A little late but - Best/Worst Superbowl ads

[Scott]

I'm a little late to the party but I found all of the ads (by quarter) here:

http://www.myspace.com/superbowlads

I think it would be a fun exercise to do a ranking of the best and worst commercials (and why) in the following categories:

1) Best Branding (does the best job of making the brand memorable)
2) Most Effective (makes you want to buy it)
3) Most Entertaining (fun, but not necessarily effective)

A) Worst Branding (worst job of making the brand memorable)
B) Least Effective (a true WTH moment overcomes you)
C) Least Entertaining (boring!)

To make it manageable, we'll break the rankings down by quarter starting with the first qtr.

Anyone up for Best/Worst Challenge?

Scott

 

[Scott]

I'll start off. 1st Qtr commercials best/worst:

1) Best Branding - The first Bud Light Commercial. It's a nonsensical ad (Bud Light makes you breath fire???) but the prominent use of the brand over the others in this quarter make it a winner.

2) Most Effective - Audi. Although it started off as a WTH? moment, I definitely got a huge emotional rush watching the last half of the commercial. Yeah, I want one!

3) Most Entertaining - Diet Pepsi Max. It's a familiar and catchy tune that makes me want to do the Night at the Roxbury head bop.


A) Worst Branding - Doritos. They waited until the very end to even mention the brand. Stupid!

B) Least Effective - Doritos. WTH?

C) Least Entertaining - Sales Genie. There's just nothing entertaining about it. I lost interest about 5 seconds in.

Who's next?

Scott

 

[Scott]

Are you so busy in the middle of February that you can't critique ads that may just help your own business and overall understanding of effective advertising? Sheesh!

Scott

 

[Bruce Humphrey]

I would have to say the same. But when I clicked on the diet pepsi commercial and it started playing, I started to question myself if I clicked on the right commercial. Love that Audi

Under Armor. I didn't even know what I was watching until the end of the commercial.

 

[nickreal]

1) Best branding Bud Light
2) Most effective Audi
3) Most entertaining Bud Light

A) Worst Branding Doritos
B) Least effective Diet Pepsi
C) Least entertaining Under Armour

under armour was just dumb to me. I even buy their product but the commercial just didn't make any sense. Not a budlight fan but the commercials were entertaining. Nothing super impressive to me during the first quarter.

 

[Scott]

Alright! Finally got a couple of vict...er um... participants.

Can't disagree with you guys; the ads were overall pretty poor in the 1st quarter insofar as having all of the components of great advertising. Rosser Reeves, William Bernbach, and Claude Hopkins have to be turning in their graves.

Shall we wait for a few more participants or move to the 2nd quarter?

Scott

 

[Bruce Humphrey]

Bring on the Second quarter

 

[nickreal]

Second Quarter

1) Best Branding (does the best job of making the brand memorable)
planters nuts. pretty funny
2) Most Effective (makes you want to buy it)
Wanted (the movie). I have got to see that movie, or Tide to go. I think I need to have one of those on my truck so I can present myself well to clients
3) Most Entertaining (fun, but not necessarily effective)
Doritos got better in the second quarter

A) Worst Branding (worst job of making the brand memorable)
sobe. I didn't even realize it was sobe until I read the title.
B) Least Effective (a true WTH moment overcomes you)
Dell
C) Least Entertaining (boring!)
GMC. I like what they are saying and the fact that they made a hybrid SUV but common that was boring.

 

[Scott]

My 2nd Quarter Results:

1) Best Branding: Godaddy.com. While I'm not particularly thrilled with the ad, it does make excellent use of branding. In fact it sort of parallels into the "most effective" category because doggone it I had to go see what the banned-for-tv Danica Patrick "Exposed" video was all about, which can only be seen online by the way. Yes, the online video is disappointing. LOL!

2) Most Effective: Without a doubt, Tide to Go. That ad definitely made me want to run out and buy some. (in fact we already use the product but if I didn't know about it I would run out and buy some)

3) Most Entertaining: Bud Light. It made used of characters from previous Bud Light ads and Carlos Mencia, to me anyway, is pretty funny.

A) Worst Branding: I agree, Rick - Sobe did a horrible job of branding the product. There were others too like Planters, Fedex, and Garmin, but Sobe did the worst job IMHO.

B) Least Effective: Fedex. What the hell? Ok, I get the carrier pigeons but it wasn't effective in the slightest. So the better option is Fedex over huge carrier pigeons which aren't even a reality? Ads are like jokes - they have to be believable to be considered effective.

C) Least Entertaining: Yep, agree again Rick - GMC. Not entertaining at all.

Scott