Who’s going to win your heart? Is it the animals in the game or the animals in the commercials? Air time in the biggest show of the year costs more than a talk from Hillary Clinton so Advertisers better make it good. They want to air their spots close to the beginning of the game to get attention from viewers who haven’t had too much to drink. By the end of the game it’s all a blur of empty beer bottles and cold cheesy nachos.
The supermarket beer and snack displays seem larger than the pentagon.
Last year, the world’s biggest stadium made completely of snacks was displayed at The Scottsdale Fashion Square mall by the Yelp community. The display included 4 tons of Velveeta cheese, cans of black bean soup and bags of potato chips which added up to a $130,000-worth of product. 4 tons of cheese! That night, the mice died and went to ‘Velveeta-Ville’.
Costumed characters and cute animals is a winning combination. A ketchup character ‘family’ from Heinz, cute weiner dogs, and the 70’s Harry Nilsson’s ‘Without You’ add up to terrific TV time. You almost don’t want to go back to the game. The music ties it all together and ropes you into (hopefully a buying) mindset.
Sometimes you forget the product because the commercial is a little ‘obtuse’. It’s a little like the ‘herding cats’ super bowl ad of 2000. The commercial was a winner but did anyone remember the product? (An IT management consulting firm)
In a Mountain Dew Kickstart commercial, 3 guys decide to stay home for the night as a combination ‘puppymonkeybaby’ bounds into the room from a trap door in the wall. It shows you what happens when you combine Dew, juice and caffeine. The only dialogue emanates from what is obviously your worst nightmare after realizing you’ve ingested something that’s making you go crazy. You hear the creature say ‘puppymonkeybaby’ over and over while dispensing cans of the legal ‘speed’ in what will probably be the next catchphrase of the year for those without a life.
Mike Huckabee will immediately head to the Twitter-sphere and denounce the spot as what will happen when scientists mess with genetics. “When you play God, you get something like that” he said to a rally of 12 diehards.
Oh, and there’s also a football game.
