Super Bowl Ads I’d Like to See
By daveskins
For the first time in the history of the world, nothing is happening today. Not a single Redskins related thing happened. Nothing. I can’t even rip off my fellow bloggers. Most of them haven’t even posted today. Zippo.
Darn Super Bowl. I don’t even care who wins. I hate both teams. The only interesting thing might be the ads and they’ve sucked the last few years. So, on that note, I decided to talk about some ads I’d like to see this year. You know, commercials no one would ever have the guts to make, but they’d be great to watch. So here are some pitches for you guys to mull over based on some general concepts in advertising:
The Screw Your Competitor Ad– You know those Mac vs PC ads? Or the old “Whopper Beat the Big Mac” ads? I can do those one better.
Imagine a crisp, clear mountain stream high up in the rockies. A gray haired man who looks startlingly like the founder of Coors is talking but you can only see him from the waist up and he says:
“Up here in the Rockies, we brew our beer with only the best ingredients. We use only the finest hops and choice barely. And we get our water from this beautiful mountain stream. In fact, I’m so excited just thinking about it, I’d like to drink one right now. But first I gotta make room.”
At this point, he unzips his pants and the camera switches to a rear view of him peeing in the stream. An understated Budweiser logo appears nearby. He pees a prodigiously long time. And the camera slowly pulls back again to show he is standing ten feet from the Coors factory and the stream is heading right into the building.
The Let’s Reinvent Ourselves Ad– Every year at the Super Bowl, some straight-laced company with a rep for having something against being at all interesting decides to try to look hip. A perfect example is Cadillac who is trying to reinvent itself as the “cool car” with its “When you turn your car on, does it return the favor” slogan. I can do this.
Why are no investment companies really getting to the heart of retiring? They all show people golfing or traveling or “living their dreams.” Come on, we all know the real reason we don’t want to work.
Start with the shot of a gray haired man in a suit walking slowly while looking into the camera. “Here at T. Rowe Price, we’re concerned about helping you retire. We know you don’t work hard. We know you don’t like your job. We know you are grossly overpaid for surfing the internet for half of your day. We don’t care. We want our fees. You want to stop working. No problem. Give us your money and by 50 we promise you that you can live your retirement life exactly as you planned.”
Widen the shot to some middle-aged guy in a tattered robe and boxers with a beer in his hand, shouting “No deal! No Deal!” at the tv screen.
The Blow it All Up and Start Over Ad- Sometimes commercials are annoying on purpose. A classic example of that is the “Can you hear me now?” ads. They know you hate them. They also know you remember them, and you can’t even help yourself from occasionally asking someone whether they can hear you now. The commercial is effective despite you hating it because it gets in your head. But every once in awhile, a company has to exit gracefully from these ads. They have to know when they’ve gone from annoying but memorable to downright loathesome. When that happens, they have to get off the ads quick or suffer. This is an ad I’d like to see as a way of closing the door on an annoying set of ads so you can start fresh.
Mike Ditka is talking on the cell phone. An annoying voice is on the other line in that “charlie brown’s parents kind of squeeky voice.” Ditka is saying, “sorry, honey, I’m going through a tunnel. I’m going to lose you” even though he’s standing in a parking lot. The voice on the other line squeeks “I can still hear you.” Ditka turns around and sees all the guys from “the Network” standing behind him. All the technicians are there, the trucks, even the helicopter. Ditka turns to someone “off camera” and nods. At this point every famous defensive football player in NFL history runs out and starts jacking up “the network.”
Mike Singletary nails the guy in front. Junior Seau knocks some guy with a clip board down. Roy Williams horse collars some woman in high heels and a business suit as she’s running away. You can see the heels breaking away as she goes down hard. Deion Sanders takes a running leap and graps the helicopter. Refrigerator Perry grabs Deion’s feet and they bring the helicopter down from the weight. Lawrence Taylor and Dexter Manley are flipping over a van with a sattelite dish on top of it.
Cut to a picture of the whole “network” on crutches and in casts with the slogan, “so good you can’t use us as an excuse.”
Anyway, none of these will happen, I guess, but I can always dream. Feel free to add your ideas below. And heck, comment below if there was any news I missed today. There’s always something. Geeze.
-DW