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Super Bowl 58 Grins and Groans

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Super Bowl 58 has come and gone, and two things are evident: Post Malone is a pretty darn good singer, and the Chiefs are apparently a very good football team. [Congratulations to them and their fans on being the first team to win back-to-back championships since the New England Patriots nearly 20 years ago.]

Speaking of back-to-back, it appears the advertising bowl was a repeat of last year as well. Nothing risky, nothing wildly interesting, nothing off the wall but really smart. You like to be WOWED with Super Bowl advertising, and – for the second year in a row – I suspect there were not a lot of “wows” being uttered in living rooms across the world.

Some themes that emerged last night:

Religion is apparently making a comeback. A total of five spots were dedicated to some form of religiosity: two spots for Jesus, a spot reminding us to stand up to Jewish hate (sad that we have to be reminded of that,) the annual pitch for Scientology, and Mark Wahlberg hawking Hallow, a new prayer app. (Sad that we need an app for that.)

Repetition was a theme last night as well. And this I like. If you’re trying to get some of the 115 million+ people (in the US) watching the game to REMEMBER you, repetition is a pretty strong tool. And if you can repeat creatively, all the better. A few brands managed to pull this off last night, some with more efficiency than others. Kate McKinnon’s cat meows over and over again, but it sounds like “mayo” for Hellmann’s; and Aubrey Plaza continually reminding us she’s having a “blast” for Mountain Dew; both were fairly effective. But Arnold Schwarzenegger using his own accent as a comic tool when he repeats the word “nay-bah” for State Farm and their “like a good neighbor” tagline was both effective AND funny. And Doordash really hit the repetition ball out of the park with their spot, continually repeating the word “dash” to great effect, while reminding viewers of the actual brand name in the process.

Meta, (the concept, not the company,) was also a theme. We saw a lot of spots using the “let’s make a commercial about making a commercial” theme. It’s a strong device, given that this is the biggest platform on the planet for commercial-making.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

BetMGM bet on Vince Vaughn doing Vince Vaughn things, and it worked. Throw in Tom Brady and Wayne Gretzky for the typical Super Bowl celebrity-stuffing and you get a pretty good spot.

Ken Jeong is just hilarious, and his turn as a recently-unfrozen-cryogenic-experiment was a laugh. When he’s told it’s Popeye’s, he asks “the sailor man?” Loved it, and sincerely hope that was ad-libbed.

Christopher Walken being hounded by people attempting Christopher Walken impersonations is always welcome. And BMW wrapped it up nicely with the line “the rest are just imitations.”

Reese’s probably gave us the most fun spot of the night with “big change.” Narrator having fun with a roomful of people having outsized reactions – classic fun, and pretty memorable.

Poppi soda made a nice, simple, smart statement about their soda being better than what we all think “soda” is. Less sugar, prebiotics, cool flavors. Nice.

PlutoTV did a nice job of growing couch potatoes in an entertaining spot for their streaming service. They had a good gag, and took it all the way to the farm.

And let’s face it. Chris Pratt kinda does look like the Pringles guy, right?

GRINS:

T-Mobile has been crushing it on Super Bowl ads the last couple of years, and they kept it up with two fun spots. They love singing in their commercials, and this year we got Jason Momoa showing off his pipes and some feats of acrobatics. And their “audition” spot, a Bradley-Cooper-and-his-mom spot, which featured cameos by Laura Dern, Patrick J. Adams and Gabriel Nacht of “Suits” fame, Common, and Jennifer Hudson was entertaining and smart to boot (the idea is no one has to “audition” to get T-Mobile’s Magenta Status VIP treatment.)

Last year, Dunkin’ went all in on the Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez thing, and they’ve continued the story this year with Ben trying to break into the pop music business with his group “The Dunkings,” which also features Tom Brady on keyboards. Probably not the best brand-building spot we’ve ever seen, (they’re going all in on the Boston thing,) but it’s cute, and the self-effacing turn from Matt Damon made it really funny.

Disney+ put in a surprisingly good turn this year with their “well said” spot. Just plain typewriter text (not quite Courier, but close,) on a white screen, scrolling through some of the more memorable phrases in Disney history, including “who’s the fairest of them all?” and “the Force will be with you…always” and “To infinity…and beyond.” Some might call this lazy. I saw it as a way to break through the clutter (and a noisy living room hosting a Super Bowl party) and deliver something powerful. Winner of the “sneaky good” category.

NFL made some important statements about bullying and mental health in two semi-PSAs/semi-self-congratulatory spots. But their full length spot, featuring Quesi, a young boy from Ghana with big NFL dreams, made a salient point: “it doesn’t matter where you’re born, as long as you’re born to play.” That line is delivered by Osi Umenyiora, a former NFL player of Nigerian descent. The NFL is committed to growing the game internationally, and this spot shed light on that initiative with warmth and fun and facts. Well done.

One of my favorites of the evening was this spot for CeraVe, another meta take on commercial-making, where quirky actor Michael Cera is pitching the dermatology board at CeraVe skin care to use him as their spokesman. The screen cuts to bold text (love that Din Pro font family,) that says “Developed with Dermatologists. Not Michael Cera.” It manages to deliver silliness, seriousness, a singular brand platform that their products are indeed developed by dermatologists, name recognition and memorability all at once. Exactly what a Super Bowl spot should do.

This spot from Verizon, featuring Beyonce trying to “break the Internet” was a masterclass in over the top advertising. First off, she’s wildly popular. Second, she pretty much HAS broken the Internet over her career. This spot features her going to outrageous lengths to TRY and break the Internet, but Verizon’s incredible coverage never wavers. A great performance by Beyonce, a hint of self-effacing humor shows she doesn’t take herself THAT seriously, and lots of smart and timely pop culture references. And that she’s using it as a platform to tease/drop new music is even cooler.

I think one of the best spots of the night was made by Bud Light. A return to form for this brand, (who has been in the news the last year or two for all the wrong reasons,) which is to be big, brash, unapologetically silly and fun. They take a simple concept, stretch it out as far as it can go, add a couple of big celebrities (Peyton Manning and Post Malone, with a cameo by Tyrannosaurus Rex,) and execute the heck out of it. The perfect recipe for really strong Super Bowl advertising.

MY WINNER:

Dove returns with another smart ad that’s tactfully and intelligently delivered. Using the “It’s a Hard Knock Life” song, we see a montage of girls flubbing it at sports from gymnastics to ice skating, basketball and softball. And even though they do, they smile and press on. The text on the ad reads “the knocks don’t stop girls playing sports…low body confidence does.” Wow. BANG. The ad gets quiet, and we get a peek at a young girl in a bathing suit looking at herself somewhat disapprovingly in a mirror. Text reads “45% of girls quit sports by age 14…together we can keep them in the game.” And we’re encouraged to “Join the Body Confident Sport program.” This brand hardly sells soap anymore – they sell esteem and female empowerment and tolerance and acceptance and…and..and…Great work as usual.

GROANS:

The Google Pixel ad was a good moment. Lovely story of a semi-blind man named Javier who is now able to capture photos on his phone with the help of the phone’s AI assistant. I liked it initially, and the final scene was touching. It’s also technically good advertising because it focuses on a singular feature. I just think that accessibility is about so much more than taking selfies, and I thought this ad undercut the mission a little bit.

The Nerds Gummy Clusters ad was just kind of confusing. It features Addison Rae, a Gen Z singer/influencer, and a blobby Nerd candy (I guess?) recreating the iconic scene from Flashdance. It just felt weirdly mistargeted, as I’m not sure how much of the Super Bowl audience under 40 would even know or remember Flashdance. Compare this with the Skechers ad using Mr.T as a conduit – at least those sneakers are targeted to an aging Gen X audience that would actually know who he is.

All of the Homes.com ads (there were three of them at least,) went too far into the gags without clearly making the points they were hoping to deliver. The ads say some really good things about the brand like “gathering up close and detailed information on neighborhoods, and hiring top experts to get you insider info on local schools…” All good stuff, but the core messaging gets blurred out in the outlandish mayhem designed to be funny. They further confused the point by introducing Jeff Goldblum into one of the ads – he’s the Apartments.com spokesman – for comedic effect. The only effect it had was an unclear value proposition, poorly delivered across several ads. The parent company, CoStar Group, reportedly spent $35 million on all their ad exposure. Yikes.

Oreo delivered a big-budget ad with big scenarios throughout history left to chance, with decision-makers deciding on which way to go by “twisting on it.” Yeah – they twist their Oreo cookies, and if the cream is on the left, homo sapiens split off from the dinosaurs and survive the asteroid hit that kicks off the ice age. If the twist reveals cream on the right, we get boy bands and the Kardashians. Ugh. I always like the let’s-show-the-product-in-action approach, so I’ll submit that as a plus. But “let’s twist on it” sounds forced, and it looked that way too.

I know it’s sacrilege, but is it okay if I didn’t like the Martin Scorsese-directed spot for Squarespace? It just seemed like more of a commentary on people’s obsession with smartphones, and made exactly ZERO mention of any brand benefits. Squarespace is a website that makes it easy to build websites, and it’s never mentioned. Not once. And the only ones who use it are aliens trying to get noticed? Then they end with the tagline “A website makes it real.” Makes WHAT real, exactly? Meh.

And probably my biggest groan of the night was Crowdstrike’s attempt at a “big” commercial for the Super Bowl. It’s set in the Wild West…in the past? Or is it a post-apocalpytic future? Hard to tell. Some people are dressed like it’s 1820. The spokeswoman is standard 2024 every-woman. What the what? And if you’re still watching, she tells the cyborg sheriff (not kidding) that she’s got it covered. Then she proceeds to digitally undress the invading virus-borgs (also not kidding) so they’re embarrassed and run away. I think I’ve got that right. What a confusing mess.

But hey, at least we didn’t have to watch any faux-patriotic spots from Weather Tech, right? What were your favorites? Let’s hear it in the comments.

Until next year!

Super Bowl 57 Grins and Groans

Nader Ashway3 Comments

Congratulations (choke!) to the (cough!) Kansas City Chiefs on another (gag!) well-earned Super Bowl victory. Sorry, but when you’re a fan of another team, it hurts to give props to anyone else. #GoBills.

Aside from the football, there was, of course, the advertising. And it was anything BUT super this year. Really just a strange mix of blah ideas, very few risks taken, heavy on celebrities, light on diversity and originality. So here goes.

GRINS

While there was not much to celebrate, there were a few ads that stood out this year. Like the game, it was pretty slow going in the first half, and then revved up after the halftime show. While we’re at halftime, I don’t know enough about Rihanna’s music to say if it was good or bad, but I was pretty impressed with the floating stages, the drone shots, and the visual intrigue that was created. Also, she basically put on a 15-minute commercial for her fashion and beauty brands Fenty and Savage X Fenty, while announcing her pregnancy to the world. Good on her. At least SOMEBODY got the idea about marketing during the Super Bowl.

I’ll give it up to Ben Affleck, shilling for Dunkin’ at the drive thru. JLo ordering him to “bring me a glazed” was pretty funny. ETrade brings the babies back again this year, but at least it was funny, with a few killer lines and lots of cute kids being AI’d into silly dialogue.

In a meta spot for T-Mobile, Bradley Cooper and his mom couldn’t finish the commercial, but still managed to get some important feature points across about the Price Lock guarantee. And Michelob Ultra revived Caddyshack (twice, actually) with Brian Cox, Serena Williams and Tony Romo standing in for Ted Knight, Chevy Chase and Bill Murray. Probably completely lost on anyone born after 1975, but still, beer and golf play well together.

Adam Driver was tongue-in-cheek enough to deliver a pretty solid message for Squarespace, repeating the core premise “a website that makes websites.” And Super Bowl 57 was heavy on 90’s nostalgia with Diddy doing a sort of it’s-not-a-jingle commercial for Uber Eats. Oh, and Jennifer Coolidge is just plain funny. Her over-the-top antics for E.L.F. cosmetics, using the “sticky” gag was delicious!

And while we’re talking about celebrities being a little self-effacing, props to Sarah McLachlan for spoofing herself in a beer ad for Busch Light, where she – almost – launches into one of her “save the pets” PSAs, only to find out it’s the “wrong shelter, Sarah…also, that’s a wolf.” Funny. And I have to say, John Travolta reviving “Summer Nights” with Zach Braff and Donald Faison for T-Mobile in-home wifi was well-executed and had some really funny lines, (and a nice three-part harmony!) including feature points like “it’s just fifty bucks.” Mr. Peanut also allowed himself to get “roasted” by Jeff Ross and others in a smart turn of phrase. And Dave Grohl (who is a great comedic pitchman) celebrated all the exports of Canada in a cheeky spot (and a nice not-so-serious approach) for Crown Royal. A refreshing detour from typical spirits ads.

Three honorable mentions:

Nick Jonas for Dexcom, a diabetes monitoring device and corresponding app, was remarkably well-done and should be an indication that they’re targeting a younger demographic. After all, that target is more likely to embrace lifesaving tech without a second thought, and more likely to know who this kid is. And having a JoBro deliver the message actually makes it seem fairly cool. Smart!

The Pop Corners spot, which was executed wonderfully by Aaron Paul, Bryan Cranston and Raymond Cruz (known colloquially as Jesse, Mr. White and Tuco,) of Breaking Bad fame, was hilarious and well-played, especially by Cruz doing his over-the-top hyper-excited drug dealer shouting “SEVEN!” for the amount of flavors he wants. Be careful; the joke is a little lost if you don’t get the references, but if you do, it’s gold.

Tubi used a few sneaky tactics to get our attention. The best was the eerie spot of giant rabbits kidnapping humans and tossing them into “rabbit holes” of content. Pretty out there, and pretty good. We all use the term “I went down a rabbit hole” when we talk about binging, and this was a smart callback to that vernacular. But their “and now back to the game” cutoff, where we thought we were going back to Super Bowl coverage (with Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen) and then got duped into another spot was masterful. It helps that Tubi is a Fox-owned streaming service. They would win the under-the-radar advertiser of the year for sure.

THREE CLEAR WINNERS:

KIA – “Binky Dad”

Kia goes big on a situation that virtually every dad can relate to. They turn it into a determination story, with a hero, a challenge, (not to mention the Bill Conti “Rocky” theme song in the background,) and lots of excitement along the way. This is good advertising: just slightly over the top, but with enough truth and substance at the heart of it that it’s totally believable, even if exaggerated. The SUV has all the capability it needs to turn off road, jump through a concrete water main pipe, and generally haul ass in the service of “getting the baby’s binky.” Cue the poor-dad-you-got-it-wrong-anyway joke at the end, and you have a very satisfying, super entertaining and moderately informative Super Bowl commercial.

DORITOS – “Triangle”

Pop/rap star Jack Harlow seeks something “different” in this spot for Doritos. He ditches rap, and instead takes up playing the triangle, which sets off a national phenomenon. People go crazy for triangles, Harlow starts giving triangle lessons, and he hopes to win triangle player of the year, until he’s usurped by Elton John. Over the top, funny, and sneaky on point: Doritos are, of course, triangle-shaped snack chips. Although the brand is widely known, it’s a return to a simple “what makes you different” focus. That’s good strategy, and it turned out to be very good advertising.

WORKDAY – “Rock Stars”

Corporate types like to call each other “rock stars.” In this spot, some actual rock stars take offense, and provide background to remind Workday, the corporate Finance and HR software platform, that just using it to your advantage does NOT make you an actual rock star. Joan Jett, Billy Idol, Gary Clark Jr, and a hilarious turn by Ozzy Osbourne (“Hi, I’m Oswald,”) make this a glitzy, big, funny, and SUPER memorable spot. I often talk about performance, and how important an element that is in good commercial-making. Paul Stanley plays it perfectly – a little miffed faux-seriousness and a well-delivered comedic performance by him in particular. Best spot of the night, and it wasn’t even close.

GROANS

Sorry to say it, but this Super Bowl was full of groans. Most of it was just boring, or unremarkable, including all the movie promos. Anna Faris in a tired Garden of Eden trope for Avocados from Mexico…hard to follow, which just didn’t make you want to buy or investigate the product in any way. Some gaming company (LimitBreak) did another QR code trick in the first pod, which is the definition of “too soon” after last year’s semi-groundbreaking approach from Coinbase (which crashed their servers, btw.)

Generally, most of the spots just relied too heavily on celebrity to (hopefully) make an impression. Most were misses, like Hellmann’s (Jon Hamm, Brie Larson and a creepy Pete Davidson,) Skechers (Snoop Dogg, Martha Stewart and a funny Tony Romo,) and Paul Rudd as Ant-Man for a non-alcoholic Heineken beer.

The most egregious celebrity-filled spot was the DraftKings “name” spot, where Kevin Hart and others work through a script that was written JUST for the celebrities in the spot. This is a celebrity ad for celebrity ad’s sake kind of approach. Hart says “I’m not an under-taker” just as WWE star Undertaker appears. Or “that’s ludicrous,” when rapper Ludacris appears. Or worse yet, “I’m watching you like a hawk” as skateboarder Tony Hawk tries to get into the party. Just not great advertising, and expensive too!

BIGGEST GROANS

GM and Netflix teamed up in one of two co-branded spots Netflix did on the night. (The other was a decent pitch for their upcoming “Full Swing” reality show about professional golfers with Michelob Ultra that reprised the Caddyshack theme.) In this spot, Will Ferrell (whose comic genius was utterly wasted in this spot) drives around in an all-electric truck through various scenes of popular Netflix shows. Each line of the script is crafted around popular Netflix shows, but if you a.) don’t have Netflix or b.) don’t watch those particular shows, you’re out of the jokes completely. It’s confusing at best, and self-congratulatory at worst.

WeatherTech continues their participation in the Super Bowl, although most of us wish they wouldn’t. The ad starts out with promise, with various people telling WeatherTech “you can’t do that” when they want to build a factory in the US, and hire bright talent in the US. But it veers off into more patting of their own backs. The ad says “ha! See? We did it, and we’re successful, so there!” There’s nothing of value there for the consumer to hear. Nothing about translating those higher costs and more expensive employees into great quality products, or shorter shipping times, or that you can find the products at stores where you live. Nah, just “we’re awesome. Go America.” Sadly, some people will say it was a great commercial for that exact reason. Ugh.

Pepsi Zero Sugar wins the ignominious award for worst spots of the Super Bowl. There were two of them, actually, which makes it doubly disappointing. Here’s the setup: Ben Stiller and Steve Martin do some acting in various comic and dramatic situations, and talk about the “craft” of acting, and how you never know what’s real and what’s acting. Okay, we’re listening. But then, they take a sip of Pepsi Zero Sugar and exclaim “wow – that’s delicious!” (And this is where it goes awry.) Then they turn to the camera and ask, “or was I acting?” Now, in their defense, the setup is built to deliver the next line “only way to find out is to try it for yourself.” So you could argue there’s a strong call to action to go out and try the product. That’s fair. But let’s remember that the mind is the marketplace when it comes to advertising, and even the mere suggestion that an actor is faking it creates too much doubt. We are all willing to suspend our disbelief when we see commercials, but you never want the consumer wondering if the actor was indeed acting. If you think the pitchman was bullshitting you, and then he admits he might be, I don’t know…that just doesn’t seem like a strong selling idea to me. The better angle would have been to go over the top, and try and plead for the audience’s understanding by saying “no, really…I’m NOT acting right now…this stuff is GREAT!” They got too cute, and I think it cost them.

Until next year…yay advertising!

Super Bowl 56 Grins and Groans

Nader Ashway3 Comments

Super Bowl 56, the second super bowl to feature a team winning in their home stadium (total coincidence) is in the books, and so are the 70 or so ads. There was a lot of pre-game hype, with the game being in Los Angeles, at a brand new stadium, with the “mega” halftime show (that wasn’t that mega,) and of course, all the leaked ads.

Ultimately, it turned out to be about a six – and this has been a trend over the last several years…there are no ads that are flat out terrible, and no ads that are tear-your-hair-out great. Super Bowl has become an expensive arena for fairly vanilla ad executions. Maybe it’s our ticklish cancel culture that lurks around every corner. They could have been better. But there were some highlights.

Crypto had its coming out party this year, with five spots for various coins, platforms and exchanges making themselves known to a broader audience. So did electric vehicles. Snack foods and sodas were noticeably absent. And while celebrities are always a staple of Super Bowl ads, this year went extra heavy on the celebs, with a side of celebs, and then had celebs for dessert. (Perhaps big ideas are delayed due to supply chain issues?)

SOME HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Hologic – Mary J. Blige gets major props for a.) embracing her age as an asset and b.) for encouraging others to get regular mammogram screenings. This is an issue that many celebrities might politely duck out on, but Ms. Blige got to shine in an important public service announcement-meets-healthcare-ad.

Expedia.com tapped Ewan McGregor for a solid spot that poked fun at previous Super Bowl ads (including a couple nice little jabs at Budweiser and Bud Light,) while choosing “experiences” over “stuff.”  This was a solid idea, elegantly executed in the meta style, for a brand that is about to get super busy when people start traveling again. Well done!

BMW’s all-electric iX got a nice, um, jolt from Zeus and Hera (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Selma Hayak) in a cute spot, where Zeus retires to Palm Springs, only to find it leaves him flat. BMW reinvigorates his godliness, with some nice turns, including a pet Pegasus and a closing frame with Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue” to keep this one fresh. Overall, a well-made, well-executed ad from a brand that has learned to take itself less seriously over the last couple of years.

Chevrolet hawked its new, all-electric Silverado with a perfectly executed nod to the legend of the Sopranos television show. Actors  Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Robert Iler reprise their roles as Meadow and AJ, in what looks like a rebooted back story to the final Sopranos episode. Fans of the show will notice she had no problem parking this time!

FTX recruited Larry David to do his “Larry David” thing, saying “no” to epic discoveries and inventions throughout history like the wheel, the fork, the toilet, and the light bulb.  So when he says no to FTX, “a safe and easy way to get into Crypto,” the joke works great. As far as Crypto ads went this Super Bowl, this was the second best execution.

GRINS

Coinbase took 60 seconds of airtime to flash a QR code across the screen.  (For those of you scoring at home, that’s an open rate of about $14 million.)  Tens of millions of people snapped it to reveal one of two things: an opportunity to learn more about Coinbase, or for most of them, a crashed app. Big idea, big gamble, and big props for doing something really different.  Unfortunately, also a big fail since the tech couldn’t keep up, and Coinbase ends up making a poor first impression.

Uber Eats poked fun at themselves and their own name when people try to eat the various deliveries they receive using the service. People end up eating diapers, (with a disclaimer that reads “Prop food. Do not eat diapers” that adds to the joke,) cat litter, dish detergent, and my favorite, Gwyneth Paltrow taking a bite of her own “anatomy” candle (nice easter egg there.) Great ending super: “Now delivering eats.  And don’t eats.” Great example of how to take a simple idea, stretch it out with humor, and deliver your core brand message in a memorable way.  Very nice.

Planters makes a big splash in a really interesting and special way to promote their mixed nuts. Ken Jeong and Joel McHale ask the Internet about whether or not you should eat mixed nuts all together, or one at a time. Chaos (and hilarity) ensues, neatly wrapped with the line “who knew America would tear itself apart over a relatively minor difference of opinion?” Enough said. And very well done.

WINNER:

Rocket Mortgage taps Barbie, Skeletor and a cast of characters to sell mortgage-related financial services and technology in the easiest way possible:  so kids can understand. Great use of house-hunting archetypes, like “better offer Betty,” and “cash offer Carl,” to underscore today’s market challenges. And Anna Kendrick has the perfect off-beat delivery to hold the entire thing together. This was a big win, and considering they owned the Super Bowl last year with the Tracy Morgan “pretty sure isn’t sure enough” spot, I’d say they’re on a roll.

GROANS

Listen, when you have 70+ ads in a four-hour window, there are bound to be some clunkers. Even Morgan Freeman and his delicious voiceover couldn’t make an ad for Turkish Airlines work. E-Trade tries to bring the talking baby out of retirement to no avail. And Cheetos (in one of the few “animal” spots of the night,) kind of fell flat, and apparently got the ire of animal activists up over human processed snacks finding their way into natural habitats. Oooof. Speaking of animals, Disney+ tapped Awkwafina to do a “goats” spot. And Gillette, who have been on a roll embracing social issues, went bland this year. But here are the ones I thought really missed:

Salesforce – Matthew McConaughey in a big-budget sprawl of a commercial, floating around in a hot air balloon, waxing poetic in that McConaughey you’re-cute-but-I-don’t-get-it kind of way about space, trees, trust and the new frontier. A 60-second miss, and for a brand that could have gotten way more mileage by NOT being in the Super Bowl.

Avocados from Mexico took a cheap shot at Bills Mafia, and therefore they’re dead to me. In separate news, they were banned from imports just this morning after an inspector was threatened.  Not kidding.  Karma, kids. Karma.

Hellmann’s wins the it’s-a-bad-spot-because-that-was-done-already award with Jerod Mayo tackling anyone who is not thinking about food waste. Now, I get “reprising” an idea if it’s timely and makes sense.  But then Terry Tate should have been in this commercial. Maybe they thought no one would notice? Or perhaps they banked on the idea that most people watching wouldn’t have even seen those old Reebok spots? Either way, it’s a bad look for Hellmann’s with anyone who follows advertising.

LOSER:

It pains me to say this, but Dolly Parton shares the worst-of-the-night award along with Miley Cyrus in these loosely-linked and poorly-thinked commercials for T-Mobile. First, Ms. Parton, who is basically a national treasure, has to stoop to a bad boob joke to “get something off her chest.” Ugh.  Then Miley Cyrus comes in during a follow-up spot and does a “We Are the World”-style number to “do it for the phones.”  I know it’s a joke.  I know it’s tongue in cheek. But it’s in poor taste nonetheless. Had they tagged this spot to say they were ACTUALLY doing something good, (like recycling phones and donating to those in need, or using the lithium ion batteries to power a high school football field’s lights, I’m just spitballing here,) this spot might have won the evening. But they didn’t, and the joke didn’t land.

Many thanks to all of you who were live tweeting with me last night.  Would love to know your thoughts on the Super Bowl ads from this year – please leave your comments here!