Super Bowl Ads 2012

ByWayne Willis

I looked thru the Super Bowl ads this year and have the following observations:

* car companies simply MUST advertise, even at > $3m / :30 seconds.  I thought the car commercials were the best

* e-trade didn’t disappoint; their latest baby advisor was precious

* movie trailers are another high ROI category.  There were many of them, all of the adventure / fantasy genre … no romantic comedies for Super Bowl fans!

* GoDaddy continues to sell sexual titillation; I’m glad I left them over the SOPA dust-up. 

* Coke, Pepsi, Bud … always solid performers

When cultural anthropologists/historians look back on 2012’s SB ads for insights into the zeitgeist, I think the automotive commercials will tell them everything.  Beyond the perennial “sex sells” (Fiat, Kia) and the funnest one of the lot (Volkswagen’s dog slimming down), several viewed the world as truly scary and cars were your insulation.  Lexus protects you from technological “change” that constrains you.  Chevy’s post-apocalypse view, where the world is a disaster zone but the Silverado truck owners are fine, saved by their Chevy truck, is the darkest view.  But leave it to Clint Eastwood to hit the pitch-perfect note of defiance in the face of challenge: Chrysler’s Halftime In America.

 

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