THE SUPER BOWL: IT SEEMS THE ONLY THING PHILLY COULD BEAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE ADS

Maybe we've come to expect too much. I mean, it's the most watched television event every year, and over the last two decades, people tend to expect more from the commercials than from the Super Bowl itself. If the game blows, at least the commercials were decent. But no matter how good the game actually is, if the commercials suck, everyone will bitch and moan.

A few weeks ago on a crosstown bus, my girlfriend and I heard this kid, aged somewhere between 12-14 I would guess, talking on his cell phone to a friend. They started talking about Super Bowl commercials, and the kid was complaining about how horrible they are now. They used to be creative, he said. They used to be fresh and new, never before shown, he said. Now, they make him so frustrated because not only are they boring, but many have them aren't premiering for the first time anymore.

I wonder if the price charged by the network for a 30 second spot has become so high – this year, Fox reportedly charged $2.4 Million – that the advertisers don't feel like they can spend the money on producing a great ad or, better yet like in years past, series of ads. Whatever is going on, the creativity that used to make the Super Bowl ads such a highlight no longer exists, at least not to the degree it once did.

The best ad I saw actually wasn't on during the Super Bowl, but it should have been. Nike's "Michael Vick Experience" played throughout the football season and was brilliant – imaginative, exciting … really everything we used to expect in a Super Bowl ad.

Don't get me wrong: not everything this year sucked by any means. (You can see all the Super Bowl ads by going here.) I give major props to, of all sponsors, Ameriquest Mortgage Company. The "Cat Killer" ad should definitely be a finalist for best ad of the evening. It had everyone at my little viewing party laughing, and this was a room of Eagles fans who weren't exactly all happy at the time. And the "Taser Scare" ad – where a convenience store customer gets beat up when the owner mistakes him for a robber – was pretty funny too. Of course, how either ad really connects to the home mortgage business is tenuous at best.

Personally, I also really liked FedEx's "Dancing Burt" ad that decided to strictly follow the formula of what makes a great Super Bowl ad: A celebrity, an animal, a dancing animal, a cute kid, a groin kick, a talking animal, attractive females, the product message, a famous pop song and then a funny one-liner bonus ending. In its own meta, knowing, sarcastic way, it was a great ad.

I might give honorable mentions to a few of the Bud Light ads, but they weren't as strong as in years past. Anheuser Busch was once again the big spender with I can't-even-count-how-many commercials they ran. I liked their "Clydesdale Zoo" bit if only because of the continuing storyline created from last year's. But the commercial for new Budweiser Select was pretty boring, even if it basically unintentionally said that all other Budweiser sucked because of a crappy aftertaste.

Heineken's Brad Pitt bit was slightly clever, but not amazing, and Diet Pepsi's "Ladies Man" had a nice little bit when Queer Eye's Carson Kressley turned to look. CareerBuilder.com seems to have taken a cue from previous advertisers Hotjobs and Monster.com to be this year's online job site presenting creative spots. The series of "Monkey Business" ads were cute if not one note/one joke.

Usually the weirdest ads often come from those small advertisers who probably blow their entire year's ad budget on making a noticeable big splash during the Super Bowl. Emerald Nuts of California bizarre ad "Unicorns" might have been strange, but it was also somewhat memorable while actually advertising the product. The mock C-SPAN senate hearing spot for GoDaddy.com, on the other hand, was just absurd, and they're attempt to look like the real C-SPAN only made it appear low-rent. If you weren't paying close attention to the actual dialogue of the bit, you'd never even know what the product was. In fact, everyone at my party was asking, "What was that?" Only because I actually registered my domain name through GoDaddy last year could I tell them what the company did.

I guess I should at least address the movie trailers. The best were also the biggest, and they were both fresh. Paramount has been running a tease for War of the Worlds in movie theaters for a couple months, but the preview during the game was new and fresh (at least to me) featuring scenes from the movie using Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. It was just enough to whet one's appetite. Same with the trailer Warner Bros. trailer for Batman Begins. Various teasers and previews have been in theaters and on the web site for months, but this one was new and exciting, and most importantly, it incorporated more real scenes and dialogue than any I've seen before.

The worst ads definitely included Miller Lite's two lame attempts to put down the introduction of Budweiser Select; Cialisis's boring, previously seen "Good Times" spot; MBNA's absurd "Gladys Night Plays Rugby"; Degree for Men's bizarre "Mama's Boy"; and Napster's stupid "Do the Math." But my least favorite ad of the night had to be Ford Mustang's "Frozen in Fargo," which in its own way was just kind of gross and disturbing. What made it worse was that it aired three times, at least that I noticed. First, between the coin toss and the kick-off, I think, and then later in the game it was shown twice in the period of consecutive commercial breaks.

iFilm has a page of all the Super Bowl ads, including a few that apparently Fox considered unacceptable and were therefore banned. I'm not sure why this second GoDaddy.com spot was "banned" but the other one allowed to air. Apparently, there's also a spot for Steve Wynn's new hotel and casino in Vegas that iFilm claims "the NFL wouldn't run!" Why? I have no idea. If anything, it's a bit dull. On the other hand, I do see why Budweiser's "Wardrobe Malfunction" – which jokingly claims to depict the true reason for last year's Janet Jackson incident – wasn't accepted. The ad is kind of funny, but as anyone could tell from watching the broadcast, neither Fox nor the NFL wanted any reference to last year's incident.

Oh yeah, the game? Well, screw you Philly. If you had somehow managed to not mangle your clock management in the final quarter and actually come back for a win, I would have won another $130!! You deserved to lose this game – the Pats basically played good enough not to lose, while McNabb and the Eagles did exactly the opposite. They gave away every chance they had, no matter how remote it may have been especially at the end. My only rooting interest in this game was based on the small amount of money I had on Philly. Maybe since I didn't really want the Eagles to win with Terrell Owens in the game – that bastard would have had an even bigger head than he already does – my heart wasn't really in my betting.

So what was better this year? The game or the commercials? I guess this year it was the game. Just one of these days, it would be nice if the answer to that question could actually be that it was a draw.

Comments

[sac]

The Ford and GoDaddy spots were the big hits at the party I was at (along with AmeriQuest). Must be an East Coast/West Coast thing. When will the all the hate ever end?

[TonyTribeca]

I actually liked the Pepsi P. Diddy spot. I thought it was clever and funny.

I would have to say for me the worst spot was the Lay's MC Hammer ad? I didn't even get it-- maybe it was cut down from a 60, but in its current iteration, it made no sense.

oh and, Donovan McNabb is a d-bag.