SUPERBOWL2012
Thanks to these Super Bowl ads, the game was never the same again
GAME CHANGERS from p. 2
APPLE’S “1984”
(1984)
XEROX’S “MONKS”
(1977)
ANHEUSER-BUSCH’S “BUD
BOWL” (1989 AND ONWARD)
CASH4GOLD
(2009)
MONSTER’S “WHEN I
GROW UP…” (1999)
CHRYSLER
(2011)
WHAT: An athlete hurls a
sledgehammer against a “Big
Brother” figure talking on a
screen to an enslaved crowd
in an Orwellian state. The ad
suggested revolution was in
the air, just as Apple
introduced its Macintosh
computer and prepared to
take on the staid IBM.
WHY: Super Bowl ads have
always made us laugh. This
one made us think.
WHAT: Brother Dominic
finishes the arduous task of
duplicating an old manuscript
when his supervisor tells him
to come up with 500 more
copies. The monk finds his
way to a secret Xerox shop.
Upon his return with a stack
of copies, his superior
proclaims, “It’s a miracle!”
WHY: Making fun of a religious
order? Irreverent. And a big
step toward some of the more
ribald humor of today.
WHAT: Bottles of Bud Light
square off against bottles of
Budweiser in this stop-motion-animation football
classic that lasted several
more years.
WHY: Why run a single ad when
you can run a commercial
that lasts the whole game?
While “Bud Bowl” is often
satirized today, at the time it
showed that an advertiser
could devise something
bigger around the Super
Bowl than a couple of
30-second commercials.
WHAT: MC Hammer and the
late Ed McMahon hold forth
for the practice of turning in
jewelry to get much-needed
dinero.
WHY: The Super Bowl was long
thought of as an event
reserved for blue-chip
advertising. In the middle of a
severe recession, however,
the appearance of a marketer
more traditionally associated
with direct-response
advertising shattered that
convention forever.
WHAT: A series of kids stare at
the camera and discuss the
shattered dreams that await
them in the workplace,
including growing up to be a
“brown nose,” clawing one’s
way to middle management,
or being forced into early
retirement.
WHY: Humor tinged with
cynicism suggested that
Super Bowl audiences were
more sophisticated than
anyone had dreamed.
WHAT: An ad clocking in at a
whopping two minutes (!!!)
trumpets the return of the
U.S. automotive industry (and
Chrysler) by introducing the
slogan “Imported from
Detroit.”
WHY: A bold maneuver—Fox
had to rearrange its ad load
for last year’s Super Bowl
broadcast because of the
length of the spot—showed
that, once again, anyone
willing to spend big can shake
up the typical Super Bowl
marketing formula.
BUDWEISER CLYDESDALES
NYC TRIBUTE (2002)
JUST FOR FEET
(1999)
MASTER LOCK
(1974 TO 1983)
EDS’ “HERDING CATS”
(2000)
DORITOS
(2007 AND ONWARD)
CBS’S “DAVID LETTERMAN AND
SURPRISE GUESTS” (2007, 2010)
WHAT: The brewer’s iconic
team of horses journeys to
the Hudson River, where they
bow in deference to a city that
had been struck by the 9/11
terrorist attack just months
earlier.
WH Y: The spot offered proof
that Super Bowl ads can do
more than just sell or make us
laugh.
WHAT: A bunch of white men
drug a Kenyan runner and
shove Nike shoes onto his feet
while he lies unconscious.
Upon waking, the runner is
horrified and tries to shake
the sneakers off.
WHY: Just For Feet was
accused of being racist, but
the ad appears to have given
others leeway to marginalize
other cultures during the
Super Bowl. Just ask
SalesGenie (2008) or
Groupon (2011).
WHAT: A marksman takes aim
at a Master Lock, which is
damaged by the shot but still
holds fast.
WHY: Sometimes, the simplest
image is the most effective.
This one worked so well for
the company that it ran the
same spot for nine years.
WHAT: A group of cowpokes
takes to the plains to herd
hundreds of scattered felines.
WH Y: This visually dazzling
spot showed the increasing
importance of special effects
and digital manipulation to
Super Bowl advertisers.
WHAT: The marketers behind
the cheesy Frito-Lay chip ask
amateurs to create Doritos
ads for the Super Bowl, and
then run them with little gloss.
WHY: It proved a solid spot
could come sans big-production values, special
effects and big ad-agency
geniuses. (In 2007, Chevy and
NFL also bowed user-generated ads.)
WHAT: After an infamous gaffe
involving Oprah Winfrey’s
name at the 1995 Oscars, Mr.
Letterman got the talk-show
diva to appear with him in a
CBS promo during the 2007
game. Three years later, he
topped himself, convincing rival
Jay Leno to join Ms. Winfrey
and him in another spot.
WHY: TV-network promos used
to simply tell us what time a
show was coming on. But
CBS’s masterful effort proved
they can spur as much chatter
assome branded Bowlads.
Disagree? Think we missed some? Comment on this story at AdAge.com.
As storytelling ads increase, so
does the length of Super Bowl spots
GOING LONG from p. 2
would be on the Super Bowl in a week)
to capture the same magic. … I think
we all feel that the 30 didn’t quite cap-
ture the full feeling of the 60, and in the
end it was just a function of time.”
Whether this strategy of longer ads
is being embraced en masse is not yet
clear. Fewer 60-second spots hit the air
between the fourth quarter of 2010 and
the third quarter of 2011 than did in the
same time period in 2006 and 2007,
according to Nielsen. At one major
cable network, ad-sales executives say
60-second ads are popular among
movie studios and iconoclast marketers
such as Nike but aren’t gaining more
traction with other advertisers.
Even so, there’s a growing sense
among marketers that consumers, bombarded by so many short-form web
banners and mobile pop-ups, would
welcome a return to the days when TV
ads told stories and featured characters
and concepts that pulled at the heartstrings and got the blood racing.
“Humans prefer storytelling to just
telling,” said David Lubars, chairman
and chief creative officer of Omnicom’s
BBDO North America.
In short, the longer ads might just
be harder to forget. “There are many
30-second commercials that have been
effective,” said Mr. Pytka, who has
helped create iconic Super Bowl ads for
Pepsi, Nike and the company now
known as Anheuser-Busch InBev. “I
just don’t remember any.”
And marketers may simply have a
case of “get me one of those” after
Chrysler’s much-talked-about two-
minute spot in last year’s big game.
Playing in this field, however, isn’t
cheap. Super Bowl ads run between $3
million and $4 million—and that’s for
just 30 seconds. The longer the spot, the
higher its cost.
“If you’re
going to
speak to 111
million
people, do
you really
want to tell
a fart
joke?”
actual piece of content that the viewer
leans forward and chooses to view is
the best way to get your products
noticed,” said Dave Campanelli, senior
VP-director of national TV at independent shop Horizon Media.
Another reason to perhaps ditch the
typical bumper crop of raunchy
humor, “Jackass”-worthy hijinks or D-list celebrities that grow in every Super
Bowl? In the past three years, the audience for the event has swelled. Last
year Fox’s telecast was the most-watched TV program ever, reaching
about 111 million viewers, according to
Nielsen.
“I like a good joke as much as the
next person, but that just doesn’t seem
worthy of an audience of 111 million,”
said Matt MacDonald, executive creative director at WPP’s JWT, New
York. “If you’re going to speak to 111
million people, do you really want to
tell a fart joke?”
