Hasta La Creative!

The big three may not be placing ads at the Super Bowl but Audi is sure to be there. Aiming to create the same excitement that the players would have on the field, Audi has a great commercial being awaited which stars Transporter star Jason Statham.

Audi’s advertising agency, San Francisco-based Venables Bell & Partners, created the ad, which was shot on-location in Los Angeles. The agency painstakingly recreated different eras in American history with costuming, lighting, film stock and period-specific automobiles to create a stunning depiction of the different eras explored in the ad.

“Every new model we introduce is making more and more consumers stand up and take notice of the single best line-up in the market. Last year’s spot sent the message that Audi was truly redefining luxury. This year’s spot will ensure that everyone realizes that Audi is the best choice, period.”

(Source) PR Newswire

There’s a new metric in town.

How many times was the Super Bowl spot rewound?

According to The New York Times, in homes with the TiVo video recorder service the commercials got a higher audience than the game.

Todd Juenger, vice president and general manager for audience research and measurement at the New York office of TiVo, said, “There is rewinding and multiple viewing of the ads” on Super Bowl Sunday. It’s one of the few times it happens.”

TiVo’s list of most-watched spots was topped by one of two for E*Trade featuring a “talking” baby; in this spot, the infant spits up at the end of his spiel.

The E*Trade commercial, created by the Grey Global division of the WPP Group, was followed on the TiVo list by one featuring Justin Timberlake, for a music promotion co-sponsored by Pepsi-Cola and Amazon; a spot for Doritos created by a consumer for a contest last year; one for Coca-Cola Classic that spoofed the red-blue political divide; and a spot with Carmen Electra for Ice Breakers Ice Cubes gum.

The results “say something about the TiVo audience in terms of what works to get something rewound,” Mr. Juenger said, listing tactics like humor, celebrities and surprise punch lines.

Miller Brewing took out a full page ad in USA TODAY today to congratulate A-B.

This is what it says:

Dude!

Did you really spend $18 million on the big game?

Congratulations on your USA TODAY Ad Meter success, Bud Light. This certainly calls for beer. An award winning beer. A beer with more taste and half the carbs of Bud Light.

A nice cold Miller Lite.

Ninety million plus people aren’t going to see this print ad, but for the hundreds of thousands who do, it’s a message that works pretty well.

The message I take away is Miller focuses on making beer while Bud prefers to make 30-second adverts meant to appeal to the frat boy within.

GoDaddy makes a habit of making Super Bowl commercials that don’t air during the Super Bowl. The spot that did air last night promised viewers more if they’d just click over to GoDaddy.com. According to Ad Age, a record two million people took the GoDaddy challenge.

“For us, because we’re an internet company and we sell domain names, there’s no way we can really explain what we do in a commercial. We had to get people to our website,” Go Daddy founder and CEO Bob Parsons said.

The edgy, though ham-fisted ad — a parody of sorts on the whole celebrity “upskirt” phenomenon — didn’t curry favor with all viewers. A GoDaddy.com survey asked 160,000 people what they thought of the commercial. Some 17.1% of males disliked the ad; 16.5% of females disliked it. This was OK with Mr. Parsons, because “they still came to the website.

I went to GoDaddy to see the ad so you don’t have to. It’s beyond bad. But that’s hardly surprising coming from a CEO who can’t make a 30-second pitch for his core service and doesn’t care if he diminishes his brand with bad jokes and unfulfilled teases.

For once, the big game was much much better than the commercials.

Some second half ad rankings…

Winners:

• Cars.com “head shrinker”
• Vitamin Water “Shaq horseback”
• Hyundai “reveal”
• Bud Light “Will Ferrell”
• Amp Energy Drink “nipple charge

Losers:

• Ice Breakers “Carmen Electra”
• eTrade “baby talk”

One of the best spots I saw tonight was a local buy from Tobacco Free Florida.

I like this spot because it’s all concept. Typically, the spots that aired during the game leaned heavily on production values, but production values alone will never get the job done.

According to The Wall Street Journal, research from the University of Wisconsin suggests that shares of Super Bowl advertisers tend to outperform the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index in the week after the game.