I hear a football game is also scheduled to air that night....

February 3, 2012 9:02 AM

Super Bowl commercial breaks have become the most expensive and arguably most coveted advertising timeslots on television. NBC is charging $3.5 million for each 30 second slot -- $116,667 per second of airtime. But this year, many companies have released their commercials online in advance of this Sunday's broadcast. Entertainment Weekly and Adland are compiling them -- the latter on their 40 Years of Super Bowl Commercials page. (Previously)

Here are a few that have already been released:

* Audi: Vampire Party
* Bridgestone: Performance Balls and Puck (teaser)
* Budweiser: Flash Fans (Reportedly only airing in Canada)
* Cadillac: Green Hell
* Careerbuilder: Business Trip (PETA went ape)
* Cars.com: Confident You
* Century 21: Deion Sanders (teaser)
* Century 21: Donald Trump (teaser)
* Chevrolet: 2012
* Chevrolet: Aliens
* Chevrolet: Joy
* Chevrolet: Stunt Anthem (with OK GO)
* Coca Cola: Catch: New England Bear / New York Bear (which one airs will depend on how each team performs during the second quarter)
* Coca Cola: Penguin Thief
* Coca-Cola: Superstition
* Dannon: Oikos Greek Yogurt (with John Stamos)
* Disney: John Carter
* E*TRADE: Fatherhood
* GoDaddy: Body Paint
* GoDaddy: The Cloud
* H&M: David Beckham Bodywear
* Honda: Matthew's Day Off (With Matthew Broderick, Jalopnik was unhappy about this one: SAVE FERRIS from Honda's Sacrilegious Super Bowl Ad)
* Honda: Transactions (with Jerry Seinfeld and others)
* Hyundai: All for One
* Hyundai: Cheetah
* Hyundai: Faster Acting
* Hyundai: Victory Lap
* Hyundai: Think Fast
* Kia: A Dream Car. For Real Life. (with Adriana Lima, Chuck Liddell and Motley Crue. Also see 5 Hours of Adriana Lima)
* Marvel: The Avengers (teaser)
* Pepsi: Check Out
* Pepsi: King's Court (With Elton John and Melanie Amaro)
* Samsung: Galaxy Note, The Next Big Thing is already here... Again
* Suzuki: Sled
* Teleflora: Adriana Lima
* Toyota: It's Reinvented
* Volkswagen: The Dog Strikes Back

posted by zarq (43 comments total)

Adland's archive now includes 45,000 commercials. Run by MeFi's own dabitch.
posted by zarq at 9:05 AM on February 3, 2012

Peps--oh nevermind.
posted by obscurator at 9:07 AM on February 3, 2012 [3 favorites]

Volkswagen actually also released an earlier viral videl, which as near as I can figure was an ad for its upcoming actual ad. Whatever it was, it was awesome.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:07 AM on February 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

obscurator: "Peps--oh nevermind."

Psst. See the first tag!
posted by zarq at 9:09 AM on February 3, 2012

I can confirm the Godaddy ads are pretty much what you'd expect, given the constraints of network television.
posted by 2bucksplus at 9:12 AM on February 3, 2012

/sarcasm
Thanks for the distillation. It's remarkable that the advertisers are apparently none too concerned whether their demographics are actually watching the event into which they've shoveled all of their advertising dollars. Which begs the koan: if a Superbowl commercial is viewed by someone who never intends to watch said sporting event, is it still a Superbowl commercial?
posted by obscurator at 9:24 AM on February 3, 2012

I was thinking of doing an FPP on the Bud "Flash Fans" ad, and the fact that it is a complete and total ripoff of something Improv Everywhere did years ago. This has not gone unnoticed.
posted by Shepherd at 9:26 AM on February 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Canadian Budweiser wins this year, IMO.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:28 AM on February 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

I am unreasonably excited for the ~12 new seconds of footage in the Avengers trailer, but it'll be online within less than a minute of airing, so I won't have to interrupt my important Puppy Bowl viewing.
posted by elizardbits at 9:29 AM on February 3, 2012

Shepherd: "This has not gone unnoticed."

There was a nice response to this on reddit last night:

"It's night and day. All these other ones are of young kids.

These older guys: they all had those hopes and dreams, and they slowly died through their teens and early 20's. They maybe played some intramural stuff in college or found a beer league just to have one more little taste of a sport their bodies slowly begin playing worse as the injuries come more often and last longer. They're not as fast as they were last year, and last year was the slowest one since the one before that. Their wife or kids or other friends joke with them about it, sure they support them but it's more a humored support.

And then for a brief moment, everything they had aspired to, dared to believe in even for a second in their youth is realized. People cheer their victories and feel their agony.

As anyone that ever played a sport, or any man that things didn't quite work out, or always had that question of "What if...If I had just..." well tell you: this might be the single greatest moment of their lives. This is their Iliad, their Waterloo, it's their moment."

posted by zarq at 9:32 AM on February 3, 2012 [3 favorites]

I think people are objecting to giving creative credit to Bud for the idea rather than how awesome it must have been for the players.
posted by Mitheral at 9:39 AM on February 3, 2012

My favorite from the Doritos Ad contest. (NSF cat lovers).
posted by Mister Fabulous at 9:44 AM on February 3, 2012

I can't watch Puppy Bowl since Harry Kalas left us...
posted by Mister_A at 9:47 AM on February 3, 2012

Seeing how much money and attention goes to these things makes me want to watch capitalism burn to the ground.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:48 AM on February 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's night and day. All these other ones are of young kids.

Which I appreciate, as a sentiment, but doesn't really change the fundamental fact that this was conceptually a complete and utter lift from an organization that does amazing things for free, rather than promote really crappy beer for money. And even lets you heist their concepts yourself, in exchange for very little:

Can I use your ideas?

You are free to use most of our ideas for non-commercial, non-promotional purposes so long as you provide attribution. If you stage one of our missions, please attribute the idea to Improv Everywhere in any documentation and include a link back to our site.

I don't think changing the sport and the age of participants makes it so different that it's not at its base some pretty blatant idea theft, and I refuse to believe that anyone that works in advertising is unaware at this point of Improv Everywhere and their bigger stunts.

On preview, yeah, Mitheral's putting my problem with this in more succinct terms. I work in advertising, which is probably why this burns a little hotter with me. I'd be deeply ashamed of myself if it were my shop doing this.

By contrast, I don't have as much of an issue with the Matthew Ferris Broderick Beueller ad -- at least it uses the real guy, and wears its (much deflated, mercantile shadow-of-its-former-self) inspiration clearly. Anyone who sees it will know it's a direct reference, or a pretty mediocre (seriously, do a quick memory wipe and watch it with fresh eyes) ad with an absurd focus on a B-list celebrity.
posted by Shepherd at 9:49 AM on February 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Watching the Super Bowl for the commercials is like buying a dog for the fleas.
posted by Legomancer at 9:56 AM on February 3, 2012 [5 favorites]

I don't think changing the sport and the age of participants makes it so different that it's not at its base some pretty blatant idea theft, and I refuse to believe that anyone that works in advertising is unaware at this point of Improv Everywhere and their bigger stunts.

People in advertising are ripping off ideas and not giving credit? I'm shocked, shocked to find that is happening here!
posted by ryoshu at 9:59 AM on February 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Of greatest note to me is the ad from GLSEN.
posted by Danf at 10:07 AM on February 3, 2012

Is there any sort of study available on what ads have actually been proven to be worth the investment?
posted by davebush at 10:08 AM on February 3, 2012

Yes, the concept for the Bud ad is a ripoff, but that had to make those hockey players feel great. Since when is that a bad thing?
posted by DaddyNewt at 10:28 AM on February 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

davebush: "Is there any sort of study available on what ads have actually been proven to be worth the investment?"

There have been quite a few. Here's one from a few years back that looked at movies:

...the average Super Bowl promoted film achieved twice as much first weekend, first week, and total U.S. box office revenue than its average non-Super Bowl promoted movie counterpart for the years 1998–2001. When all movies with production budgets of $35 million or more and U.S. release dates within 7 months of the 1998–2001 Super Bowls were considered, Super Bowl promoted movies grossed nearly 40 percent more than non-Super Bowl promoted movies.

posted by zarq at 10:28 AM on February 3, 2012

People in advertising are ripping off ideas and not giving credit? I'm shocked, shocked to find that is happening here!

I can't say it doesn't happen, but I can say that for most people in the field, it's a point of pride to avoid having it happen.

I know, I know, Bill Hicks marketers blah blah blah, but most of us – regardless of our contribution to the Greater Decline of Society – actually have some measure of dignity when it comes to creating original work.

Yes, the concept for the Bud ad is a ripoff, but that had to make those hockey players feel great. Since when is that a bad thing?

This turns into one of those "but the Frogurt is also cursed" scenarios after a while -- yes, it's nice that they made some people in Port Credit feel good, but they did it – at base – using a pretty crap theft of a pretty cool idea. There are a *lot* of ways they could have made these people's lives amazing, and gotten a fantastic ad out of it, without replicating the original Improv Everywhere concept.

I object to this in the same way I'd object to, I don't know, Pepsi heisting a Jonathan Coulton song with a couple of don't-sue-us chord changes, hamhandedly jamming the word Pepsi into the lyrics, and flogging it as a charity single to raise money for orphans born with dolphins instead of hands. Bully for the dolphin-handed orphans, but at the end of the day, they boosted some guy's song and turned it into an ad to promote their brand.
posted by Shepherd at 10:49 AM on February 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

So out of that long list, which are actually worth a viewing?
posted by davidpriest.ca at 11:52 AM on February 3, 2012

Are we talking about how Mathew Broderick clambered up on John Hughes' corpse to give him the perfect vantage point to kick my childhood in the nuts? BECAUSE HE DID.
posted by nanojath at 12:15 PM on February 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Eventually there's going to be so much buzz about the football game that gets played in between the ads that they'll leak it onto the internet the week beforehand.
posted by usonian at 12:42 PM on February 3, 2012

davidpriest.ca: "So out of that long list, which are actually worth a viewing?"

I thought Budweiser, Toyota and Suzuki were decent. Chevy ads were okay. VW is getting a lot of positive buzz, but I personally preferred the teaser Empress linked to upthread. The Chevy Joy ad was okay.

The Seinfeld Honda ad had a couple of cameos that were amusing. (I find him annoying as hell.) The Matthew Broderick ad is either delighting people or pissing them off. YMMV.
posted by zarq at 12:52 PM on February 3, 2012

Also, apologies. The link for the Chevy "Joy" ad is incorrect. Here's the correct link.
posted by zarq at 12:52 PM on February 3, 2012

Apparently people are cashing in on the people click on tits on youtube. I've seen this kind of thing where the 'related' video is just some random girl with big boobs and a revealing shirt talking about whatever video you just watched.

Youtube really needs to fix the recommendation algorithm to not show videos as related if they've been highly down-voted. Some seriously ridiculous stuff ends up becoming 'related' to popular videos.

Anyway, the Honda ad with Seinfeld sucked. I mean obviously it's the "extended" version of the ad (another interesting phenomenon) I'm sure if they cut it down to 30 seconds it might be good.

I guess the whole "extended ad" thing is a sort of internet phenomenon. Directors can make much longer videos, and people can "engage with the brand" by watching them online.
---

Anyway. Honestly these ads are pretty lame. They're not really targeted at smart people or even the average person, but rather people watching the superbowl. It's not like we're talking about high art here.
posted by delmoi at 1:32 PM on February 3, 2012

Apparently people are cashing in on the people click on tits on youtube.

Oh my GOD I am sick of the human race.
posted by nanojath at 1:35 PM on February 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

My favorite from the Doritos Ad contest. (NSF cat lovers).

What bothered me about this ad when I first saw it was that that dog could not spell better than the ChikFilA cows.
posted by holdkris99 at 2:21 PM on February 3, 2012

Go Daddy is still using sex to sell their product. Jeez.
posted by cazoo at 2:25 PM on February 3, 2012

They're not really targeted at smart people or even the average person, but rather people watching the superbowl

So now commercials have to be targeted to "smart people" (whatever that means) to not be lame? Also, people who watch the Super Bowl are of sub-average intellect? What if I watch the Super Bowl commercials and - at the very same time -eat a plate of beans? Preferably refried, with some chips underneath and some cheese melted on top?
posted by holdkris99 at 2:25 PM on February 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

I don't know what has happened to hyundai over the years, but those commercials remind me that I still need to test drive the turbo Sonata. They finally found the passion thing with both their styling and marketing.

Are we talking about how Mathew Broderick clambered up on John Hughes' corpse to give him the perfect vantage point to kick my childhood in the nuts? BECAUSE HE DID.

That one is probably my favorite of the bunch, or would have been if that CRV had ended up a steaming pile of crap at the bottom of a gully.
posted by Big_B at 3:26 PM on February 3, 2012

Here's the other problem with the Budweiser ad: If you don't know jack about Hockey and/or you miss the first 8 seconds of tiny print that this is a rec league hockey game, the point is entirely lost. The uniforms and equipment certainly look nicer than what I would imagine a "rec league" hockey team would wear. Heck I've played rec league softball and you're lucky if everyone has the same colored shirt on, AND we had fans cheering!
posted by Big_B at 3:29 PM on February 3, 2012

Big_B: Apparently it's only airing in Canada, so that won't be a problem.

And Broderick couldn't have called Alan Ruck? That's cold.
posted by ODiV at 3:39 PM on February 3, 2012

Forty-four years after 2001 and commercials are still using Thus Spake Zarathustra?
posted by octothorpe at 4:05 PM on February 3, 2012

I just realized that I actually have a super bowl fantasy commercial, and it is Anonymous busting into the airwaves with a glorious manifesto/shocking exposé/series of MLP gifs/idek.
posted by elizardbits at 4:48 PM on February 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

ODiV: Alan Ruck may still have some self-respect.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:29 PM on February 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

octothorpe: "Forty-four years after 2001 and commercials are still using Thus Spake Zarathustra? yt "

Man, it took me way too long to parse that sentence.
posted by zarq at 6:36 PM on February 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

re: the Budweiser hockey ad/Improv Everywhere ripoff topic:

I work in advertising, which is probably why this burns a little hotter with me. I'd be deeply ashamed of myself if it were my shop doing this.

I work in advertising too, feel the same. Some ideas are ripoffs with a twist, this is pretty directly the same thing.
posted by sweetkid at 7:33 AM on February 4, 2012

Go Daddy is still using sex to sell their product. Jeez.

I don't even find the ads "sexy" Just cloying and stupid.

It's like that with all Superbowl commercials. they appeal to lowest common denominator dude, which is why I don't even get why we call superbowl ads the "superbowl" of advertising. Not only do they have no real artistic merit they're not even the best 'Madison Avenue' ads out there. They're just stupid.

So the GoDaddy ads, are a perfect example. They try to use "sex" to sell domain service, but they don't even do a good job of being 'sexy'. Even those stupid ads for Axe body spray do a better job of 'using sex' to sell something. (not that domains get you laid, but neither does Axe)

Also, i wonder if the budwiser ad was a ripoff? Its possible that they didn't know about the improv anywhere thing.
posted by delmoi at 9:58 AM on February 4, 2012

So now commercials have to be targeted to "smart people" (whatever that means) to not be lame?

Yes? Just like Two and a Half Men is lame. Stuff targeted to stupid people is boring. You don't have to create anything artistically interesting. You just slap on some titties and call it a day.

Also, people who watch the Super Bowl are of sub-average intellect?

The median in any large group is going to be pretty dumb. I don't think that the average Superbowl watcher is going to be less intelligent then the average person out there.

I'm annoyed by this conceit that somehow Superbowl ads are somehow worth viewing or caring about or talking about. They're just an annoyance just like all other TV ads. Maybe they have bigger budgets. But most of them are just juvenile and stupid.
posted by delmoi at 10:05 AM on February 4, 2012

Stuff targeted to stupid people is boring. You don't have to create anything artistically interesting. You just slap on some titties and call it a day.

You know that Apple's 1984 ad was a Super Bowl ad, yes?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:47 AM on February 4, 2012