Bud Light "ability to breathe fire" + allergic to cats: Not bad. Pretty much what Bud Light's first ad should be, but no better. B
Audi's takeoff on The Godfather: Terrible waste of money. Gratuitous screaming = turnoff. I wonder how many people won't even get the reference. F
SalesGenie: I liked it. Go animated Ramesh! B+
Pepsi Max: They had nothing better to do than dig up that song from A Night at the Roxbury? F.
Bud Light wine & cheese. Pretty clever. B+
Shoe commercial: I'm not the target audience. Nothing about it offended me, nor interested me. C.
Bridgestone: WHAT THE HELL IS UP THE SCREAMING in this year's ads??? F.
Doritos: Guitar playing woman. That was the best the user-submitters came up with? D-.
Movie trailer: It is what trailers should be. Movie loks like mindless pleasure. B-
Derek Jeter: It is what celebrity endorsements should be. B+
GoDaddy: Meh. (I didn't bother with the web version.) B
No idea what that fourth ad was. (Incomplete.)
FedEx: gigantic carrier pigeons! A
Cars.com: wtf? C-
Tide: nice premise. Does gibberish count as screaming? Wrong year for this ad I guess. B
Bud: Dalmatian trains Clydesdale. Predictable and sappy but it was what I wanted to see. A-
Movie trailer: Iron Man looks dumber than the previously trailed movie. C-
Toyota badgers: A bit too over the top. B
Leatherheads. Not bad. Funny. B+
Garmin Napoleon. Clever, but the exposition took too long. At least we're in a run of non-terrible ads. B.
Follow your heart: no thank you. C
Dancing lizards: took way too long to identify the product. C+.
Anti-drug PSA. no thank you. But not bad as anti-drug PSAs go. C+.
SUV: meh. C
Bud Light foreigners: F with a vengeance.
Prince Caspian: was what it was. B-
Planters: vomit-inducing. C-
Charles Barkley's phone company: really grew on us! A
Pepsi: now we're down to crotch shots? D-
Doritos' big mouse: not bad. B+
Posted by Matt Bruce at February 3, 2008 03:54 PMA good rundown of what is almost always a disappointing crop. There were nice moments but overall I wasn't grabbed by anything.
I am not sure whether the ads really have gotten worse with time or if what I'm feeling is judgment of the present clouded by a false idea of past standards.
To wit: Tom Petty sounds rather dull right now.
Posted by: mountmccabe at February 3, 2008 05:11 PMI've bailed on the post-halftime ads as you can see, but just wanted to point out after SalesGenie's panda ad that I hadn't realized at the time just how crass, if not racist, the previous Ramesh ad was.
Looks like the giant carrier pigeon will be the consensus top choice this year.
Posted by: me at February 3, 2008 05:34 PMThe Coke ad featuring Stewie Griffin, Underdog, and Charlie Brown balloons was clearly my #1.
After seeing all the ads, I was glad I had a preexisting preference for Coke vis-a-vis Pepsi.
Posted by: Kubi at February 4, 2008 11:50 AM