The 2024 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic

 Welcome to the 2024 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl LVIII is history and the Chiefs are again Super Bowl champions! And it’s time to reveal our judging panel’s (me) top honors for this year’s Super Bowl ads.

Everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy. But our Super Bowl Ad Awards may stray wildly from the standard accolades for Super Bowl ads. Our goal is to recognize the Super Bowl ads that stuck and the ones that sucked. Our goal is to recognize the ads that resonated with the person who watched the game first, the commercials second and had a beer or two (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

The Super Bowl A For Execution But… Award

Pfizer ran a fun little ad that celebrated science and innovation through history and featured Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Galileo and others. OK, fine. It's a nice little pat-yourself-on-the-back corporate feel-good ad that was likely made to counter Pfizer's ad encouraging people to get a Covid vaccination (which obviously lit up the anti-vax crowd). But right at the end of the spot, the company switches gears and shows us a little girl leaving the hospital as "LetsOutdoCancer.com" appears on the screen. It was as if they couldn't decide on what message they wanted to emphasize and, instead, tried to jam in both ideas. Ultimately, it made the first part of the ad appear superfluous and silly when superimposed with the serious message of beating cancer as the (overly broad) call to action.

https://youtu.be/fwvjimuwVyY?si=pndsrF_zPMlQiFfn

The Office Dog Honors Memorial Award

This is a tough one, as this year marks the first Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic without the judging help of my beloved Office Dog. He was the goodest of boys! In Opie's memory, this award honors the best use of animals (preferably monkeys) in Super Bowl ads. However, monkeys seem to be passé in Super Bowl ads these days. But this year, animals overall were a rare commodity (save for animated creatures and the Planet of the Apes movie promo). Reese's gave us a fun spot that checked all the classic Super Bowl TV spot boxes (even though it got old and predictable fast), and it featured a doggie twirling a Hula Hoop around its "waist." Ultimately, the Office Dog Award winner was Budweiser, who featured a yellow Labrador saving the day and leading the Budweiser Clydesdales through a blinding snowstorm to make a heroic delivery. It was short (only :30 seconds), it was in the fourth quarter and it will have zero impact on Budweiser's sales, but it did have a cute doggie. 

https://youtu.be/8C4DNSV3IRE?si=6BxFt9Y4OLwJjJMd

The Super Bowl Ad WTF? Award

A super Pac supporting anti-vaxxer wacko Robert Kennedy Jr's run for the presidency was a blatant ripoff of an ad run by his Uncle, John F. Kennedy in 1960. In fact, it appeared the spot simply interspersed RFK Jr into the original ad. The ad was campy in the 60's, but it was crap in the 2020s. That he's going for name association and the ad was essentially a cartoon that did nothing but repeat "Kennedy for President" will do nothing long-term for his chances. And yes, it was seen by millions of people, but so was every other ad. Hence, just like RFK Jr's campaign, this really bad spot will be soon forgotten. 

Honorable Mention: For the second year in a row, The Jesus, He Gets Us ads. It may be Sunday, but Super Bowl Sunday is not the day to schlep spirituality to the masses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXJJRjGVT4

The Please Just Go Away Award

The Temu ad in the first quarter was bad. The tagline, "Shop like a billionaire" was also stupid. And, the spot, which was a weird animated spot that featured a singer crooning nothing but "ooh ooh Temu" for :30 seconds at a time was just painful. What is Temu? In the ad, it came off as an app to buy cheap crap. What is it in reality? It's an e-commerce site that sells cheap crap from China. So that was bad enough. But then the spot ran again in the second quarter. And again in the third quarter. And, just for good measure, once more during overtime (at a discount price). I never wanted to see the ad or the advertiser again after the first view of the spot. By the fourth viewing, I was wondering how much I'd need to drink to forget I ever saw the ad in the first place. Yes, a lot of people will be talking about it because it was so bad. But won't translate to sales. Blessedly for all of us, the ad isn't online, so we won't have to see it again here!

Best Superfluous Use Of A Celebrity Award

This is always a tight race as there were once again far too many celebrities packed into too many ads. Aubrey Plaza appeared in her standard sullen and sardonic persona for Mtn Dew Blast. Kate McKinnon showed up to shill Hellman's Mayonnaise. Tom Brady was in several spots. T-Mobile brought back Zach Braff and Donald Faison singing and dancing to the Flashdance theme and included Jason Momoa and Jennifer Beals. Uber Eats reunited Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer. But no advertiser topped M&M's this year, who gave us a weird ad that celebrated runners-up and featured Dan Marino, Bruce Smith, Terrell Owens (none of whom ever won a Super Bowl) and, in a wacky twist, Scarlett Johansson (who has never won an Oscar). It was a lame concept and, on a day like today, nowhere near good enough to break through the noise. 

https://youtu.be/9UBWFIArQxs?si=-N9q-F8m8JpoLMf9

Best "We're GettingThe Band Back Together" Award

Budweiser and Bud Light used to own Super Bowl advertising. Some of the stuff the two brands did in the 90s and early aughts are some of the most memorable ads ever made. But, these days, Budweiser simply utilizes the same, formulaic heartstring-tugging ad with the Clydesdales and dogs every year. And Bud Light saw its fortunes plunge in 2023 after inflaming conservative America by having the audacity to have a transgender influencer endorse the brand. So, in 2024, Bud Light went back to the well and tried to produce a rollicking, memorable Super Bowl spot like they used to. This one featured the emergence of a wish-granting beer genie and wacky consequences ensued. But it was too quick, had too many cuts, tried too hard, and ultimately, was too ambitious. It won't hurt Bud Light, but it won't fix their plunging sales either. 

https://youtu.be/Cl--5P79iRs?si=uOXre9HnmEmO-GyC

The Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic Water Cooler Winner

This year, there were some truly good Super Bowl ads. That's notable because it's not always the case. Amidst all the explosions, yelling and clichés, a few spots rose to the top. The CeraVe spot featuring Michael Cera as the alleged inventor of CeraVe was amusing. Dunkin' Donuts killed in bringing back Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez while including Matt Damon, Tom Brady and others (Damon modifying his famous Goodwill Hunting line to "How do ya like them donuts" was inspired). BMW's ad featuring Christopher Walken was great as well. But I thought State Farm's " Like A Good Neighbaa" with Arnold Schwarzenegger was the best and funniest ad of the night. Nicely paced (a rarity among many ads this year) with a punchline and tagline that, though repeated, didn't get old, the spot just worked and stood out among the current trend of trying-too-hard-to-be-memorable Super Bowl ads. That it ran early in the game and then again during overtime will also help the memorability factor on Monday morning. 

https://youtu.be/p8ZYgb8Osek?si=RkO9PUuQhRvdT_Q-

So, there ya’ go… my Super Bowl Ad Awards for 2024. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorits, and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2024 football season start?

The 2019 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non Poetic

Welcome to the 2019 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl LIII is history, the Patriots are once again Super Bowl champions, America is throughly sick of Tom Brady, and it's time to reveal our judging panel's (me and Office Dog) favorites from this year's crop of Super Bowl ads.

Note that, while everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy, our honors may stray wildly from the standard accolades for Super Bowl ads. Our goal is to recognize the Super Bowl ads that stuck, the ads that sucked, and the ads resonated with the person who watched the game first, the commercials second, and had a beer or two while actually enjoying the entire show (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

The A For Execution But... Award

Olay went all in in this year's Super Bowl with a TV spot and quarter sponsorship. While a women's face cream buying into the Super Bowl was interesting to see, their spot left just a bit to be desired. Titled and hashtagged Killer Skin, the Olay spot brought us Sarah Michelle Gellar and wove in themes from her turns in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Ultimately, however, the problem was it was too busy, too loud, and too convoluted to get the brand message across.

The Office Dog Honors Award

This award honors the best use of animals (preferably monkeys) in Super Bowl ads. However, monkeys seem to be passé in Super Bowl advertising these days and, apparently, so are dogs or animals in general, though WeatherTech did feature some good dogs in their ad highlighting their PetComfort line of products. However, though he didn't do much, Budweiser's ad featuring one of their dalmatians with his ears flapping in the wind did the best job of  scoring all the warm fuzzies with a dog in a Super Bowl ad this year…

The WTF Award

In a year filled with plenty of WTF moments (looking at you TurboTax), Mint Mobile took the prize for their lame attempt at creating a Super-Bowl-wacky-buzz ad touting chunky style milk. In the process of the attempt to memorable, they kinda forgot about the purpose of spending big bucks on Super Bowl ads. You know? That whole promote your brand thing…

The Best Ad Only Hardcore Football Fans Completely Got Award

I thoroughly enjoyed the NFL's 100th Anniversary ad. It was wildly entertaining with humor, action, callbacks to some of the league's most memorable moments, and a nod to some of today's current and up-and-coming superstars (hellloooo Baker Mayfield!). The problem was, it was too much. Too many faces, too many cameos, too much action, and a superfluous appearance by a female football player crammed into two minutes and, on top of all that, the casual fan likely didn't know half the players or moments noted in the spot. It was still a great spot that will merit a few more views, but a little more restraint could have created a much better spot…

The Please, For The Love Of God, Go Away Award

In a cheap and lazy ploy, Devour tried very hard to be naughty by implying that their frozen dinners are worthy(?) of online porn-like addiction. Food porn, get it? In fact, their original version even used the word "porn," which was rejected by the network. And, in an even more crass grab for attention, the company's lets-be-naughty strategy included running the full ad (with mention of "porn") on the PornHub site. I never thought anyone would outclass GoDaddy for pointlessly sexist yet tacky Super Bowl advertising, but I'm pretty sure Devour did the job this year:

Best Pointless Use Of A Pointless Celebrity Award

An incredibly huge field of candidates in this category this year. Planters Peanuts ran a great ad that would have done just fine without the pointless appearance of Charlie Sheen and Alex Rodriguez. Colgate's unoriginal, let-try-to-be-buzzy spot featuring Owen Wilson was also celebrity endorsement money that was thrown down the drain (and Seinfeld did that bit 20-something years ago). All of Pepsi's ads with Steve Carell and others just sucked. Bubly Sparkling Water ran a fun ad featuring Michael Bublé that was actually a nice tie-in. However, like Bublé's music, it will be quickly forgotten. And, while Amazon likely got the biggest bang for their buck with their mish-mash ad featuring Harrison Ford, rather than promoting it, the ad actually highlighted all the concerns people have with virtual assistants like Alexa (the ad they should have run, featuring just Harrison Ford, ran after the game).

But those pointless celebrity appearances all paled in comparison to Burger King's ad, which featured Andy Warhol (who died in 1987!) silently opening a Whopper, pouring ketchup, and then dipping the burger in ketchup. The big payoff was the lame hashtag #EatLikeAndy. The clip they used, called "Andy Warhol Eats A Hamburger," was licensed from a documentary film called 66 Scenes From America. It actually could have been so much more, but ultimately Burger King simply wants us to eat like a man who's been dead for 32 years…

Honorable Mention

Stella Artois got lots of nostalgic buzz for their spot that brought back Sarah Jessica Parker as her Sex in the City character Carrie Bradshaw and Jeff Bridges reviving his Jeffrey The Dude Lebowski character from The Big Lebowski. In the end, however, the ad came off as a cheap, uncreative, too over-the-top hook designed solely for max Super Bowl hype. It was already forgotten by the end of the game.

The Water Cooler Winner

There was no debate on this one and it was pretty obvious from the moment it ran who our Water Cooler Award Winner would be. Floating above a sea mediocre ads that just tried too hard or missed the mark, the Bud Light/Game of Thrones ad is what everyone is going to be talking about around the office water cooler on Monday. Bud Light had already set things up with their amusing No Corn Syrup spot (though it won't matter to most beer drinkers, Bud Light did a good job hammering that message home with a couple other spots during the game), but the follow up, starting with typical Bud Light wit, took a very dark, violent, and surprising turn to segue into a fiery reminder that a new Game of Thrones season starts soon on HBO. This is what a Super Bowl ad should be. It was fun, light, unexpected, and very memorable. Nice job and, yea, I'll say it… Dilly Dilly!

So, there ya' go... my take on the Super Bowl ads for 2019. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorites and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2019 football season start?

The 2018 Super Bowl Advertising Awards For The Non-Poetic

Welcome to the 2018 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl LII is done, the Eagles are Super Bowl champions, the City of Brotherly Love is alive with, umm, celebration, and it's time to reveal our judging panel's (me and Office Dog) favorites from this year's crop of Super Bowl ads.

Note that, while everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy, our honors may stray wildly from the standard Super Bowl advertising accolades. Our goal is to recognize the Super Bowl ads that stuck, the ads that sucked, and the ads resonated with the person who watched the game first, the commercials second, and had a beer or two while actually enjoying the entire show (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

The A For Execution But... Award

The NFL spots featuring Eli Manning and Odell Beckham, Jr. were pretty dull and forgettable, until we finally got the spot where the New York Giants quarterback and receiver reenacted the Time of My Life scene from the movie Dirty Dancing as part of their touchdown celebration. That spot was pretty entertaining and the two players nailed the re-creation of the scene. However, coming on the heels of a season marked by dull games, concussions and serious injuries, a confusing rule book, inconsistent discipline, and lower TV ratings, and ad celebrating touchdown celebrations did little to help the image of the NFL. While it may have helped people forget all the league's bad press over the last several years for a minute, it was ultimately a big ball of silly that will be quickly forgotten the next time the NFL fumbles on a disciplinary ruling, rule interpretation, or player health issue.

Honorable Mention

Budweiser spent $5 million to remind America that, not only do they make a dying brand of beer, but they also have a heart and use their canning lines to can water, which is delivered to disaster zones. Now, make all the "Budweiser is pretty much water anyway" jokes you want, but the bigger laugh comes from Budweiser spending who-knows-how-much to produce this nice ad that ultimately plays up their skill at putting water in cans.

The Office Dog Honors Award

This award honors the best use of animals (preferably monkeys) in Super Bowl ads. However, monkeys seem to be passé in Super Bowl advertising these days and, apparently, so are dogs or animals in general. In fact, thanks to ads for, and tie-ins with, the new Jurassic World movie, it appeared dinosaurs were the new monkeys. So, of all the dinosaur ads, Office Dog and I liked the  Jeep ad featuring Jeff Goldblum the best. The spot had just enough of the trademark Jeff Goldblum weirdness that we all haven't gotten sick of yet, while also showing (and this is crazy) actual features of the Jeep Wrangler (you know, things that might actually help sell a Jeep Wrangler).

The WTF Award

Dodge Ram Trucks gave us what they hoped would be an epic spot, featuring Vikings driving around in a Dodge Ram truck, hauling their Viking ship with a Dodge Ram truck and sailing their Dodge Ram truck across a stormy sea, all to the accompaniment of Queen's We Will Rock You. The spot ends as the two Vikings in the cab turn the truck away from the big city after looking at their Sirius XM satellite radio and seeing the words "Tonight's Matchup." Of course, the super at the end of the spot directed you to go online to "Watch The Full Story" which absolutely no one in America has done. I've watched the spot four times and I still don't know what they were going for other than a lame tie-in to "EPIC ADVENTURES." I think they were trying to be funny and show Minnesota Vikings fans going to the big game, but you had to look too long and too hard to find that, which made this spot empty, not edgy. Throw in another Ram trucks spot that used a voiceover of a Martin Luther King sermon and I'm simply not sure what the hell Ram Trucks was actually going for here.

The Best Olympics Ad that Wasn't An Olympics Ad

Early in the game, Toyota rolled its "Good Odds" ad, which celebrated the achievements of ParaOlympic skier Lauren Woolstencroft. Following Woolstencroft from being born with no feet to ParaOlympic gold medal winner, all while showing the decreasing odds of someone winning a Paralympic gold medal as the ad reached its climax, this spot was comparable to the NBC Winter Olympic ad featuring skier Mikaela Schiffrin that had run only minutes before. Throw in an overwrought tagline (Start Your Impossible) and a Toyota logo, this ad pulled on the viewer's heart strings. But, it did absolutely nothing to sell Toyotas.

Best Schizophrenic Super Bowl Advertiser Award

On top of their weirdly incomprehensible epic Vikings spot, Dodge Ram Trucks tried to tie together freedom, serving your fellow man and big pickups to the words of Dr. Martin Luther King. Granted, use of MLK's sermon was licensed by his family, but pairing the epic vikings spot with a trying-too-hard-to-make-people-stop-and-think spot like this one was a waste of a lot of money on two spots that had absolutely nothing to do with each other and ultimately didn't even hammer home the same tagline. Given their performance the last few years, I think the creative process for Chrysler Dodge goes something like, 'We've got two great, but distinctly different, creative concepts! Let's do them both for the Super Bowl and split test later!" And that's not the best way to sell product.

The Please, For The Love Of God, Go Away Award

Doritos and Mountain Dew have been trying to create buzzy, edgy Super Bowls ads for years and this year was no exception. Starting with an ad featuring actor Peter Dinklage lip-synching Busta Rhymes to sell us on the fiery flavor of Doritos Blaze chips, and followed by Morgan Freeman doing the same thing to Missy Elliott to sell cold Mountain Dew (#fireandice get it?), these spots were more pointless pap from these brands that won't help sell soda or snack chips. While not as egregiously bad as PuppyBabyMonkey, it's time for both of these brands to find a new approach.

Best Pointless Use Of A Pointless Celebrity Award

For my money, there's no better way to discourage consumption of your candy than bringing in Danny DeVito (he was so good in, ummm, Twins. Yea, that's it) as the human face of that candy. But that's exactly what M&M's did! Throw in Danny DeVito/human M&M asking people on the street, "Do you want to eat me?" (everyone said no) and this spot did nothing to create demand for M&M's. I'm also guessing all of America cheered when human M&M Danny DeVito was predictably run over by a bus in that wacky-for-the-sake-of-being-wacky conclusion to the spot.

Honorable Mention

Avocados From Mexico also deserves some mention here for not only pointlessly throwing Chris Elliott (cue the millennial irony) in their ad, but for also rolling out the wacky mass scream concept that was done to death in Super Bowl advertising at least 20 years ago.

The Water Cooler Winner

There was no debate on this one and it was pretty obvious in the middle of the third quarter who our Water Cooler Award Winner would be. Amid a sea of mediocrity, most of whom were trying just too hard, Tide's ads (starring David Harbour from Stranger Things) are what everyone is going to be talking about around the office water cooler on Monday. By going meta and spoofing just about every popular genre of Super Bowl ad and brand category ever, while not overdoing it, Tide made some of the wittiest Super Bowl ads we've seen in quite awhile. Plus, as the Tide ads ran early, the spots had you watching just about every other ad afterwards in hopes that it too might turn out to be a Tide ad. And they did it with :60s, :30s, :15s and even segment sponsor mentions. Nicely done!

So, there ya' go...my take on the Super Bowl ads for 2018. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorites and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2018 football season start?

The 2016 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic

Welcome to the 2016 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl 50 is done, the Denver Broncos are this season's Super Bowl champions, Peyton Manning managed to survive to endorse even more products and it's now time to reveal our judging panel's (me and Office Dog) favorites from this year's crop of Super Bowl ads.

Note that, while everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy, our honors may stray wildly from the standard Super Bowl advertising award fare. Our goal is to recognize the ads that stuck, the ads that sucked, and the ads resonated with the guy or gal who watched the game first, the commercials second, and had a beer or two while actually enjoying the entire show (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

The Office Dog Honors Award

This award honors the best use of animals (preferably monkeys) in a Super Bowl ad. Monkeys seem to be passé in Super Bowl advertising these days, so Office Dog, being a yellow Lab, really liked the new Subaru ads featuring the Barkleys, which ran during the Puppy Bowl. The Super Bowl also gave us some more dogs this year, including the Doritos spot featuring dogs going to great lengths to get Doritos and the weird Honda spot featuring singing sheep and a singing dog. But the best use of dogs this year was the Heinz Wiener Stampede spot featuring dachsunds in hot dog costumes charging toward people in Heinz condiment costumes. I thought it was one of the more humorous and original ads of the night, even though it was only a :30 spot. The ad also scored extra points for the nice touch of little kid dressed as a Heinz ketchup packet.

The A For Execution But...Award

Apartments.com gave us Jeff Goldblum and a gospel chorus singing the theme from The Jeffersons as Goldblum and his piano were hoisted by crane to the top of an apartment building to be greeted by… George Washington and Lil' Wayne (nicknamed Weezy, get it?) grilling on the roof?  A teaser was released on the 'net that would have added context, but even that wouldn't have saved this one. Wacky incongruity doesn't always lead to buzz and, even if it does, buzz doesn't always lead to brand awareness. This was superfluous, silly and another in a long line of B-list websites that have laid an egg on Super Bowl Sunday.

Best Schizophrenic Super Bowl Advertiser Award

Jeep made two nice spots. "Portraits," which ran during halftime, was a retrospective of the the company's 75-year history interspersed with portraits of Jeep owners and celebrities with various affiliations to Jeep that ended with a powerful tagline. The second spot, "4X4ever" ran in the fourth quarter and was also a nice spot (though a bit clichéd), that promoted the qualities that have made Jeep synonymous with off-roading. While both spots emphasized the 75th anniversary of the Jeep brand, the tone and tagline of the two spots was almost diametrically opposed. This was primarily because they were created by two different agencies. That's not a bad thing but, in my mind, the schizophrenia of the two spots lessened their impact a bit.

The WTF Award

This one was easy! AstroZeneca's Envy spot showing us some poor guy dealing with constipation while everyone around him is noticeably regular pretty much made an entire nation lose its appetite. The takeaway is that there is help for opiod-induced constipation, but everyone will remember (and make fun of) that guy who can't poop, not the product or brand.

Honorable Mention: The Yin to constipated guy's Yang, Xifaxan told us how it can help with irritable bowel syndrome and diarrhea through an adorable little animated intestine with plenty of references to bowel movements. And it wasn't all just AdBowel, as Jublia added in some NFL celebrities to tell us how to cure our toe fungus!

The GoDaddy.com Please, For The Love Of God, Go Away Award

Thankfully, GoDaddy didn't advertise in the Super Bowl this year. Instead,  the winner for perhaps the most tawdry and lame, yet brazen attempt to create a Super Bowl buzzed spot was Mountain Dew KickStart, which gave us PuppyMonkeyBaby. It was, in a word, stupid. It was contrived and it was just sad. Yes, people will talk about PuppyMonkeyBaby on Monday morning, but primarily to discuss how weird and stupid it was. Will anyone remember the brand? Will it sell one can of Mountain Dew Kickstart (you know, the actual point of brand advertising)? No!

Best Pointless Use Of A Pointless Celebrity Award

This one goes to pretty much every brand that used a celebrity this year (Amazon, Skittles, Snickers, Buick, et al). Out of that sea of celebrities in mostly instantly forgettable spots, the Kia spot with Christopher Walken was stood out as the most brazen attempt to generate Super Bowl ad buzz with superfluous use of an "edgy" actor.

The Water Cooler Winner

For the third straight year Budweiser nails it (in my opinion) with its quiet #GiveADamn spot featuring Helen Mirren, some actual wit and a serious message. A quiet ad will make people stop and listen on Super Bowl Sunday, and this one also had the well-written copy to keep viewers engaged for the length of the spot. Throw in that it was stylistically opposite of Bud's other SB50 spots, and that it came in the fourth quarter after an entire game's worth of generally loud, trying-too-hard-to-make-a-buzz spots, and it was all the more memorable in my eyes. It's just too bad that it won't do a damn thing to sell beer and help get the Budweiser brand off life support.

So, there ya' go...my take on the the ads from Super Bowl 50. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorites and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2016 football season start?

The 2013 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic!

Welcome to the 2013 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl XLVII is done, the Ravens are the Super Bowl champions, Ray Lewis is officially retired and now has a lot of time to kill, and it's time to reveal our judging panel's (me and Office Dog) favorites from this year's crop of Super Bowl ads. Note that while everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy, our honors may stray wildly from the standard Super Bowl advertising award fare. Our goal is to recognize the ads that stuck, the ads that sucked, and the ads resonated with the guy or gal who watched the game first, the commercials second, and had a beer or two while actually enjoying the entire show (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

The Office Dog Honors Award
Kia Sorrento Space Babies

Last year, dogs replaced monkeys as the official animal of Super Bowl advertising. This year, I'd say wolves took over the crown, appearing in the Cars.com and Old Spice spots. However, in spite of the presence of Office Dog's canine cousins, this award recognizes the Kia Space Babies ad as the best Super Bowl spot with a dog or dogs, owing to the presence of not one, but two yellow labs at the :35 mark. While it didn't do a helluva lot to sell the Kia Sorrento and went a long way for a weak tagline payoff, the spot was cute and certainly had lots of parents laughing along knowingly.

The A For Execution But...Award
Hyundai Santa Fe Epic Playdate

While this spot fit the mold for an attempt to be memorable, it was just weird. Highlighting all the incredible things you can do, apparently only while driving a Hyundai Santa Fe, and stitched together with a superfluous appearance by the Flaming Lips and their front man, Wayne Coyne, it ran down the Super Bowl spot cliché checklist for wacky, loud, and attempts at humor. However, while it was amusing once when it ran in the first quarter, it was easily forgotten by the time the game was over.

The WTF Award
What BlackBerry 10 Can't Do

OK, BlackBerry spends millions to buy a :30 in the Super Bowl to tell us what their new smartphone, entering the battlefield against Apple and Samsung, can't do? And you demonstrate what it can't do in the time-honored, Super Bowl tradition of muddled, wacky, CGI generated stunts? That's the best you've got? That phone doesn't have one neat feature to set it apart from it's competition? So, someone please help me here..why should I give a damn about the BlackBerry 10 based on this spot? Other than an ability to piss away $4 million on a pointless TV spot, I can't think of any...
Honorable Mention
MiO Fit Sports Drink "Anthem"

The Please, For The Love Of God, Go Away Award
Go Daddy, Perfect Match
I think I just need to rename this the GoDaddy.com award since, for the fourth consecutive year, they've taken the prize for the worst ad in the game (I'm not going to even dignify it by embedding it), this year featuring a hot model disgustingly sucking face with a fat, ugly geek, with face sucking SFX amplified. I'd hoped that the Wal-Mart of web hosts might change tacks this year, since they actually went with an agency instead of producing in-house, but no. This year, we got this spot and the pointless, silly, incongruous spot encouraging people to register "your big idea" and pushing .co extension addresses. And for that, GoDaddy.com becomes the first four-time Super Bowl Ad Award For The Non-Poetic winner...

The Your 15 Minutes Are Up Award
Wonderful Pistachios Get Crackin'

This spot was stale before they'd finished shooting. Sorry, but Psy doing Gangham Style isn't going to stand out from the crowd and it sure as hell isn't going to sell pistachios or even make much of a brand impression for that matter. Is anyone gonna still be talking about this spot on Monday? More money thrown away on a disposable, forgettable ad...

The Pointless Use Of A Male Model Award
Calvin Klein Concept

I found it wildly amusing that a spot for a product named "Concept" pretty much lacked a...concept. Instead, we get :30 seconds of black and white footage of an oiled up male model posing, glaring, thrusting, and running in Calvin Klein underwear to a beeping, techno soundtrack. Does it sell the underwear, its features or even the fantasy that wearing Calvin Klein underwear would turn me into a tanned, toned, non-poetic Mr. America candidate? Nope! This ad had no concept, no point, and no hope of standing out on Super Bowl Sunday...

And finally...

The Water Cooler Winner
A tie between Dodge Ram Farmer


and

Budweiser Brotherhood

The Water Cooler Award goes to the spots that people are gonna be talking about the most today and, at least to my gut, this two far and away led the pack. The Ram Farmer spot, with a powerful voice over from Paul Harvey and some vivid photography, just stopped you dead in your tracks. That it didn't beat you over the head with the brand, so that you spent the better part of the spot guessing what was actually being advertised was icing on the cake. And the Budweiser spot, accompanied by Fleetwood Mac's Landslide, just hit all the sappy, emotional buttons (and it made my beautiful wife cry), which makes it stand out even more from the rest of the Madison Avenue masturbation that ran during the game.

Honorable Mention
The Audi, Mercedes, and Volkswagen spots all stood out for different reasons but, in my eyes, they're won't have as much Monday morning carryover as our winners.

So, there ya go...my take on the the ads from Super Bowl 47. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorites and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2013 football season start?



See also: The 2012 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic

Your 2012 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic!

Welcome to the 2012 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl XLVI is in the books, the New York media is breathlessly trying to turn Eli Manning into the second coming of Tim Tebow, and it's time to reveal our judging panel's (me and Office Dog) favorites from this year's crop of Super Bowl ads. Note that while everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy, our honors may stray wildly from the standard Super Bowl advertising award fare. Our goal is to recognize the ads that stuck, the ads that sucked, and the ads resonated with the guy or gal who watched the game first, the commercials second, and had a beer or two while actually enjoying the entire show (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

Best Spot Seen Only By Canadians Eh, Award
Canadians love their hockey (as does your faithful Non-Poet), so it's perfectly natural that Budweiser Canada's Super Bowl spot glorifies hockey, not football. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, adults who aren't professionals but still want to play hockey play in "recreational leagues," "rec leagues," or as they're most commonly known, "beer leagues," in that you're only playing for the love of the game and the beers with the guys afterwards. To my hockey loving eye, though predictable, a little heavy handed, and borderline cliché, this ad still sells the joy of spending time with friends and a couple beers far more than Clydesdales or babes in bikinis and ranks up there as one of the top ten beer ads I've ever seen. That I didn't see it in an edited form during the game today (like all the others previewed on YouTube before the game) only made me appreciate the full spot more (though it still didn't make me want to actually drink a Budweiser). h/t Greg Wyshinski/Puck Daddy



 

 

The Office Dog Honors Award
VW Dog Strikes Back

It seems dogs are the new monkeys in Super Bowl advertising and the many canine appearances in this year's ads (I think I counted at least six) had Office Dog foaming at the mouth (it was either that or the queso dip he got into in the 3rd quarter). So, at his insistence, this award recognizes the Volkswagen Dog Strikes Back ad as the best Super Bowl spot with a dog or dogs. And, while there were plenty of dogs to choose from this year, I'm thinking Office Dog was swayed by the teaser that VW put online about two weeks before the Super Bowl...

Honorable Mention
Skechers, Go Run


 

 

The A For Execution But...Award
Chrysler Imported From Detroit

I really liked this spot but had several problems with it. I thought it tried just a little too hard, as it was in many ways a rehash of last year's spot and I thought it sold "America" far more than it sold Chryslers. Obviously it failed in my eyes to make the connection between Detroit, Chrysler, and America. Now, had they gotten Clint Eastwood for last year's spot instead of Eminem, we might not be having this conversation today...

 

 

The WTF Award
MetLife I Can Do This

Here's another one where I really like the spot but, in this case, I'm not sure how it's gonna sell life insurance. Given the cartoon overload, it would be a candidate for a Thank God For The Internet Award, so one could try to catch all the cartoon characters but, otherwise this spot was far more nostalgic than notable. And what the hell was Daphne doing getting out of a limo when Scooby, Shaggy, and the Mystery Machine had already arrived on the scene?




The Hell Yeah! Award
Audi Vampire Party


This is the one that scored big with every man who's seen his wife sucked into the 14-year old girl vampire lit/TV show/movie trend. Honestly, what man in the above category (including your faithful Non-Poet) didn't say "Hell yeah!" seeing all the vampires vaporized? I don't think it will sell Audis (especially since very few people buy a car for its headlights) and the fact that it ran in the first quarter meant it was lost in the shuffle however, it certainly got the attention of the gals and ultimately scored with the guys. The soundtrack by Echo and The Bunnymen and the hashtag at the end were nice touches too.

 

 

Please, For The Love of God, Go Away Award
We have our first three-time winner! Congrats go once again to GoDaddy.com for airing sleazy, condescendingly sexist spots that use titillating imagery and the lure of x-rated content on the web in the name of selling web hosting. You'd think after a year of generally bad publicity, a flip-flop on supporting the controversial SOPA legislation and record numbers of lost domains, the Wal-Mart of web hosts might actually try a new approach. But no, they continued down the same tired path that grew stale within seconds after it's first use several years ago with not one, but two spots in SB 46. And for that, GoDaddy.com becomes the first three-time Super Bowl Ad Award For The Non-Poetic winner...



The I Love Football Award
NFL Timeline

Plain and simple, I just loved this spot. Granted, I love football so this was an easy sell, but this spot was beautifully done and it definitely scored with everyone who appreciates the game like I do...

And finally...

 

 

The Water Cooler Winner

While I don't think this is the strongest concept to sell a car, I have to admit, this is the ad people will most likely be talking about at the water cooler on Monday morning. The fact that Ferris Beuller's Day Off was/is such a touchstone movie for so many people tells me that, for whatever faults the spot may have, it resonated with enough people who hold the movie dear to generate plenty of talk and buzz well beyond the Super Bowl. That it was released online in extended form prior to the game may mute some of that buzz, but I'm sticking with my gut reaction...

Honorable Mention
Doritos, Sling Baby


 

So, there ya go...my take on the the ads from Super Bowl 46. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorites and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2012 football season start?