Hasta La Creative!

Last Thursday, Samsung released the one minute teaser to its two minute Super Bowl ad. Today, the brand released the finished two minute version. The ad, which features Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd and Bob Odenkirk, is a brilliant riff on current advertising tactics with specific callouts to the over use of Psy, sending people into space ala Axe, talking babies, crowdsourcing…and even celebrity endorsement by LeBron James who makes an appearance on a Samgsung tablet.

The ad is witty, engaging and intriguingly watchable. However, that may be due to its inside baseball strategy. While everything has become meta, some of the references made in the commercial may not be fully grasped by “regular” people. That said, we like the strategy and think the ad is well done.

Advertising Agency: Merkley + Partners, NY, USA
Executive Creative Director: Andy Hirsch
Creative Group Head: Abi Aron, Aaron Eiseman
Senior Producer: Alex Kobak
Director of Broadcast Production: Gary Grossman
Director of Business Affairs: Pam Carden
Production Company: MJZ
Director: Dante Ariola
Cinematographer: Philippe Le Sourd
Line Producer: Natalie Hill
Senior Executive Producer: Scott Howard
Edit Company: Peepshow NY
Editors: Andrea Macarthur, Amanda Perry
VFX Company: The Mill/LA
VFX Director: Tim Davies
VFX Producer: Rachael Trillo
Mix House: Heard City
Sound Mixer: Philip Loeb

Advertising Agency: 72andSunny, USA

At this point the only thing left to watch come Sunday might be the actual football game. Here’s yet another Super Bowl ad for your pre-game day viewing pleasure. This one comes from Skechers who gives us a more politically correct version of the now infamous 1999 Just For Feet ad.

The ad, which promotes the brand’s GOrun 2 footwear, begins as if it were a National Geographic special. It then delivers a twist. Hopefully the cheetah cause groups won’t be too upset.

An additional spot, promoting the brand’s Relaxed Fit shoe line, features Joe Montana and Ronnie Lot. It’s a more typical Super Bowl commercial with the usual sports greats shenanigans.

1999 Just For Feet Ad:

Joe Montana Ad:

Back in the day, GoDaddy used to stir up all sort of conversation surrounding its racy Super Bowl ads. In recent years, the brand has taken a calmer, less blatantly sexual approach to advertising. That said, in one of this year’s ads, super model Bar Refaeli does suck face with a nerdy geek for a bit.

Enter apparel brand Gilden. Making its Super Bowl debut, the brand will air an ad that, it would seem, is all about the one night stand and how much one guy really really wants his t-shirt back before he slinks out of his lover’s room in the morning.

Created by DeVito/Verdi, the ad is aiming for the 17-30 crowd and hopes to raise awareness of the largely unknown brand. While many may not have heard of the brand, Gildan sells about 500 million t-shirts a year, mostly wholesale, and had $2 billion in sales last year.

How the ad will be received remains to be seen. It’s not overtly racy but with the Super Bowl reaching a broad swath of sensibilities, one can never be one hundred percent sure how the public will react.

Continuing its Sexy Meets Smart approach to domain hosting, GoDaddy is out with Perfect Match, its second Super Bowl commercial for this year. In the ad, Walter, aka actor Jessie Heiman, gets to kiss supermodel Bar Refaeli…45 times! Well, only once in the actual ad but apparently the two took a while to get the kiss right and locked lips 45 times in all.

The pair are introduced by the very leggy-looking GoDaddy Girl Danica Patrick who explains the sexy side of GoDaddy as represented by Refaeli and the smart side is represented by Walter. Hmm, nothing like blatantly objectifying Refaeli.

Then again, there’s always room for both sexy and smart. And, of course, it was quite smart of Refaeli to profit from her sexiness in this gig. After all, who doesn’t want some cold, hard cash? Even if you’re trading on your looks to get it?

Mashable has had a bit of fun with the Super Bowl ads that have been released in advance of the game. They’re not all there as some have been released today but hey, this is a fast-moving ocean liner.

Anyway, the tech journal has created a :60 of what it dubs the best of the best Super Bowl commercials for this year. Have a look.

In this Budweiser Clydesdale Super Bowl ad set to the tune of Stevie Nicks’ Landslide, we witness the journey of a baby Clydesdale from birth on a farm to parade work in Chicago. The spot, which will air during the second quarter, celebrates the return of the Clydesldales to front and center having, for the past few years, been relegated to supporting roles.

The Clydesdales have always been the emotional centerpiece of Budweiser’s marketing efforts and are usually on full display come Super Bowl. One such epic appearance was during the 2002 Super Bowl following 9/11. In that spot, the Clydesdales march to New York and pay their respects to the fallen.

This year’s Clydesdales ad, created by Anomaly and directed by Jake Scott, carries a promotion which asks viewers to help name the baby Clydesdale featured in the ad by tweeting suggestions with the hashtag #clydesdales to @budweiser

The 9/11 commercial:

Samsung is out with a :60 Super Bowl teaser entitled El Plato Supreme. The teaser features Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd who have been called in, bt Breaking Bad’s Bob Odenkirk to pitch their ideas for Samsung’s “Big Game” ad for Samsung’s The Next Big Thing. What transpires is a hilarious conversation about what can and can’t be said in a Super Bowl ad.

Directed by Jon Favreau, Samsung’s actual Super Bowl ad will be a 2-minute production which will air during the 4th quarter. This is the second year Samsung Mobile has an ad running during the Super Bowl.

The full 2-minute ad, edited by Geoff Hounsell and Will Hasell at Arcade Edit, and an extended cut version will be released later this week.

In 2012, Samsung Mobile aired its first Super Bowl ad launching its smartphones and the Galaxy Note. The ad, which was developed by 72 and Sunny, won the Twitter Ad Scrimmage that included 30 brands and 42 spots. The Galaxy Note went on to sell 10 million devices globally in 9 months followed by the Galaxy Note II which sold 5 million devices globally in 2 months.

Of this year’s work, 72andSunny CEO John Boller said, “The Next Big Thing campaign has always been about keeping a finger on the pulse of what is current and relevant to consumers. This ad represents our collaborative, real-time approach to creating ads with Samsung. Their unique approach to marketing has given them a competitive edge and has helped propel the brand to be one of the top 10 in the world.”

That said, the teaser is just funny. We’re sure the actual ad will be as well.