Some thoughts on Super Bowl XLV from afar ...
It was a good game for someone who had no bets, no squares, and no vested interest in either team.
I'm glad it finally warmed up enough for the Metroplex to put on a good show. I'm sorry the snow and ice and cold interfered with the football parties and lessened the economic impact. Maybe the NFL won't pick such a northern spot for this February shin dig and put it back in Houston (or hello - San Antonio's Alamodome ... the party place of Texas). Oh wait - the NFL has already tabbed Indianapolis and NYC for future games ... in February??? Wonder how ice and show will affect the game in Indy and the Meadowlands (the latter being played without a roof!!!)??? Brrrrr ... might as well give Green Bay one, too! They had better weather this past week than Dallas ... errr ... Arlington. Plus Green Bay has snow plows!!! It would save travel expenses for Cheeseheads!
I liked half-time music show ... but I've liked them all (McCartney, Stones, Prince, Petty, Springsteen, The Who) since the wardrobe malfunction in Houston. The lighted uniforms and staging was great. Special "surprise" guests were good. Will.i.am did a great job getting all those songs in such a short time.
But we all know we watched the game for one reason - commercials!
Car ads took the first 7 spots on my list.
Topping my favorite commercial list was the two minute long Imported from Detroit by Chrysler. No, I'm not an Eminen fan and I probably won't go buy the new Chrysler 200 (although it would fit well in my projected age demographics). The spot was well photographed, well written, well photographed, well produced, and did I say well photographed. And here's my personal bias - growing up in the Motor City, I had been to every place in the spot. It touched me. Looking on Facebook, it seemed to be a hit with most of my friends from high school as well. We can only hope it translates into sales and helps Motown!
Spots 2 through 7 on my like list were also car companies ... VW's Darth Vader, BMW's Made in the USA, Mercedes Benz's Car Gathering with P. Diddy, Lexus' Escape to New Luxury, Chevy's Facebook Cruze and Hyundai's Change all being touching/funny/creative and worth the money spent ... and my time to watch them.
I've bought cars through CarMax and maybe those spots will work with the used car king. As much as we like cars, most of us hate playing the negotiating game. CarMax does give me a good feeling, but maybe not all the ones chronicled in the commercial.
Doritos had some good and bad spots. Their "Resurrection" spot was cute but licking it off fingers and pants was "ewwww."
Pepsi was obviously playing to the "guy crowd" with their three Pepsi Max spots. I liked the automatic ice chest launcher even if it included the time-honored-never-fails sight gag of guy-getting-hit-in-crotch-is funny ... plus the bonus "geeks/underdogs rule." The couple on a date where she's thinking of "everything" and he's thinking of "one thing" was so cliche and was another guy put down. But we can laugh at ourselves (especially during Super Bowl ads). I'm not so sure their spot with the arguing couple taking out the fellow jogger with a thrown can is all that funny? Especially in this day and age of random assaults and attacks on women. Sorry. Not good.
What can you say about the king of Super Bowl advertisers - InBev/Anheuser-Busch? No amount of advertising is going to make me drink their Bud Light but they had a couple of chuckles in their spots. I'll enjoy the Clydesdales in an ad every time. I don't know what they were saying in the Stella Artois commercial but anything in a "furrin language" sounds good to most of us.
Speaking of "guys" and "worn out cliches" ... there was GoDaddy.com teasing us with sex (and a sexy Joan Rivers!). No, I did NOT go to their web site to see how it ends ... even though my domain names are registered through them (I do appreciate their sponsorship of Mark Martin and Danica Patrick in auto racing).
The commercial that WILL make me go to their web site is HomeAway.com. As a travel person, that sounds somewhat intriguing.
Props to Papa John for getting us all to "like" them and having our FB and email addresses in their computer. They did not run a spot in the actual game but had it gone into overtime we'd all be getting free pizza!
Finally, I enjoyed sharing the Super Bowl with my folks in the warmth of Florida instead of tromping around Arlington (as I might have been). We had great munchies, cold drinks, and a very good time!
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