A car gets swiped by aliens, goes to another planet, but then goes through a black hole and winds up sliding down an Aztec ziggurat to the cheers of the crowd--a nice technical display, and a smidgen of a story, which makes it the only Super Bowl ad so far that isn't completely unintelligible or lame beyond words.
In fact, through the first quarter, there seemed to be an uninspired over-reliance on the old tried-and-true, which means somebody getting unexpectedly whacked and set on his can, like the Doritos ad, or inexplicably shooting a can of Pepsi at a someone minding their own business, or, Pepsi again, shooting a can of Pepsi into someone's "groin area," as they euphemistically say in the sports business.
I'm not normally very interested in the ads, nor any of the pre-game hoopla. I don't want to see any exploding scoreboards, or rock bands, or fireworks, or celebrities urging us toward this or that saccharine sentiment. I just want to watch a football game.
That said, even the average football game is full of commercials, and even more so in the Super Bowl. You can't avoid them entirely. Therefore, to look at it philosophically, you tell yourself that you are about to see the new products of the best-and-brightest marketing minds on Madison Avenue. So far, looks like they're in about the same league as the brainiacs on Wall Street.
Oh yeah, and the movie trailer for something called "Cowboys and Aliens"? Believe I'll pass.
The racial dynamics of the Pepsi ad were...interesting. The Audi ad was pretty good and the Chrysler ad was refreshingly union-oriented, but otherwise I agree.
Posted by: Hypatia | February 07, 2011 at 07:46 PM