NBC has the Super Bowl this year, and they’re working an odd angle with their commercials. They are encouraging advertisers to release spots in advance of the Super Bowl, under the assumption that they will get more eyes because everyone who is seeing the ads will be watching the Super Bowl anyway. It does help them to justify the $3.5 – $4 million they are charging for a 30-second spot. On the other hand, there’s not a lot of incentive now for people who watch the Super Bowl only for the ads to tune in. Will that help or hurt ratings? Or will it even matter given a match-up that’s ideal for monster ratings this Sunday?

At any rate, a lot of this Sunday’s commercials have already been released to the Internet in the form of full-length commercials or teasers for the commercials (yes, commercials advertising commercials. Welcome to the future). So far, I’m not incredibly impressed with the offerings. The top ad is brilliant, and the next three are pretty great, but after that, they’re kind of “eh,” especially for ad spots that cost millions to put on the air.

However, releasing the ads ahead of time does allow us to jump the gun on ranking them, so instead of dribbling them out in individual posts over the last week to ten days, we’ve compiled and ordered them below. Check ‘em out, and give us your assessment of the Super Bowl ads so far.

Read the rest of this entry »

Political commercials are terrible. It seems like every one is the same: black and white shots of the candidate’s opponent, ominous music, scary words splashed across the screen in red, and a deep-voiced announcer taking things out of context to make it sound like their opponent wants to do things like use government dollars to pay for a space program run by convicted child molesters. I hate them so very much. That’s why this commercial for Florida Republican Mark Oxner is a breath of fresh air. It is INSANE. In it, President Obama is depicted as a cartoon boat captain who enslaves children and is hell-bent on steering his vessel over a waterfall, and Oxner’s opponent (I assume) is his parrot. LITERALLY. They put his head on a parrot’s body.

I would love to have a campaign full of commercials like this. After the Republicans release this one, the Democrats could make one where the Republicans are cartoon robbers who are giving brown sacks with dollar signs on them to Wall St. fat cats (like, ACTUAL overweight felines). Then the Republicans could shoot back with one where the Democrats tie the Constitution to train tracks and twirl their mustaches as a speeding train approaches, and the Democrats could hire those Taiwanese Animation dudes to make their rebuttal and let things get REALLY weird. That would be great. It wouldn’t change my personal politics one iota, but it would be awesome mindless entertainment between reruns of “The Simpsons,” and I think that’s what really important here.

I’m pretty sure the Founding Fathers would be with me on this.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last month, GoDaddy.com found itself in hot water after it came out in support of SOPA. The Internet domain registrar ultimately lost thousands of domains before reversing its position (and gaining even more domains than it lost). In an effort to put that SOPA controversy behind them, GoDaddy has leaked their annual Super Bowl ad in the hopes of refocusing the attention where they want it: On scantly clad women who have nothing to do with their service.

The latest features GoDaddy spokesperson Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels body painting a naked woman and introducing the .co domain. The commercials are trashy and usually irrelevant to their service, but they do work. If asked to name one other domain registrar other than GoDaddy, I doubt 95 out of 100 people could do so. Then again, if asked what GoDaddy.com does, 85 out of 100 people probably think it’s an Internet porn service. If that were the case, they’d need to pick up their game.

Read the rest of this entry »

We still don’t know who’s going to be playing in Super Bowl XLVI (go 49ers and Ravens!), but we do know which companies will be running extremely expensive ads ($3.5 million per 30 seconds, as Danger mentioned earlier) during the game. You’ve got your regulars, like Pepsi, Volkswagen, and E*Trade, who are bringing back the Talking Baby of Your Nightmares, but there are some Super Bowl virgins, too, including:

The Super Bowl newbies include two luxury car brands, Acura and Lexus; Century 21, the real estate firm; the Dannon Company division of Groupe Danone; the H&M retail chain, which will advertise a new line of David Beckham Bodywear underwear; and 2nd Story Software, the maker of TaxACT tax-preparation software. (New York Times)

We should know what to expect when it comes to Super Bowl commercials because it’s the same story ever year. We’ll love one, maybe two, of them, and be really pissed off that some company actually paid in excess of three million clams for the rest. There’s only one thing I ask, Super Bowl ad people: NEVER SHOW THESE THREE COMMERCIALS, which have been playing every seven seconds during the playoffs, EVER AGAIN. (Also, if you could replace halftime performer Madonna with a farting hagfish performing the complete works of Crazy Town, that’d be cool, too. It’s basically the same thing, but much more likable.)

Read the rest of this entry »

This Volkswagen Super Bowl commercial is all over the place today. But, as the Internet’s premiere destination for dog-related television content, I feel it’s very important to post it here anyway. After all, we have an image to maintain.

The spot continues the Star Wars theme from last year, and features a bunch of adorable pooches barking along to the film’s score. It’s pretty much the perfect commercial. The only way it could be improved — and I’m really splitting hairs here — is if they were barking a smooth R&B jam from the 90s instead, and my precious Blue Shirt Guy shimmied his way across the screen at the end. I love that guy. If Volkswagen had included him in this ad, I probably would have just mailed them a check. Not to pay for anything, just as a donation. After all, it’s important to support the arts.

Read the rest of this entry »