn't like singing sheep?


Mountain Dew KickStart's "PuppyBabyMonkey" was mildly creepy but so over-the-top in it's ridiculousness that it made me laugh out loud.


There were a few ads not featuring animals or crazy animal hybrids that got my attention.


Jeep's 75-year anniversary ads struck a fitting nostalgic tone.


After the Miss Universe fiasco where Steve Harvey announced the wrong winner, he was maybe, possibly able to spin it to his advantage and divert attention from some of those internet memes with his role in T-Mobile's Super Bowl spot.  We shall see.


Another favorite of mine was the Audi ad featuring the late David Bowie's song "Starman".


Upon reflection, there were more memorable ads than I thought. Some were so stupid as to be funny, some played up the adorable factor, and some were thoughtfully moving. I guess 2016 was a winning year for Super Bowl ads after all.

Let's Talk the Interesting Part of the Super Bowl...

That is, the ads. :P. 

Yeah, what was up with some of those ads??

The somber tone was not what I was expecting for a football game. First there was the much-talked about Nationwide Dead Kid Ad. I get what they claim to have been going for here (a "conversation" about household safety hazards) but the execution was majorly lacking, and viewers didn't so much see a public child safety message as a manipulative grasp for profit through dead children. 

With all the talk of the Nationwide ad, I feel like few people noticed the domestic violence PSA. This definitely threw me for a loop for a second (a woman calls the police and asks for a pizza), but unlike the Nationwide...thing, it was clearly a public service announcement rather than a commerical-with-a-message. And it's certainly a message the NFL needs to address. But, yeah, not the usual tone for a football game...

And somewhere in there there was a Scientology ad. 

Even the car commercials dealt with more serious themes (fatherhood, the wisdom of the elderly) than your typical car/truck/SUV ad. Among those, the standout was Dodge's "Wisdom." 

 "Keep your eyes open and sometimes your mouth shut."

Always (the Maxi-pad company) didn't quite reach the heights of girl power that Goldie Box did last year, but they tried.

"[Running like a girl] means you run as fast as you can."

Turbo Tax's spot seemed fitting for a Super Bowl played (and won) by the New England Patriots, and surprisingly for a commercial for tax prep services, it wasn't boring!

But the major OMG Squeee Awww 111!!!111 moment of the night was of course brought to us by Budweiser. I  mean, these commercials just get better and better each year.

So yeah, it was a really strange year for Super Bowl ads, but at least there were Clydesdales and puppies!

2014 Superbowl Commericals

Because a good high school friend of mine has moved to Denver, I feel a connection to the city I have still yet to visit. And so I had to root for the Broncos in the Super Bowl. So their loss to the Seahawks 8-43? Big. Disappointment. The ads were somewhat better, although few really stood out to me this year. I found some of the more serious ads to be more effective and memorable than those that went for the funny factor. I didn't feel like coming up with a whole top-ten list this time, but here are some of the ads that did catch my attention...

With his evangelical faith worn on his sleeve and debatable football talent, Tim Tebow has been a polarizing figure. But his Super Bowl ad shows that he's got a sense of humor about himself. Check out all Tebow's done without a contract:

The Cheerios commercial featuring the multiracial family deserves a shout-out to make up for the crazy backlash the original ad received. Come on, people, it's 2014 already. The Super Bowl spot wasn't the most clever or unique ad, but this (growing!) Cheerios-eating family is as adorable and heartwarming as ever.

John Stamos has already been featured in ads for Dannon Oikos Greek yogurt. But for the Super Bowl he reunited with "Full House" castmates Bob Saget and Dave Coulier for a bit of nostalgic brilliance.

Toyota Highlander featured the Muppets in their Super Bowl spot, and who doesn't love the Muppets?

Chrysler featured Bob Dylan praising the tradition of American-made automobiles.
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Oddly enough, many of Budweiser's Clydesdale ads seem to appeal to a more female-dominated audience. This one, featuring clydesdales, puppies, and Passenger's song "Let Her Go" is another tearjerker

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Superbowl 47: Ravens, Power Outages and Commercials

As a native Marylander, this year was the first year I was actually as excited for the actual Super Bowl game as for the commercials. It turned out to be a crazy game: the Ravens kicked major butt in the first half, and then, after the Beyonce/Destiny's Child halftime show...the lights went out. This ended up delaying the remainder of the game for a good half-hour, and the Ravens lost momentum when they resumed play. In the end, though, they won, beating the SF 49ers by 34-31. Congrats, Ravens.

But back to the ads. Honestly, Super Bowl advertising tends to get a little stale. It's always the same products (Doritos, beer, various automobiles), because that's where the money is. Moreover, the advertisers tend to sacrifice coherence for cleverness or humor, resulting in ads that use crazy plot devices in an aim to sell products that are only tangentially-related. However, there was a good crop of ads this year. Here are my 10 favorites, saving the best for last.

10) Volkswagen "Get Happy." This ad, featuring a white man going around speaking with a Jamaican accent, achieved what it set out to do: it made me happy. Will I go out and buy a VW now? No, but the ad still made me happy.




9)Babylandia! This 2014 Kia Sorento ad depicted a dad trying to explain to his young child where babies come from. His answer: the mysterious planet Babylandia. The ad had some clever visuals and neatly tied in the Sorento's "It has the answer to everything" tagline.

8) Taco Bell's "Viva Young." I liked this one largely because Fun's "We Are Young"  in Spanish: even better than Fun's "We are Young" in English. Also, rebellious elderly folks sell.

7) M & Ms "Anything for Love." The M&Ms commercials always make me laugh, and I love this song.



6) PSY's "Gangnam Style" for pistachios. The pistachios commercials are always culturally relevant (the Simpsons, keyboard cat), so it figures they would bring out PSY's viral hit for the Super Bowl. I have a bit of a problem, however. I ran across someone online who said it sounds like he is singing "Condom Style," so I hear this every time I hear the song now.



5) Ram "God Made Farmers." This was an odd commercial. Honestly when I first saw it I thought it was going to be a political message about supporting American farmers...and then it got to the end and showed a Ram truck. So apparently they are trying to sell Ram to farmers. It was definitely a memorable ad, though, with the narrator's deep, haunting voice, and it's almost somber tone stood out among the funny/not-so-funny ads. 

4)  "It's Only Weird if It Doesn't Work." It was the night for Stevie Wonder, who was featured in several different "voodoo" themed ads for Bud Lite. This one, with the Ravens and 49ers voodoo dolls, was my favorite.



3) Tide Montana Miracle Stain. Hilarious. My favorite part was the wife who obliterates the "miracle stain" with Tide and gives the clean jersey back to her husband, saying "Go Ravens." Go Ravens indeed.





2) Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen for Samsung. The ad that actually aired towards the end of the commercial was clever, but I think I like this take better. Rudd and Rogen are asked to develop as Samsung ad for the Super Bowl but aren't allowed to actually name the game, teams, etc., resulting in lines like "San Francisco 50-1-ers and Baltimore Blackbirds."

1) "Brotherhood," my favorite ad of the night.The Budweiser Clydesdales are just classic. And adorable. Especially baby Clydesdales. *Squeeeee*