Artwork by
Dennis Murphy

For the students, by the students

Thoughts on the formation of Super Bowl commercials
By Kathryn Poletti, Corner Post editor

There is something fantabulous about the Super Bowl. Many people, including the women in the crowd, would have to agree that one of the best reasons to watch the Super Bowl is to catch some awesome commercial action.

There were good commercials, bad commercials, and ones that we’ve all seen before. But I wonder what happens behind the scenes. You know during the days, weeks and months maybe in even a year in advance before the Super Bowl of the next year takes place.

Let’s rewind to a year ago. The next scenes are just my own personal perceptions about what might have happened to make these ads happen. They are not necessarily what actually happened.

Pepsi goes to their ad agency and says, “We’re going to buy four 30 second ads for next year’s Super Bowl. So get on that.” And immediately after the order is given, advertising executives are in high gear planning that perfect campaign that will advertise diet Pepsi as well as Pepsi with iTunes. Luckily for Pepsi, they are on the ball and have already started on their next campaign well in advance of the next Super Bowl. They should have their best option planned out by the Labor Day.

The results of Pepsi’s ad campaign were quite creative in my mind. I mean really, who can beat P. Diddy setting a fad by arriving at the Grammy’s in a Pepsi truck, or the ad showing a hunk of a guy drinking a Pepsi and causing heads to turn including Cindy Crawford and Carson Kressley from “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” Genius I’m telling you.

I believe that Ameriquest also started way in advance. If not a year in advance, they probably started planning several months in advance. If they hadn’t, viewers wouldn’t have been nearly as entertained by the comedy that was portrayed by their “don’t judge” campaign. My personal favorite was when the man was cooking for his woman and then the cat spoils the occasion by spilling the spaghetti sauce. Followed by the woman opening the door just at the moment the man has picked up the cat and has a knife in his hand. I mean I laughed about that for a good five minutes as did my neighbors whom I could hear next door.

Then there were campaigns I think were only brain stormed about six months or so in advance. I believe the FedEx commercial to be one of these situations. I heard great things about it from others; I mean come on it had a talking, dancing bear. But really, they could have been more creative. The ad campaign manager just thought listing the top 10 things needed for a great Super Bowl commercial was all they needed to do to be successful. Obviously FedEx agreed. I do have to give them credit because they did have to put a list together and get some actors. But I have to say that they could have done a lot better.

Let’s not forget the commercials that were probably put together at the last minute. These ads were probably put together a few weeks before the Super Bowl after the advertising department got a memo from the vice president of their company asking where their two 30 second ads were for the Super Bowl. These ads included things like the godaddy.com commercial that did a spin off of last year’s wardrobe malfunction and Verizon’s commercial. I have to agree that Verizon’s monkey impersonating their main spokesman was rather creative, but it was just a spoof of what they already do. I will admit that I laughed a lot when I saw this commercial. But realistically, the ad manager probably thought "oh *#&!" when he realized what his deadline was for the Super Bowl and just did a spin off of an already successful campaign.

There are so many other great commercials that could be discussed, but not enough space to do so. Congratulations to the New England Patriots for a game well done! And to all those ad companies out there, there’s always next year to do better.

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The ideas and opinions stated here are not necessarily the opinions and viewpoints of CAFNR Corner Post, the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources or the University of Missouri.